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DIFFERENT CONCEPTIONS
OF
PRIESTHOOD AND SACRIFICE
A Report of a Conference held at Oxford
December ij and 14, 1899
EDITED BY
W. SANDAY
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
NEW YORK AND BOMBAY
fc
1900
Ojcforfc
HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
CONTENTS
PACE
PREFACE ..,_.,.. v
I. PRELIMINARIES .... . i
II. STATEMENTS AND DEFINITIONS . 5
III. THE CONFERENCE ... .62
FIRST DISCUSSION . * . 64
SECOND DISCUSSION . .100
THIRD DISCUSSION . 134
PREFACE
THE publication of this Report is felt to be an experi-
ment. It was decided upon at an informal meeting after
the conclusion of the Conference, not quite unanimously,
but by a considerable preponderance of opinion ; and the
writer of this was entrusted with the duties of editor.
The publication was indeed open to drawbacks which,
in some respects, have proved rather greater than had been
anticipated. The shorthand report, on which the reproduc-
tion of the discussions depended, was not a complete success.
It was a somewhat condensed version of speeches which, by
the necessities of the case, were themselves condensed within
the narrowest limits possible ; so that the inevitable appear-
ance of scrappiness in consequence has been increased beyond
what it perhaps might have been.
I must, however, as editor, warmly acknowledge the help
that has been given me by the several contributors, and
by some in especial degree, in restoring the report of what
they had said to a sufficiently full and readable form. The
discussions were conspicuously marked, not only by the
frankness which Archdeacon Wilson invited (p. 51) and
of which he himself set an excellent example, but also by
an effort after brevity and precision. And compressed as
the result still is, I cannot but think that it will be found
to map out the main lines of the important subject discussed,
at once with a clearness and boldness of relief and if I may
say so an accuracy of shading with which I doubt if it
has ever been presented before.
viii PREFACE
The Conference arose out of the idea that the bitterest
part of modern ecclesiastical controversy turned upon the
associations of what is called ' Sacerdotalism ' ; and the
further idea that much of this bitterness might be preventible
by mutual explanations. It was felt that, outside the irre-
ducible minimum of real difference, there was a great amount
of misunderstanding as to what was really held and really
objected to on either side.
For any effectual clearing away of these misunderstandings
it seemed necessary that the Conference should in some
degree represent not the Established Church alone, but the
whole of English Christianity: only in this way was it
possible to get at the root of current differences, and really
to affiict opinion at its source.
With this object in view it was decided to aim at bringing
together three groups : a group of High Churchmen, a group
of Nonconformists, and an intermediate group of Churchmen,
who would not be called ' High.' In filling up a vacant
place at the last moment this condition was not strictly
observed ; but, roughly speaking, the Conference fell into
three equal groups of five.
To those who are familiar with the active life and with
the formative elements of English religion the personnel of
the Conference will explain itself. For those who are not
so familiar it may be right to mention that three members
of the first group (Dr. Moberly, Canon Gore, and Canon
Scott Holland) had been previously associated together as
contributors to the well-known volume of essays entitled
Lux Mundi. Of the Nonconformist members, Dr. Salmond
was representative of Scottish Presbyterianism ; Dr. Davi-
son was representative of the Wesleyans; Dr. Fairbairn,
Mr. Arnold Thomas, and Dr. Forsyth were Congregationalists :
but of these Dr. Fairbairn in particular was qualified by
widely ramifying connexions to speak for other bodies besides
his own. Great disappointment was felt at the absence from
PREFACE ix
the Conference of Dr. Moule. Mr. Headlam, who at short
notice took the vacant place, did so rather as a friend of the
convener than as representing a particular type of opinion.
It may be allowed to one who himself took a very small
and neutral part in the actual discussions of the Conference
to say a word as to the impression made upon him, and he
believes also upon others, as to the course taken by the
Conference. The most striking feature in it seemed to be,
on the one hand, the propounding of a definite, coherent,
and comprehensive view, embracing the whole subject of
the Conference, by the three contributors to Lux Mundi,
and on the other hand, the criticism of this by others (notably
by Canon Bernard, Disc. iii. 13, p. 149), but mainly by the
Nonconformist members. Yet along with the criticism and
antithesis there seemed to emerge in the course of the
discussions not a few points of contact and conciliation.
Although, generally speaking, the agreement in the Lux
Mundi section was most marked, and covered the whole of
the main subject, a certain divergence appeared upon a
side issue the mode of defining or describing the ultimate
significance of the Atonement (Disc. ii. 38, 39, p. 131).
And in like manner, but more noticeably, the Nonconformist
criticism presented an interesting variety of shades and stand-
points.
It was, I believe, felt on all sides that the Conference
culminated, as it might have been expected to culminate,
in the Third Discussion. It was evident that there was
here a real feeling about for points of approximation, as
well as a real effort frankly to define points of difference
that was hardly less helpful
The weighty speech of Dr. Salmond at the end of this
discussion (iii. 58, p. 172 f.) took hold of three points in
particular on which there seemed to be an encouraging
amount of agreement.
i. The Nonconformist members were evidently struck
x PREFACE
by the unqualified recognition on the other side of the
absolute completeness and uniqueness of Christ's work and
our entire dependence on it It appeared that they had
come with some misgivings on this head, but that in the
course of debate these misgivings had been removed. The
language used was indeed both explicit and repeated (GORE,
ii. 8, p. 113; L 62, p. 98; MOBERLY, i. 45, 65, pp. 96, 98;
ii. 29, p. 129 ; SCOTT HOLLAND, Hi. 19, p. 153 ; HEADLAM,
ii. 15, p. 122). The expressions used by Mr. Lang (ii. 14,
p. 12 if.), taking up Father Puller, and by Mr. Headlam
(ii. 17, p. 123) were entirely consistent with this.
A step will be gained if it is distinctly understood that
in speaking (e.g.) of the eucharist as a sacrifice, there is
no intention on the part of High Churchmen to derogate
in the slightest degree from the sole efficacy of the one
Great Sacrifice. It is not regarded as having any virtue
in itself independently of this.
2. Another point that struck Dr. Salmond was the general
assertion of * the great truth of the priesthood of the Christian
people.' Nothing could have been more spontaneous than
the assurances that came from all sides of the Conference
on this head. The cordial acknowledgement of Dr. Salmond
was in response to a previous acknowledgement, not less
cordial, by Canon Gore (iii. 12, p. 147). Here, again, it is to
be hoped that the Conference may leave behind it something
permanent Dr. Moberly's definition of the clerical order
as 'ministerial organs of the Church's priesthood' was
generally welcomed. And Canon Gore (iiL 12, p. 148)
and Mr. Headlam (iii. 26, p. 161 f.) joined in an invitation
to Nonconformists to meet them on what might be common
ground. It was clear that if there were some High Church-
men who were in danger of losing sight of this important
truth, the more thoughtful members of their own party
were ready to do all in their power to correct them.
3. The third point noted by Dr. Salmond was the degree
PREFACE xi
of agreement as to 'the real essence of the unity of the
Church ' the identification of this essence with the presence
and work of the Holy Spirit.
The question how far the maxim holds, Ubi Spiritus ibi
ecclesia, is no doubt crucial, and in regard to this it was
not to be expected that all would think alike. Still it is
well that attention should be called to the carefully weighed
words of Dr. Moberly (iii. 43, p. 168). While declining, in
answer to Dr. Fairbairn, to accept the simple converse of
the proposition that the Spirit of Christ makes the Church
to be what it is, he guarded himself as follows :
'I do not think it would be right to say simpliciter, or
in the way of definition, upon earth, that where the Spirit
of Christ is, there is the Church. In other words, I believe
that, while the whole meaning of the Church is Spirit, there
is, none the less, such a thing as a true and proper outward
organization of the Church ; and that in the orderly con-
tinuity of that organization is the due historical expression
of the Spirit on earth. In respect of the status of those who
are separated from it, and otherwise organized, I do not
pronounce anything. I do not define that their position
is exactly this, or is exactly that. But so far as they are
sundered from the true historical order, I should certainly
not be willing to make the assertion that they were, or
were a portion of, the Church. At the same time, I freely
recognize the working of the Spirit amongst them ; I do
not dream of denying spiritual reality in their ministries,
and have, indeed, no basis for delimiting the methods or
possibilities of the working of the Spirit amongst those
whom I must still consider to be, in respect of their refusal
of the true organization of the body, irregular.'
It is difficult to see how one who believed that there was
'such a thing as a true and proper outward organization
of the Church' could help going as far as this; but it is
important to note the scrupulous care with which he restrains
himself from going the least step further than the premises
absolutely demand. If all controversialists were as careful
much natural soreness would be avoided.
xii PREFACE
So far I have followed Dr. Salmond, and he has
undoubtedly singled out points of real and great moment.
There are perhaps two additions that may be made to his
list, one on a comparatively minor point, the other on
a point of first-rate importance, but both illustrating the
attitude which the members of the Conference assumed
towards matters of controversy, an attitude which it is to
be hoped may be found capable of imitation.
4. Among the points which the Conference did not
reach in any detail was the question of transmission in
relation to orders. It might have been expected that there
would be differences of opinion in regard to this; but the
noticeable thing is the stress laid on Continuity, as the
essential idea lying behind transmission, by those who could
not accept a stricter theory (see for this the conversation
between Dr. Fairbairn, Dr. Salmond, and Mr. Headlam,
with the speech of Dr. Forsyth which followed, on p. 162 ;
compare Dr. Fairbairn, iii. 32, p. 164, and Archdeacon Wilson,
P- 57 f-)-
5. But I am not sure that the most impressive feature
in the Conference as a whole was not the persistent effort
on all sides to give to the doctrines or practices contended
for a moral meaning; and not only a moral meaning, but
the very highest and most truly Christian meaning attainable.
The significance of this becomes the more apparent, when
we consider how much of the keenness of controversy has
at all times turned on the more or less latent suspicion
that opponents were aiming at objects that were really
immoral. We draw consequences for them that they would
not draw for themselves ; we press these consequences to
the furthest logical extreme of which they are capable ;
and then our indignation is roused by a picture that is
more than half our own creation. The process is often
quite honest, but none the less disastrous for the peace of
the world.
PREFACE xiii
Against any such tendency it seems to me that the pro-
ceedings of this Conference are a standing protest. It is
not as though the effort of which I have spoken character-
ized one party more than another, or as though it were
the result of any conscious posing. It was certainly not
this ; it was more often felt than expressed. But no one,
I think, could be present at the Conference without being
aware that it was the deep underlying motive of every one
who was there.
It will of course be understood that this identity of aim
may admit of very different practical conclusions. There
was a cleft running through the Conference as to the
relation of the inward to the outward, and of the moral to
the ceremonial. The division of opinion was happily described
by Canon Scott Holland :
c It has been implied that the moralizing of sacrifice lies in
dropping the "outward" expression and in accentuating solely
the " inward " act of will : so that Christ's perfect sacrifice
is wholly inward, "of the heart." But is it not essential
to sacrifice that it should be the outward act by which
the inward intention is realized, is pledged, is sealed ? The
inward self-dedication only becomes sacrificial when it has
discovered the appropriate offering by which it can verify
itself. Only through attaining this expression, in outward
realization, does the language of sacrifice apply to it. It
has somewhat to offer, by which it can pledge its loyalty
of self-surrender : there is its relief, its reality. The pro-
cess by which the sacrifice is moralized is, not by dropping
the external offering, but by raising the moral quality of
that which it expresses. This can, for ever, be rising higher
and higher ; but always, as it rises, it will need to make
its external offering; and Christ completes all sacrifice
because He gives perfect outward expression to the inner
motive ' (i. 17, p. 85).
This is a plea for the acceptance of one side of the
alternative. It may be observed that the arguments on
this side, as in the extract, are in the main philosophical,
or a priori, turning upon the relation of inward to outward
xiv PREFACE
in the nature of things ; or else historical, going to show
that a particular form of outward expression is historically
legitimated. On the other hand, the counter-arguments
are in the main Biblical inferences from the language,
or more often from the silences, of Scripture. It ought not
to be impossible to reach an understanding on this head,
at least to the extent of recognizing what follows as legiti-
mate inference from the fundamental principles of the
opposing parties. There were not wanting signs in the
Conference of that sympathetic appreciation of divergent
views which is the first condition of peace and amity.
It would not be right to speak only of the agreement
brought out by the Conference. I have said that in some
ways the strongest impression left by it was that of the
statement by the High Church members, and especially
by those who were jointly concerned in the Ltix Mundi
volume, of a comprehensive theory of Sacrifice and Priest-
hood, with the criticism of this theory, especially by the
Nonconformists. And I take it to be a most hopeful sign
that this criticism should have been so uniformly and so
genuinely respectful; not merely with the formal courtesy
of chivalrous opponents, but with the real affinity of
earnest Christian minds for minds earnest and Christian
like their own.
The touchstone of opinion on this main point may be
said to be Question 5 of the paper originally circulated.
If the answers to this question on p. 31 f. are compared
with each other those of Dr. Moberly and Canon Gore, on
the one hand, with those of Canon Bernard, Dr. Fairbairn,
and Dr. Salmond on the other the divergence will appear
at its widest. What seems to absorb into itself the very
essence of Christianity on the one side becomes little more
than a figure of speech upon the other.
The difference goes down into more fundamental regions
PREFACE XV
still. It will be found, I think, most instructive to read
and read again and more often still, for the thought is highly
condensed in both cases the speech of Canon Bernard,
iii. 13, p. 149, and then the latter half of Dr. Moberly's,
iii. 7, the last paragraph on p. 142 and p. 143. There
is involved nothing less than one of the most searching
questions of modern philosophy the question as to what
constitutes the individual, what constitutes personality.
Outside our Conference this is a question that is attracting
deep attention at the present time. I may refer in particular
to Mr. Inge's Bampton Lectures, pp. 28-35, and to an article
of his in the American Journal of Theology for April, 1900,
P- 33 6 f -
A similar conception to Dr. Moberly's underlies the
speeches of Canon Gore, iii. 12, pp. 147-149, and Canon
Scott Holland, iii. 19 (especially what is said on p. 153).
And yet when these three speeches are studied with the
care which I have invited, the antithesis will be seen to be
somewhat mitigated. Dr. Moberly in part anticipates what
is urged by Canon Bernard. It further appears that both
Canon Scott Holland and Canon Gore allow for something
of what is asserted by Canon Bernard, and for the particular
point pressed by Mr. Arnold Thomas (p. 157, ' The Apostle's
Christian life had a beginning, it would seem, that was
not related to the Church, but directly to Christ') and by
Dr. Salmond (p. 166, ' I wish to say that I take absolutely
the opposite view, and hold that we must begin with the indi-
vidual believer '). I do not gather that Canon Scott Holland
would deny this in the sense in which it is intended, when
he says (p. 154) 'the soul's capacity for priesthood begins
at the point where, being already saved, it can lend itself
out to the redemptive purposes of the body. It is when
it has become capable of service, that it can claim to be
priestly.' And Canon Gore speaks to like effect (iii. 37,
p. 167) : { I quite admit that those who become Christians
xvi PREFACE
in the belief of the heart are at first outside the body.
And the faith that leads them into the body comes to
them through the Spirit of Christ. No doubt it was the
awakening of the consciousness of the individual that led
him into the body, and that awakening was outside the
body. But its end was to lead him into the body.' This
seems to meet Canon Bernard at least halfway, while not
surrendering anything of the main position.
From the other side it must needs be noticed that
Dr. Salmond, in an important passage (iii. n, p. 146 f.),
treats of the 'oneness' between Christ and His disciples as
if it were real and something more than metaphor, though
metaphors are used to describe it (compare however p. 32).
It it much to be regretted that limits of time prevented
Dr. Salmond from developing his views on this subject
more fully. What he was able to say contains hints of
difference, but also, I cannot but think, elements of approxi-
mation to the views which he is criticizing.
Similar elements appear in the utterances of others whose
general attitude is critical. Thus Dr. Fairbairn, while
challenging on exegetical grounds the priestly attributes of
'the body,' nowhere, I think, challenges the idea of the
mystical body itself. He rather seems to assume that con-
ception as found in St. Paul, and to take the measure of
it from him. Again, Dr. Davison expressly states his agree-
ment with what had been said before him in regard to the
mystic union, though holding that this union does not join
Christ and His followers together in respect to priesthood
and sacrifice. He also says (iii. 18, p. 151): 'I know
that there is a line of continuity between Christ's work
and that of His Church, and I value it highly. But is it
not clear that the attempt to preserve it down the line of
priesthood and sacrifice has brought in disputable and even
mischievous elements ? ' Dr. Moberly and Canon Gore would
allow that it had been attended by such elements, though they
PREFACE xvii
would not consider it responsible for them. Archdeacon
Wilson also is unstinted in his recognition of the ' mystical
body,' which he explains as meaning 'all humanity in so
far as it is animated by the Spirit of Christ' (p. 56). Still
closer approximation will be found in the speeches of
Mr. Arnold Thomas and Dr. Forsyth. The latter speaker
especially, while clearly marking off his own position,
repeatedly uses language that presents a striking resem-
blance to Dr. Moberly's compare for instance the two sets
of answers to Questions 5, 6, 7 (pp. 31-36), and the coin-
cidences in the speech (iii. 31, p. 163 f.). Nor should it
be forgotten that the remarkable language quoted from
Dr. Milligan on pp. 26, 27, was that of a Scottish Presby-
terian. I am quite aware that Dr. Milligan was a steadfast
defender of his own Presbyterian orders; but that is a
question to itself, and affects the minor premiss rather than
the major. It would not be too much to say that he had
anticipated the underlying principles of the teaching of
Dr. Moberly, Canon Gore, and Canon Scott Holland ; just
as he himself would seem to have been in much anticipated
by the Bampton Lectures for 1868 of Dr. Moberly's father,
the Bishop of Salisbury. These are pleasing signs that our
divisions of opinion are not simply denominational.
As I look back over our Conference the sense of its
importance grows upon me.
Two great opposing tendencies in the religious life of
our time were brought definitely to confront each other,
and were compared together not on the superficial plane
on which they meet and clash in popular antagonism, but
in the higher region of first principles, of theoretical develop-
ment and justification. How great is the contrast which
both sides present as viewed in these different lights!
Take, for instance, the common distorted picture of Sacer-
dotalism, and, in particular, of those features in it which have
b
xvili PREFACE
aroused the most passionate opposition, and set them side
by side with the presentation of the same subject at this
Conference. What traces are there here of the disloyalty
to Christ, the rank idolatry and arrogant assumption that
the popular imagination has painted? Nay more, would it
be possible for any such tendencies to live in the spiritual
atmosphere which those who have really thought out their
beliefs on these matters are creating ?
Does not this go far to support the advice of Canon Gore
and Mr. Headlam already referred to? The true policy
for those who wish to see their country delivered from the
dangers of a false and corrupt Sacerdotalism is, as far as
they honestly can, to strengthen the hands of those whose
teaching is free from these vices. The whole public situation
would be different if the leaders of thought on all sides, instead
of actively or tacitly encouraging half-instructed and often
worse than half-instructed attacks and denunciations, would
themselves preach and enforce positively the best that they
can make their own in respect to these ideas of Priesthood
and Sacrifice.
And on the other hand, if I may permit myself a word
of address to those of my friends to whom our Conference
owed so much, and to whose exposition of their views
I myself listened with deep attention; if I might venture
to say a word to them it would be this. Our Conference
was, I conceive, no untrue reflexion of the better mind of
the nation towards them. They may see in it the many
points of contact and sympathy which that better mind,
even when furthest removed from themselves, still has with
their teaching. They are conscious of possessing a body
of beliefs which they hold with strong conviction, and which
for them is fraught with rich moral and spiritual inspiration.
It would not be strange if, arguing from their own experience,
they should think that only some wilful obstinacy prevented
those who cannot see eye to eye with them from doing so ;
PREFACE xix
or at least, if they should regard them as deliberately
choosing the lower part, deliberately taking the path that
is cold and grey and bare, when they might be walking
in a land flowing with milk and honey. If they should
be tempted to think thus, I would ask them to remember
that for some minds the tests of truth are strict and stern,
and do not allow that to be at once accepted which is
most attractive and most comforting. A large part of the
English people has been bred upon the Bible, and refers
all its religious beliefs ultimately to that. For them it is
not enough that a particular set of opinions should be
deduced by way of inference and construction from the
Bible, if they are not clearly and explicitly contained in it ;
still less if the acceptance of such opinions seems to disturb
the balance and proportion of those that are contained in
it clearly and explicitly. And for others whose standards
of truth may be somewhat less restricted, there may never-
theless be a necessity, which is as severe in its operation,
to harmonize the whole body of that which they accept as
true, from whatever source derived, and so make it their
own as to confess it with a sincerity that has no reserves.
Such minds may be haunted by the fear that they may
be taking a beautiful mirage for reality, a sunlit vision
which would be everything if it had the substance of truth.
If my friends of the Right would bear in mind as I know
that they do bear the existence of these two classes, I think
that they would be very patient in their judgements, even
when they found themselves the object of some opposition.
Wisdom is justified of all her children, although they may
be trained in different schools, and although some may wear
the garb of an intellectual and even of a spiritual
asceticism.
W. SANDAY.
CHRIST CHURCH,
July, 1900.
PRELIMINARIES
PRELIMINARY negotiations with a view to the proposed
Conference went on through the Long Vacation of 1899.
A short sketch of these will be found in the Report of the
Conference (p. 64 ff. below). The changes that took place in
the list of members of the Conference are there explained.
When the preliminaries had been sufficiently settled, the
following letter, with the appended paper of Questions, was
sent out on November 6.
CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD,
November ft, 1899.
DEAR SIR,
/ have the pleasure to inform you that the Conference in
which you have expressed your willingness to take part is now
constituted as follows :
FATHER PULLER (Society of St. John ARCHDEACON WILSON (Rochdale).
the Evangelist, CowleySt.John*}. DR. RYLE (Cambridge).
DR. MOBERLY (Oxford}. DR. MOULE (Cambridge).
CANON GORE ( Westminster). CANON E. R. BERNARD (Salisbury}.
CANON SCOTT-HOLLAND (St.Pauts). DR. SANDAY (Oxford).
REV. C. G. LANG (Portsea). DR. FAIRBAIRN (Oxford).
1 The addresses have been added.
B
2 PRELIMINARIES
DR. S ALMOND (Aberdeen). DR. BARRETT (Norwich).
DR. DAVISON (Handsworth). DR. FORSYTE (Cambridge).
It is proposed to meet on Wednesday and Thursday,
December 13 and 14. There will probably be three sittings of
two and a half hours each ; but more exact particulars will be
sent round later.
In the meantime it is thought that a step in advance would
be made if the members of the Conference would be so good as
to answer in writing such of the enclosed Questions as they may
think well. It would not be expected that every question should
be answered. The replies may be as concise as possible. At the
present stage argument would not be necessary, but precise
statements and definitions would be welcomed.
References would be enough where Biblical authority is
appealed to. It might also facilitate future discussion if
references were given to works in which points which it was
desired to bring forward are fully elaborated.
Replies may be given by the members singly or in
concert. They should be sent to me not later than Thursday,
November 23. They shall then be tabulated and sent round
with a Time-table of the Conference.
Believe me,
Yours very truly \
W. SANDAY.
The Questions circulated with this Letter were these:
i. Is it possible to define the idea of Sacrifice
(a) in religion in general ;
(b) in the O. T. (history, prophecy, and worship) ;
(c) in the N. T. ?
2. Is there
(a) a generic idea of Priesthood ; and if so, what are
the elements and functions necessary to it ?
(b) a specific Christian idea ; and if so, what are its
specific characters?
3. What was the Teaching of our Lord Himself
(a) as to the priestly idea ;
(b) as to His own Priesthood and Sacrifice ;
(c) as to any perpetuation and transmission of these in
His Church?
4. What is the Apostolic teaching
(a) as to the Sacrifice of Christ ;
(b) as to His Priesthood ;
(c) as to the Priesthood of His people ;
(d) as to the relation of this Priesthood, if there be any,
to His, and to His Sacrifice?
5. What relation has the idea of the Church as the
Mystical Body of Christ to the ideas of His Priesthood
and Sacrifice?
6. Does the idea of Priesthood applied to the Church reside
in the whole body collectively, or in the whole body ideally,
or in individual members of the body ?
7. Can there be any delegation of the functions of this
Priesthood ?
8. If there is such delegation, how does it affect
(a) those to whom the functions are delegated ;
(b) those to whom they are not delegated ?
Is the Priesthood of the Church affected by the delegation?
9. What is the fundamental signification of the Laying on
of Hands ? Does it involve Transmission? And if so, what
is transmitted ?
B 2
4 PRELIMINARIES
10. What was the original authority of the Apostles? Has
that authority in any way descended to those who came after
them?
11. Supposing that there are some to whom the functions
of Priesthood belong in a sense in which they do not belong
to others, should not a distinction be drawn between the
historical question as to the process by which this condition
of things has arisen, and the theoretical question as to the
place which it holds in the whole Christian economy? How
are the historical and the theoretic questions related to each
other ?
12. What parts of the historical problem at the present
moment seem most to need further elucidation ?
13. Of what parts of the theoretical problem may the same
be said ?
14. If there is a Ministerial Priesthood under the New
Covenant, can it rightly be described as a Sacrificing
Priesthood ?
15. How far is the Early Church to be determinative to-day
of the questions discussed under above heads, and what are
the limits which we ought to assign to the determinative
period?
II
STATEMENTS AND DEFINITIONS
THE Answers received to the above Questions were sent
round a few days before the meeting of the Conference. In
place of set Answers a Memorandum was circulated privately
among the Members of the Conference by Archdeacon Wilson,
which will be found on p. 51 ff.
1. IB it possible to define the idea of Sacrifice (a) in
religion in general ; (b) in the O. T. (history, prophecy,
and worship); (c) in the N. T. ?
FATHER PULLER. (b} Under the dispensation of the Sinaitic
covenant, a sacrifice appears to have been a gift offered to
Almighty God, with the object of either appeasing His
just indignation, or of expressing and presenting to Him
homage or gratitude, or of impetrating from Him some
favour. Looked at from another point of view, sacrifices
were gifts offered to God with the object of bringing
those, on behalf of whom they were offered, into fellowship
with God, or of restoring that fellowship when it had
been in any degree suspended, or of maintaining and
strengthening, and symbolizing and exercising, such fellow-
ship, when it remained intact.
(c) Under the Gospel dispensation Christ's sacrificial
work, both in the state of humiliation and in the state
of glory, absolutely fulfils all that was sketched by the
sacrifices under the law ; and His Church is permitted to
join with Him in His heavenly offering, and in union
with Him to present His heavenly Sacrifice and herself
6 STATEMENTS [l a, b, C
as found in Him, for purposes of worship and thanksgiving,
and for the impetration of pardon and grace and other
gifts natural and supernatural.
DR. MOBERLY. It is only possible to reach real definitions
retrospectively: i.e. as the revelation of Christ lights up
the earlier inadequate efforts and meanings.
Sacrifice =(a) an offering to a god with dim germinal
mode of access ;
instincts as to
communion
atonement.
(b} the same to God with definite, and
differentiated, expression of the same
three elements.
* (c) the living consecration, in perfect love,
of perfect holiness, to consummate
human penitence.
CANON GORE. (a) ' The presenting of anything before a
god with a view to communion with him.'
But (c) for us Christians the norm of sacrifice is in
Christ. Therefore I define Sacrifice (at its highest) as
' The offering to the Father of the perfect manhood by
the perfect man with a view to divine fellowship for
man V
[N.B. The N.T. conception of sacrifice involves the
position that the acceptable sacrifice is of persons, and of
things or rites only as adjuncts of persons.]
CANON BERNARD. (a) Gifts to supernatural powers in order
to express dependence and obtain favour.
(b) In the O. T. (as well as in some other religions)
the sense of sin increasingly realized, requires a special
character in these gifts in some cases.
1 I omit any consideration of non-human sacrifice, e. g. of an eternal
sacrifice in the Godhead.
1 a, b, c] AND DEFINITIONS 7
(c) The place given to the idea of sacrifice in some
parts of the N.T. is in a measure due to ' accommodation,'
on the part of the writers, to the religious training of Jew
and Gentile which by Divine providence had preceded the
Gospel.
DR. SAND AY. There are three root-ideas in Sacrifice which
appear to be constant throughout : (i) the idea of gift,
tribute, propitiatory offering ; (ii) the idea of communion
through the sacrificial meal ; and (iii) in either case,
solemn presentation to God.
(a) In their origin all these ideas go back to pre-
historic times : (i) is a simple and natural anthropomor-
phism ; (ii) belongs to the very primitive cycle of ideas
relating to ' kinship,' which extends to the tribal deity as
well as to fellow-tribesmen.
But, as in so many other examples, what begins as
something apparently crude and low-pitched is found
to have an unexpected profundity and capacity for
development, so that it rises in the end to a high degree
of moral refinement and perfection. This is a testimony
to the Divine unity which underlies and binds together
the gradual unfolding of thought and life.
On Pre-historic Sacrifice, see Jevons, Introduction to the History of
Religion, and Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites. It is argued
that of the ideas mentioned above, (ii) is prior to (i), because the idea
of kinship is earlier than that of property.
(6) Thus in O. T. there is a gradual moralizing of
the whole conception of sacrifice. The best gift man
can offer is the moral discipline of self (Isa. i. 11-17;
Mic. vi. 6-8; Ps. Ii. 17, &c.).
The elaborate ceremonial of the Day of Atonement
is probably late, but corresponds to a deepened con-
sciousness of sin, and is prophetic of the need of a supreme
Sacrifice.
8 STATEMENTS [l a, b, c
There is no necessary antithesis between the ceremonial and the moral.
Ideally speaking, the ceremonial and the moral shonld be different but
harmonious expressions of the same fundamental spirit. The prophets
aimed at reforming this spirit, not at abolishing sacrifice altogether. To
abolish sacrifice before the coming of Christ would have been to interrupt
its standing witness to Him.
(c) In N.T. the exalted form which sacrifice takes
should not obscure its ultimate continuity with the low
beginnings. There, too, we have sacrifice as gift or
tribute, sacrifice as propitiation, sacrifice as the sacra-
mental meal. (See under 3 and 4.)
DR. FAIRBAIRN. (a) The idea of Sacrifice depends through-
out on the idea of religion. If religion be taken in the
concrete sense of the historical religions, it is hardly
possible to reach a generic idea of Sacrifice ; for, in
certain of the greatest, Sacrifice is an unknown idea,
and in no two of those which possess it is the idea pre-
cisely the same ; while in each it differs in the different
stages of culture which the religion passes through.
If religion be taken in an abstract sense, the idea must
agree with ideas more ultimate and determinative than
itself, especially with the conception of God on the one
hand and of man on the other. In other words, we must
ascertain (a) the terms on which the religion conceives that
God is willing to enter into communion with man, and
to save him ; (/3) how far man's actual condition renders
him capable or incapable of fulfilling these terms ; and
(y) if he be unable, by what means or agency he may
be enabled to do so.
A definition of the idea of Sacrifice is therefore
impossible without prior definition of the ideas on which
it rests, of the end it proposes to attain, and of its
fitness as means to this end. We had better then post-
pone any attempt to define this idea to a later point
in the inquiry.
(b) Under this head we need not class those sacrifices
1 b] AND DEFINITIONS 9
that had a more or less bodily form ; such as deprivation
of personal adornment, abstention from pleasures, or the
practice of asceticism ; though these were not unknown
in the O. T., and were judged by certain persons or parties
as of singular religious merit. But to limit ourselves to
what seem references to the sacrificial idea, taken in the
stricter sense, it may be said that in its older forms
Sacrifice appears to have been quite independent of a
priest or a priesthood, or of any place consecrated by
him or sacred to it (Gen. iv. 3-5, viii. 20-21, xxxi. 54,
xlvi. i ; Judges vi. 19-32, xiii. 19-21 ; Job i. 5).
But the idea undergoes, in the O. T., several re-
markable transformations, (a) In the historical books,
Sacrifice appears as an offering, agreeable to God,
but costly to man, of a victim now human (Gen. xxii.
1-19; Judges xi. 34-40), now animal (Judges vi. 26;
Exod. x. 25 ; Joshua xxii. 26-29), now of fruits and now
of wine (Gen. xiv. 18); and meant either to secure the
favour of Deity, or to express the gratitude of man, to
seal a covenant (Gen. xv. 9) or to expiate a real or
possible sin (i Sam. iii. 14). (/3) In the Levitical worship
the idea and practice of Sacrifice have been worked into
a ritual system which expresses now the thankful and
now the guilty consciousness of the collective people, or
some of its constituent parts, and which seeks to secure
the divine favour and forgiveness. Here Sacrifice has
practically ceased to be occasional and spontaneous, and
has become stated and regulated, incorporated in a worship
which tends to be co-extensive, and indeed identical with
the religion. It deserves to be noted that the decalogue
has nothing in it concerning Sacrifice or any worship
in which it plays a part. And while it was incorporated
in the Levitical system, it is doubtful whether that system
was ever more than an ideal, or, so far as it did attain
realization, whether it was ever accepted by many of the
STATEMENTS ' [l b, c
.
most religious men in Israel as either integral to their
religion or necessary to its existence.
And so (y) we find that, in the main current of
"prophetic literature, the ceremonial or ritual practice
is either thrown into the background or made second -
Mary to obedience and a pure heart (Isa. i. 11-14;
Mic. vi. 6-8 ; Amos v. 2 1-22 ; Hos. vi. 6 ; Jer. vi. 20 ;
vii. 21-23 5 P f ov. xxi. 3, 27 ; Ps. li. 16-17, xxiv. 4) : while
the sacrifices enjoined become personal and ethical,
j
the act of reconciliation being initiated by the mercy
of God and conditioned on the repentance and obedience
of man. And as the highest and most perfect example
*; .*
of Sacrifice and Mediation of this new and higher type,
we have the Suffering Servant of God in Isaiah, who
though a sacrifice and an offering for sin, is quite without
//,' v f anv sacerdotal attributes or denomination. He neither
bears the priestly name nor fills any priestly office,
** -but is rather a sacrifice which no priest offers ; and he
accomplishes a mediation higher and more inward than
any outward sacrifice had either achieved or symbolized.
(c) In the N. T. we must distinguish historical from
doctrinal and ethical interpretations of Sacrifice. Historical
references to the O. T. idea or custom occur as in
Luke ii. 23-24, xiii. i ; Acts vii. 41-42 ; but their impo-
tence is specially emphasized (Heb. ix. 9-10, x. 1-4),
and their insufficiency as a means of placating God
(Matt. ix. 13, xii. 7 ; Mark xii. 33 ; Heb. x. 8).
We have, therefore, to note the following positive facts :
Sacrifices as understood in the Hebrew ritual completely
disappear from the worship of the Christian people, nor
is any provision made for any persons qualified to do any
corresponding sacrificial acts : neither is there any com-
mand expressed as to the need for their observance, nor is
anything said as to times or places or occasions where
they may be, or where they ought to be, offered. On
la, b, c] AND DEFINITIONS II
the contrary, the only sacrifices which the N. T. speaks
of as agreeable to God, and as accepted of Him, are
ethical, i.e. the spiritual counterparts or antitypes of
those whose inefficiency has been emphasized (Rom. xii. i ;
Phil. ii. 17, iv. 1 8 ; Heb. xiii. 15-16 ; i Pet. ii. 5). This, of
course, is exclusive of the teaching as to the Sacrifice
of Christ, which stands by itself, and at once fulfils and
ends all the ceremonial sacrifices of Sacred History. But
of this something must be said later.
DR. SALMOND. (a) This question suggests much that we
have not yet the materials to determine. It is doubtful
whether we can go beyond the general idea of an offering
to God, an idea taking different forms in different races,
and at different times.
(b] The ideas of gift, expiation, and communion or life-
fellowship appear in the O.T., but in different degrees of
prominence in different parts.
(c) The same ideas appear in the N.T., the primary
idea, however, being that of Christ's sacrifice as an
offering of positive efficacy in relation to sin.
DR. DAVISON. (a) Sacrifice in religion in general is an
offering to God in worship of that which implies self-
denial in the offerer.
(b) The sacrificial ideas embodied in O. T. ceremonial
expiatory, dedicatory, eucharistic, &c. do not admit
of generalization and succinct definition.
(c) In N.T. the word covers fundamentally different
ideas, according to whether it be applied to Christ or
the Christian. In the former case it is propitiatory, in the
latter self-dedicatory; a confusion between these senses
is fatal.
DR. FORSYTH. (b) Sacrifice in O.T. was first something shared
by man with God as a meal, next something surrendered
12 STATEMENTS [l, b, c
by man to God, and lastly this gift as symbolic of the
surrender of the self in righteousness. It was in nature
collective more than individual, and replaced the individual
in the community of grace, when by his sin he had fallen
from it. For high-handed and defiant sin, sacrifice did
not avail, and there remained only judgement. O.T.
sacrifice lay not in the alienation of a thing but in the
submission of self. It did not procure grace, but fulfilled
the provision of grace.
(c] These features pass into the N.T., and Christ's
sacrifice is essentially one of will in obedience. It is
corporate in nature. It combined both the judgement
on sin and the offering for it. So He dealt finally with
all sin and absorbed all sacrifice.
The following note has been communicated by DR. DRIVER.
Words for Sacrifice. The usual Heb. word for 'to sacrifice' is
zabah, 'to slaughter' (see, of profane slaughtering, Deut. xii. 15, 21),
hence zebah, ' a slaughtering,' or, by usage, ' a sacred slaughtering,' or
' sacrifice ' (often specially of the ' peace- ' or ' thank-offering '), mizbeah,
' a place of slaughtering,' ' an altar ' (the usual word). 'dsdA, ' to do,"
an idiomatic usage, akin probably to that of the same word in the sense of
' dressing ' food (see Gen. xviii. 7,851 Kings xviii. 23, 25, 26), is also
used.
Burnt-offering, 'oldh, ' that which goes up ' (most prob. on the altar, opp.
to sacrifices such as the ' peace '-offering, of which large portions were
consumed by offerer or priest : according to others, up to heaven, in
' sweet smoke '), Lev. i.
Peace-, or thank-offering (shelem, shelamim : the explanation is uncertain,
and there are good authorities for both peace and thank [the vb. means
' to be whole,' hence a state of wholeness, peace (between those sharing
in the accompanying meal) : trans, in the conjug. ' to make whole,'
hence to requite or pay wholly (as in the phrase, to ' pay vows '), render
one's due, and so a ' thank-offering ' : it is not certain which sense
should be adopted]), Lev. iii. The characteristic of this was the
common meal accompanying it; cf. Lev. vii. 15, 16, xxii. 30.
Sin-offering (Ao#afA),Lev. iv. I v. 13 (the word is derived from hate?,
' to sin ' the regular word).
Guilt- offering (as&am), enjoined chiefly for cases of fraud, and accom-
panied by repayment of amount embezzled + , Lev. v. 14 vi. 7.
(The word means guilt, as Gen. xxvi. 10; the cogn. verb 'to be guilty,'
or ' be found guilty,' bear the consequences of guilt, Hos. x. 2, &c.)
AND DEFINITIONS 13
MeaUoffering (or better, cereal offering), minhah (Lev. ii). This means
properly a present, esp. one made to secure or retain good- will (there
are other words to express the neutral idea of 'gift'), Gen. xxxii. 13,
18, 20, 21 (to Esau), xliii. n, 15, 25, 26 (to Joseph), Jnd. iii. 15,
a Kings viii. 8, 9, xx. 12, Ps. xlv. 12, offered, as something expected,
by a political subject, 2 Sam. viii. 2, 6, i Kings iv. 21, &c. : then it is
used of a tribute offered to God, both generally (including animals),
Gen. iv. 3, 4 (Abel's), 5, i Sam. xxvi. 19, as well as in the special
sense of the cereal offering (so always in the Levitical system). This
double application of the term minhah sometimes causes ambiguity.
The broad distinctions between zebah and minhah are that the z.
consisted of an animal, and the m. (in later times exclusively) was
vegetable; and that the z. was accompanied by a meal implying
communion with the deity (I do not know that this is anywhere stated,
though it is, no doubt, probable), and that the m. was of the nature of
a gift to secure the deity's goodwill. See esp. on this W. R. Smith,
Rel. Sem., 199-207, 218-225 (ed. 2, 216-224, 236-243); and Wellhansen,
Hist., 71, 72.
The burnt-offering does not seem to have been often offered anciently
alone, except on unusual occasions : it is frequently mentioned in combi-
nation with the zebahim or sheldmim.
Asham and hattdth are rare, zabah is used in a figurative or spiritual
sense, Ps. 1. 14, 23, ' sacrifice thanksgiving.'
Passages in which eating, or a meal, is associated with a zebah :
Gen. xxxi. 54 (in concluding a covenant ; cf. v. 46), Ex. xviii. 12, xxxii. 6,
xxxiv. 15 (Canaan.), Num. xxv. 2 (Moab.), Deut. xxvii-7 (peace-offerings),
i Sam. ix. 13, Ps. cvi. 28 (idolatrous) : notice also Jud. xvi. 23-25 (ver. 25
implies a feast}; and cf. Deut. xii. 7, 18 ('to eat before J.'), xv. 19
(firstlings).
To eat and drink, or to eat alone, to be understood prob. similarly :
Exod. xxiv. 10, Jud.ix. 27, Amos ii. 8, Ps.xxii. 26, 29 : note also the articles
of food in i Sam. i. 24, x. 3, carried by persons going up to a sanctuary.
Also 'eating on the mountains' in Ezek. xviii. 6, n, 15, xxii. 9.
The sacrifice accompanied by a meal ( =the later ' peace '-offering) must
have been once the most ordinary kind of sacrifice ; and hence it came to
be denoted, KO.T' ((oxhv, by zebah, a ' slaughtering.'
There is much confusion in A.V. and R.V. in the use of the words offer,
offering, oblation ; and they each stand, unfortunately, for several very
different words in the Hebrew.
The expression offering (sometimes sacrifice) made by fire (Deut. xviii. I ;
and often in P) represents one word in the Heb. (as though a ' firing ').
Zabah, zebah are commonly rendered sacrifice; but our idea of 'sacrifice*
(as I should understand it) is wider than zabah. The (Levitical) minhah
was, I suppose, what we should call a ' sacrifice,' though zabah, ' to
slaughter,' could not be used of it. The more neutral word which Heb.
would use in such cases is hiqrlb, ' to bring near, present' (R.V. ' offer,'
' present '), Lev. i. 2, 3, 10, &c. : also of other gifts than sacrifices, as
14 STATEMENTS [l, 2 a, b
Num. vii. a, 3, 10, II. The cognate subst is the familiar corban, of
sacrifices, Lev. i. a, 3, 10, 14, &c., and of other gifts, Num. vii. 3, 10, u,
and often in this chap, (the word occurs only in P and Ezek. xx. 28, xl. 43,
R.V. always oblation [which however stands also for other words], except
Ezek. xx. 28 offering).
The definition of sacrifice is difficult I doubt if the Hebrews had any
term exactly co-extensive with our ' sacrifice.' Applying our idea of
' sacrifice ' to the regular and recognized sacrificial system of the Hebrews
(whether in earlier or later ages), I should say it was something offered
to the deity, of which the whole (substantially) or a part was consumed
on the altar. The part consumed was the issheh, or ' firing.'
On ancient Arab. Sacrifice, see Wellhausen, Reste Arab. Heid. t
pp. 112-115, 167 (ed. a, pp. 114-120, 143). A slaughtered animal is
here also the principal sacrifice ; but nothing is said of a fire, or burning,
on the altar : the blood is simply poured over a sacred stone (cf. i Sam.
xiv. 33-35). The flesh of the sacrifice was generally eaten at a common
meal.
2. Is there (a) & generic idea of Priesthood ; and if so,
what are the elements and functions necessary to it?
(b} a specific Christian idea ; and if so, what are its specific
characters ?
FATHER PULLER. (a) Omitting the imperfect and partially
distorted conceptions of the heathen, it seems to me
that, according to the law of the old covenant, a priest
was one who had been chosen and appointed by God to
draw nigh to Him in some special way, that he might
offer sacrifices to Him, and transact with Him on behalf
of His people, and convey to the people certain gifts
from God, such as cleansing and blessing. [N.B. I have
mentioned what seem to me to be the most prominent
functions of priesthood, but my definition does not
pretend to be exhaustive.]
(b) The idea of priesthood, outlined in the O. T., is
perfectly fulfilled by our Lord in the life of glory ; but
in every respect His Priesthood is, both in itself and
in its effects, on an infinitely higher level than was the
Priesthood under the Law.
2 a, b] AND DEFINITIONS 15
Christ exercises His Priesthood in heaven in His own
Person. He exercises it on earth in and through His
Church. To use Dr. Milligan's words : ' The Church
of Christ is a sacerdotal or priestly institution. Sacer-
dotalism, priestliness, is the prime element of her being '
(Expositor, 3rd series, ix. 200). In the Church there
is a priesthood which belongs to the whole body, and
there is a priesthood which belongs to each member in
particular. Christ's Apostolic ministers in their various
orders are, within the limits appointed for each order,
the normal organs for exercising the priestly functions
which belong to the body.
DR. MOBERLY. (a) The 'generic' idea is merely the dim,
unrealized feeling after what Christianity brings to light
and consciousness.
(b} In the Christian revelation Priest and Sacrifice are
so identified that the definition of the one (just given)
really covers the other.
CANON GORE. (a] Heb. v. i will serve as a definition.
(b) In Christ, priest and sacrifice coalesce. The perfect
Man, consecrated by God, offers Himself, on behalf of
His brethren, to the Father, in order to reconcile the
world to the Father.
CANON BERNARD. (a) To represent man to God. Elements
necessary are a knowledge of the needs of man, and
of the character of God.
(b} In the wide sense given above we may say that
there is a Christian Priesthood, which is exercised towards
God on behalf of the congregation by persons ' lawfully
chosen and called.' But the work of the Christian
Ministry towards man as Rulers, Pastors, and Teachers
is not a priestly work, and the endeavour to represent it
as such only tends to the confusion of two distinct ideas.
16 STATEMENTS [2 a, b
DR. SANDAY. (a) The leading idea of Priesthood appears to
be consecration for liturgical service, especially sacrifice.
This sense seems to be constant, though the nature of
the service and the matter of the sacrifice vary with
the phase of religion to which they belong.
Dr. Milligan defines the functions of Priesthood as : (i) offering ;
(ii) intercession, in a wide sense, by confession, prayer, or praise;
(iii) blessing (Expositor, 1889, i. 19 f.). These functions are all
liturgical.
In O. T. and in many other religions the priest also
communicates the will of God by oracular response, and
is commissioned to teach.
(b) Is it not well to distinguish between the acts or
functions proper to Priesthood and its motive or animating
spirit ? The acts or functions are the presenting to God
oT worship or sacrifice. The animating spirit is that
which the worship or sacrifice is intended to express.
The Christian Priesthood thus corresponds to Christian
worship and the Christian sacrifice, which should be
modelled upon the Sacrifice of Christ
DR. FAIRBAIRN. (a) It is as little possible to formulate *a
generic idea of Priesthood ' as to define ' the idea of Sacrifice
in religion in general.' There is no term more vaguely
used, or more frequently used to denote, if not contra-
dictory, yet different and even incompatible conceptions.
If, however, we take the Levitical usage as determining
our idea, we may define the priesthood as a community
of men endowed with the threefold function of mediation,
expiation, and absolution : or as an order of men qualified
by descent, appointment, and consecration, (a) to stand
between God and man ; (ft] to offer the worship at once
becoming man and agreeable to God, especially in the high
acts and articles of presenting to God the sacrifice which
expiated sin, and (y) to bring to man the assurance that he
was forgiven. The priest did not create the sacrifice. In
2 a] AND DEFINITIONS 17
Israel, as in other religions, it was older than he. But
he gave it a more definite character and function; he
introduced exactness and proportion into the relations
of God and man ; he could assure man that what was done
through him and according to his laws pleased God, and
that the God he pleased was sure to forgive. The priest
thus became necessary to the sacrifice as expiatory, for in
his hands it became a means efficient for its end ; and as
the person who secured its efficacy, he also was the person
who garnered and attested its results. These, then, were
the three functions of the priest in the Levitical System,
mediation, expiation, and absolution. The first function
was realized in the second, and perfected in the third.
Without the sacrifice there could be no efficient media-
tion, and without absolution there was no efficacy in the
mediation and sacrifice. These, then, made a whole, and
were the inseparable constituents of the priestly idea.
Now it seems to me as if we must at the very outset
define what we mean by the terms ' priest ' and ' priest-
hood.' Do we conceive the Christian priest as fulfilling
any or all of the above functions? Do we hold any or
all of the Levitical elements as in any sense or degree
necessary to the Christian priesthood ? By what process,
involving what manner of change, have 'priest' and 'priest-
hood ' been naturalized in the Christian Church ? In
what respect does the priest differ from the minister or
the preacher ? And by what special quality or act is his
mediation distinguished from theirs? What place in
particular have expiation and absolution in his office and
mediation? And whence does he derive his authority
to fulfil these functions ?
Until we know with some degree of precision the
positions to be maintained, we can neither know what
evidence may be needed to prove or disprove them, nor
the respects in which we agree and in which we differ.
C
i8 STATEMENTS [2 a, b
(b) The need of definition becomes the more im-
perative when we find there is nothing that can be
called ' a specific Christian idea ' of the priesthood.
There is indeed in the N.T. (Heb. v. 1-6) a definition of
High-priesthood, with special reference to Christ's ; but
none of priesthood as exercised by the Christian man
or Church. The two necessary conditions for the office
of High-priesthood are (i) taken from among men,
(ii) called of God. Its special functions are (i) to act
for man in things pertaining to God, and (ii) to offer
gifts and sacrifices for sins. But this High-priesthood as
predicated of Christ stands in antithesis to the Levitical ;
first, as belonging to an order which was before it and
above it ; secondly, as being His own solely, participated
in by no other ; and so, thirdly, through His eternal life,
there is involved His eternal continuance as priest. And
His one and eternal priesthood implies that His Sacrifice
is also one and eternal.
But if sacrifices have ceased, how can the priesthood
continue ? Has not Christ by ending Sacrifice absorbed
into Himself the functions of priesthood ? Certainly if
any one affirms that the office of the priesthood still
continues, the onus probandi must be wholly his.
DR. SALMOND. (a) That of drawing near to God, and with
the particular function of doing that for others. So
especially in the O.T.
(3) The Christian idea is the same, with the special
note that Christ's Priesthood is the only one by which
men have access to God. See also 3.
DR. DAVISON. (a) Generically, Priesthood implies an order
intermediary between God and men in religious worship.
In O.T. sundry ideas attach to it, e.g. (i) Divine appoint-
ment, (a) special consecration, (3) representative or
2 a, b] AND DEFINITIONS 19
vicarious character, (4) medium of approach or trans-
mission of blessing, &c.
(b) There is no ' specific Christian idea ' which can be
understood to include Christ and His Church (ministers
and people) in one common category.
DR. FORSYTH. (a) (i) Representative ; (2,) Mediatorial ;
(3) Sacrificial in its nature.
(b) Yes ; in Christianity it is primarily personal, i.e.
turns on a quality or attitude of heart and will. It is
a matter of character not of institution, of person not of
office. The power to make any sacrifice pleasing to God
depends on the prior sacrifice to Him of heart and will
in the sacrificing subject. Nothing but a personal priest-
hood is connate or congenial with the Priesthood of Christ,
whose essence was the sacrifice of the will in the obedience
of faith.
The following note has been communicated by DR. DRIVER.
The Heb. word for priest is Kohen, in form a partic. of kdhan,
though the verb is not in use. In Arab, the corresponding word Kdhin
means a diviner (e.g. Qor. lii. 29), more exactly, one in whom later
(apparently) a jinn, originally a deity, spoke, and who was his organ
(Wellhausen, Reste, pp. 130, 133; ed. 2, pp. 129-136). The Kdhin
was often consulted before an undertaking, to see whether he would
advise or dissuade. The Arab. Kdhin was primarily the guardian of the
house, if at least there was a house (or image, &c.) at the sacred place :
where this was not the case, there was no Kdhin ; he was not needed to
perform sacrifice at a sacred stone, and even the sacred lot could be cast
without him, though it was usual for him to take charge of the lots, and
to receive a fee for the use of them (Wellh., p. 128 f.; ed. 2, p. 133). The
office was usually hereditary in particular families.
The Heb. and Arab, words correspond exactly, so that they must have
some common origin. Most prob. the Kdhin orig. gave the oracles and
judicial decisions, in the name of a deity, at a sanctuary ; and a fundamental
function of the Heb. Kohen was just the giving of torah, or ' direction,'
in the name of J. : the Kdhin gradually sank his connexion with the
sanctuary, and became a mere diviner; the Kohen grew in importance,
and acquired sacrificial and other functions (cf. Wellh., pp. 132-4 ; ed. 2,
PP- J 34> J 43)- [O n tne priestly function of giving tordh, see ray Joel
and Amos, p. 230, with the passages quoted : and add Exod. xviii. 16, 20
c a
20 STATEMENTS [2, 3 C
early passage which represents the decisions given by Moses on
secular disputes as the statutes and 'directions' of God (torotK).']
Functions of priests in the O. T. :
i. To give torah (Deut. xvii. 10, n, xxiv. 8, xxxiii. 10 ; obs. how even in
a late passage, 2 Chron. xv. 3, a ' directing priest ' is a phrase which
naturally occurs).
ii. To bear the ark (Deut. x. 8 ; cf. xxxi. 9, I Ki. viii. 3, 4 [LXX], 6).
iii. To stand before J., to minister unto him (Deut. x. 8, xvii. 12, xviii. 5,
xxi. 5, i Chron. xxiii. 19), i.e. to serve God, in particular (cf. Ezek.
xliv. 15) by offering sacrifice (Deut. xxxiii. 10, i Sam. ii. 28).
iv. To bum incense (Deut xxxiii. 10, I Sam. ii. 28, i Chron. xxiii. 13).
v. To bear the ephod {perhaps an image, before which lots were cast :
see art. ' Ephod ' in Hastings' Bibl. Diet.), i Sam. ii. 28.
vi. To bless in J.'s name (Deut. x. 8, xxi. 5, i Chron. xxiii. 13).
There are, of course, many other passages which support or illustrate
this enumeration of functions : but the passages quoted describe them
rather pointedly. It seems clear that in early times the right of sacrificing,
and even of blessing, was not confined to priests, but that the restriction
4 to them was of gradual growth. Functions connected with i. and v.
seem to have been those inalienably connected with the priesthood.
3. What was the Teaching of our Lord Himself (a) as
to the priestly idea; (b] as to His own Priesthood and
Sacrifice ; (c) as to any perpetuation and transmission of
these in His Church?
FATHER PULLER. (c) Our Lord by instituting for His Church
a religious rite, in which an important part was assigned
to earthly sacrificial things, such as bread and wine, and
a still more important part was assigned to heavenly
sacrificial things, namely, His own Body and Blood, and
by connecting these things with words implying sacrificial
action, such as rd uirep v^5>v SiSo/xevoi; and TO virep v/i<3v
cKxyvopfvov (Luke xxii. 19, 20), and with other words
closely bound up with sacrificial ideas, such as SIO^TJKTJ
and avafjivrja-is, made it clear that the rite which He was
instituting was of a sacrificial character, or in other words
was a sacrifice. Now our Lord perpetuates His Sacrifice
in the heavenly tabernacle (cf. Heb. viii. 1-3, Rev. v. 6),
3 a, b, o] AND DEFINITIONS 21
' appearing openly before the face of God on our behalf '
in His glorified Body as the Lamb without spot, and
cleansing ' the heavenly things ' with the ' better sacrifices,'
that is, with the incorruptible ' Blood of sprinkling ' (cf.
Heb. ix. 23, xii. 24; i Pet. i. 18, 19). And the matter
of the Church's sacrifice is also, as we have seen, primarily
Christ's Body and Blood. It follows that the sacrifice
which the Church offers is identical with the heavenly
Sacrifice which Christ offers. In other words, Christ's
sacrifice is perpetuated not only in heaven above, but also
in His Church below. This perpetuation is involved in
our Lord's words roCro jroteire eis r^v CHT\V avdpirrio-iv,
taken with their context.
DR. MOBERLY. (a) and (b} John x. n, xv. 13, xvii. 19, are
brief verbal indications of what is really taught in every-
thing that unfolds Incarnation or Atonement.
(c) Matt. x. 16-25 > John xiii. 35, xv. 17, xx. 21, are
similar indications of what is implied in the very idea of
a Pentecostal Church, which is the incorporation, revela-
tion, and perpetuity of the Spirit of the Christ in human
life to the end of time, and for ever.
CANON GORE. Our Lord offers Himself, the perfect on
behalf of, or in the stead of, the sinful, but with a view
to their perfecting in Him*. The sacrifice is, therefore,
offered in order that it may be perpetuated in the
Church, in virtue of His initial propitiation whereby we
recovered our standing with the Father (John x. 36,
xvii. 19 ; Matt. xxvi. 28).
CANON BERNARD. (a) I do not know what passages are in
view in this question.
() Very little teaching by Himself as to this. It is to
be noticed in what varied aspects He presents His death :
22 STATEMENTS [3 a, b, c
(i) as a ransom ; (ii) as the death of a victim for ratifying
a covenant ; (iii) as the death of a shepherd in defence of
his sheep.
(c) No teaching on this subject so far as I know.
DR. SANDAY. All the teaching seems to be indirect : it
appears not so much in what the Gospels state as in
what they assume.
(a) I do not find any clear indication.
Many passages imply direct access (Matt. vi. 6;
vii. 7 f., &c.) ; but an inference against Priesthood can
hardly be drawn from this. The Psalms are full of such
passages, though concurrently there was an elaborate
system of regulated approach.
N. B. Great caution should be used in drawing negative inferences
from the Synoptic Gospels. The Fourth Gospel and the Epistles show-
that there must have been much teaching which they have not preserved.
(b) Our Lord undoubtedly regarded His own Death
as sacrificial.
The central passage is Mark xiv. 22-24 (Matt. xxvi.
26-28 [Luke xxii. 19 f.]). Compare Mark x. 45 (Matt.
xx. 28); John i. 29, 36 ; vi. 51.
If His Death is sacrificial, He is Himself the High
Priest by whom it is offered (John xvii). The fuller
teaching of the Epistles appears to have its root in
sayings of Christ Himself.
(c) If our Lord instituted a permanent rite which
embodied the essential idea of the ' feast upon sacrifice '
(cf. I Cor. x. 21 Tpa.TT(a Kvpiov, xi. 20 KvpiaKov SeiTrvov,
Heb. xiii. 10), it would seem to follow that those who
administer such ' feasts ' might be rightly called ' priests.'
And in view of the relation which these feasts bear to
the Great Sacrifice, it would not seem to be an illegitimate
use of language to describe them as 'sacrificial.' In O.T.
the ' eating ' is part of an important group of sacrifices.
3 a, b, c] AND DEFINITIONS 23
There would be a deeper reason for the use of the
name 'priests' if the view mentioned under 4 (d), 5,
holds good.
DR. FAIRBAIRN. (a) To what may be termed in strictness,
whether in the historical or theological sense, 'the priestly
idea,' our Lord makes no explicit or direct reference
whatever. All attribution of sacerdotal ideas to Him is
due either to a figurative interpretation of simple scripture
language such as He uses in John xvii. 19 or to His
attitude to offices and customs in the worship of His
own day.
(b) He represents Himself as the Temple (John ii. 19);
as one who has established the new Covenant in His
blood, which He has shed for the remission of sins
(Matt. xxvi. 28) ; and as one who gives His life a ransom
for many (Matt. xx. 28 ; Mark x. 45). And He exercises
the high function of Mediation, though never under any
of the conditions or forms proper to the priesthood as
an office. His teaching therefore as to His own Priest-
hood is a matter of inference rather than of exact and
literal exegesis.
(c) In the only allusions He makes either to His Church
or Kingdom, He says nothing on these points.
DR. SALMOND. (a) (b) It centres in His own Priesthood,
and His teaching as to that centres in His own Sacrifice.
That Sacrifice is more definitely expressed by Himself as
a life given for others ', a ransom, and a covenant-offering,
having in view the remission of sins.
(c] His words indicate no transmission, nor any per-
petuation in the Church, the ordinance of the Supper being
a commemorative, covenant, and representative ordinance
only.
24 STATEMENTS [3 a, b, c, 4 a, b
DR. DAVISON. (a, b} Christ's teaching in one or two places
e.g. Matt. xx. 28, and the institution of the eucharist
warrants the drawing of some typical analogy between
the O.T. sacrifices and His atoning death. But the
references are general only, implying the redemption
of the race, and a new covenant ' in His blood.'
(c) Our Lord gives no warrant for the perpetuation
or transmission of His priesthood and sacrifice in His
Church.
DR. FORSYTH. (b) Jesus spoke of Himself as King and offered
Himself as sacrifice. He had little affinity for the institu-
tional priesthood of His race. He was Priest as self-
sacrificing King. He is not explicit about the relation of
His sacrifice to O.T. types ; His few words bear more
on the Covenant than the atoning Sacrifice. He realized
it not as mere self-devotion but as an offering to God
quite as much as for man. It was the total and active
surrender of His will to the Father, and only so a perfect
sacrifice for the sin of the world. The expiatory element
is in it, but was not by Christ made explicit.
(c) The only thing transmitted to His Church was the
benefits of this Sacrifice, and especially fellowship with
Him in it and through it. This was to be common, in
differing degrees, to every believer as the priesthood of
the Church.
4. What is the Apostolic teaching (a) as to the Sacrifice
of Christ ; (b) as to His Priesthood ; (c} as to the Priesthood
of His people ; (d) as to the relation of this Priesthood, if
there be any, to His, and to His Sacrifice?
DR. MOBERLY. (a) and ()=the perfect love of the self-
oblation of the perfectly holy, in reality of Humanity
4a,b, c,d] AND DEFINITIONS 25
perfectly consummated in penitence (Heb. x ; Rom. vi.
1-10 ; i Cor. xv. 20-28, &c., &c.).
(c) They are what He is (Eph. passim ; Rom. viii ;
Gal. ii. 20, 2i ; i Pet. ii. 5-9 ; Rev. i. 6).
(d) Because He alone is, and they are only in Him.
E.g. i Cor. iii. 17, xii. 12, 27, xv. 28, and the > XpioraJ
passim.
CANON GORE. The Apostolic teaching is that Christ offered
Himself for us in order to offer us in and with Himself.
He is our Priest and Sacrifice in order that, in reliance
on His merits alone, we may share His Priesthood, and
ourselves render an acceptable sacrifice in Him.
CANON BERNARD. (a) That that sacrifice was made once
for all, and that it was followed not by continuous
presentation of the sacrifice, but by session at the right
hand of God (Heb. x. 12). There is, of course, much other
teaching, but this is the point which appears relevant to
the present discussion.
(b) That it is a Priesthood of intercession: and also
of mediation, in regard of our whole life towards God.
(c) That all His people have in Him that right of imme-
diate access to God which is characteristic of Priesthood.
(d) A passage which might be held to bear on this is
i Pet. ii. 5 Trvfvp.aTiKas Ova-ias. But I am unable to believe
that it refers to any kind of ritual action. See Dr. Hort's
note in loc.
DR. SANDAY. (a) (i) The Sacrifice of Christ inaugurates
a new covenant-relation (Heb. viii. 6-13, ix. 15-23, x. 29,
xii. 24, xiii. 20 ; cf. i Cor. xi. 25).
(ii) It is compared in its effects to the sacrifices of
the Day of Atonement (Heb. ii. 17, vii. 27, ix. 7-9,
11-14, 24-28, x. 19-22, xiii. 10-13; Rom. iii. 25 ; i John
ii. 2, iv. 10).
26 STATEMENTS [4 a, c
(iii) Also to other forms of sacrifice (i Cor. v. 8; Rom.
viii. 3; Heb. viii. 3, x. 4-18; I Pet. iii. 18; Rev. i. 5,
v. 6, &c.).
No sharp division can be drawn between the Sacrifices of the Day of
Atonement and other sacrifices into which there enters any element
of propitiation. I have referred to the Day of Atonement proper such
terms as iXaa-riipiav, fAacr/xos.
(iv) The Sacrifice of Christ is offered once for all
(Rom. vi. 10 ; Heb. vii. 27, ix. 12, 26-28, x. 10, 12, 14;
i Pet. iii. 1 8).
(v) Its effect and the intercession of Christ following
upon it are eternal (Heb. vii. 15, 25, ix. 12, 14, x. 12-
14, 1 8 ; Rom. viii. 34).
(vi) The 'feast upon the Sacrifice' is intended to be
perpetually repeated (i Cor. xi. 25 f.).
Dr. Milligan argues that, ' since the offering on the part of the eternal
Son is His life, it follows that His offering must be as eternal as
Himself. . . . [It] was only begun and not completed on the cross '
(Expositor, 1888, ii. 351). In other words, the death is once for all;
the offering of the life, which completes the Sacrifice, goes on to eternity.
It is a question perhaps of more importance than may appear at first
sight, whether the ' pleading ' that takes place in heaven is to be regarded
as part of the Sacrifice, or as distinct from and subsequent to it Is there
an eternal presentation of the Blood (which seems to be Dr. Milligan's
view), or an eternal ivrtvts following upon the presentation (Heb. vii. 35)!
Mr. Dimock (Christian Doctrine of Sacerdotium, p. 49) draws a dis-
tinction ' between a " proper offering," which was once performed by His
death upon the cross, and between an " improper offering," which is now
made either in heaven, by that His appearance on our behalf, or here on
earth, by prayers and representation, or obtestation, or commemoration."
On Dr. Milligan's view ' the appearance in heaven ' at least might be
considered as part of the original Sacrifice (word ovrapiv <ufjs dxara^vrov,
aiuviav Xvrpojcnv, fkct, n>cv/jaros atcwtov).
It may be true that one of these modes of speaking is more exact than
the others, but they are all intended to describe the same acknowledged
facts, and not one of them is without an intelligible ground.
(c) The main direct passages are i Pet. ii. 5, 9 ; Rev.
i. 6, v. 10, xx. 6.
It is noticeable that in i Pet. ii. 5, which is most
explicit, the sacrifices offered are moral rather than
ceremonial. Compare Rom. xii. i ; Heb. xiii. 15 f.
4 a, b, d] AND DEFINITIONS 27
(d) Dr. Milligan argues that ' whatever function Christ
discharges in heaven must also be discharged, according
to her capabilities and opportunities, by His Church on
earth. This principle is the simple corollary to the
fundamental principle of the Church's existence as a
spiritual body, that she is the Body of Christ, and that
the Body lives in such close communion with the
Head, that whatever the latter is or does the former
must in a measure be or do' (Expositor, 1889, i. 200).
This is far-reaching, if true. It invites discussion.
DR. FAIRBAIRN. The answer to this question may be intro-
duced by the remark that, while on these points there is
in the Apostolic thought a striking unity, there is a
significant variety in its types, or the forms under which
it is presented. Thus, while there is complete agree-
ment as to the death of Christ being a Sacrifice for sin,
this Sacrifice is by no means regarded by all, equally, as
sacerdotal in its character.
(a) and (b} St. Paul's references to the death of Christ are more
forensic or legal than sacerdotal, i. e. His death is conceived more
figuratively than formally and materially as a sacrifice. For while He
conceives it as involving loss and suffering even unto the surrender of
life, in order that by its means Christ might effect man's reconciliation
to God ; yet he does not conceive it, like the author of ' Hebrews,' as
the act of a priest who offers Himself as a sacrifice in a temple, in order
that he may enter the Holy of holies and make eternal intercession for us.
On the contrary, Paul conceives the death through the idea of the Law as
living and regulative and punitive rather than through the associations of
the Levitical system. Indeed, nothing is more remarkable than his
avoidance of Levitical figures and phraseology ; and his preference, so
far as he uses any historical forms for the interpretation of the sacrifice
and death of the Redeemer, for the forms that we may call prophetic rather
than priestly. Thus he finds the prototype of Christ and His work not in
Leviticus, but in the Suffering Servant of God in Isaiah (Rom. x. 16-17,
ao, xi. 26 ; i Cor. xv. 3 ; 2 Cor. v. 21). This Pauline standpoint is made
the more emphatic by such a crucial text as Rom. iii. 25, 26, where to
read iKaarrjptov in a Levitical sense is to dislocate the whole order of his
thought ; and by references throughout to the righteousness of God by
faith as opposed to the righteousness of law or of works. Even the
28 STATEMENTS [4 a, b, c
explicit references to Christ's death as a Sacrifice bear out this view :
' Christ is our Passover' (i Cor. v. 7), the rite where the father was the
priest and the official priesthood had no function. And Eph. v. 2 is too
purely ethical to permit a strictly sacerdotal inference.
In Hebrews, the Sacrifice is conceived under sacerdotal forms, but these
are expressly designed to bring out the uniqueness of both the Priesthood
and the Sacrifice. He was a priest without sin and without successor, and
His Sacrifice was spiritual, made by His obedience and offered once for
all, leaving no other possible or necessary (Heb. ix. 26, x. 5-7, 12).
In i Pet. i. 19, ii. 24, the texts determinative of the Petrine position,
the form under which the Sacrifice is conceived is not sacerdotal and
Levitical, but prophetic and ethical, being, like the Pauline, directly
suggested by the Deutero-Isaiah.
The Apocalypse and the Epistles of John both speak of the piacular
work of Christ, but in neither is it associated with the express recognition
of His Priesthood. The ritual or Levitical formulae are most marked in
the Apocalypse, where of course they are very numerous, as i. 5, v. 6-9, &c.,
and this makes only the more significant the emphatic statement that in
*the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, the only temple is the Lord God
Almighty and the Lamb (xxi. 22). In i John His work is described as
a propitiation (i\a<ry5s), but this is not expressly associated with hierarchic
functions, but rather with those of a person potent in a court of law
(vapaic\r)Tos, ii. 1-2), or of a special apostle or messenger from God
(iv. 10).
(c) The explicit texts here are i Pet. ii. 5, 9 ; Rev. i. 6,
v. 10, xx. 6.
In i Pet. ii. 5 the adjectives are significant : the stones are ' living,' the
house or temple is ' spiritual,' and so are the sacrifices, and the priest-
hood, not as office, but as community, is holy. These seem to emphasize
the apostolic idea as essentially ethical. But even more characteristic is
the mediated nature of the priestly function. The Priesthood does not
stand before God in its own right or by virtue of what it offers, as was
the case of the Levitical priest, or as is the case of the High Priest of
our Confession ; but there is mediation in the relation of these mediators
of the New Covenant. It is a priesthood which He has constituted and
which has nothing worthy of God's acceptance to offer save what comes
from its standing in Christ and its action through Him. It belongs to the
whole people, and its functions are spiritual in character, even as its
temple and sacrifices are. The ' royal priesthood ' of ver. 9 emphasizes
the fact that the community is royal as well as priestly ; and we must
read both qualities as alike real and alike ideal. This is true of the
texts in the Apocalypse, where the kingdom of God is a kingdom of
priests, who live and reign with Christ. The priestly and the royal
functions must be construed in similar terms; both are spiritual, the
society is a kingdom, but its citizens are priests.
4 a, b, c, d] AND DEFINITIONS 29
(d) This priesthood is at once related to Christ's and
distinguished from it. His is causal, it is consequent.
His is personal, it is collective realized in the infinite
multitude of the citizens within His kingdom. His is
real and substantive, the priesthood of one who knew no
sin, and never needed to sacrifice on his own behalf ; theirs
is ideal and figurative, the priesthood of those who have
been by the sacrifice of the Sinless redeemed from their
sins. His as original is creative ; theirs as derivative is
received only from Him, and is incapable of transmission
by its recipient. These are fair inferences from the fact
that their priesthood is traced directly to Him ; but His
to the act and call of God.
DR. SALMOND. (a) The main points, which alone can be
indicated here, are these that His Sacrifice was the
giving of Himself for redemptive ends, voluntarily ; that
in particular it was for the declaration of righteousness
(Rom. iii. 24, &c.), the forgiveness of sin, and the breaking
of the power of sin ; the notes which are most prominent
being those of its reconciling, propitiatory, and expiatory
power, its uniqueness and its perfection.
(b) That it is the one Priesthood in the full and proper
sense of the word, the only one by which men come to
God superior to Aaron's, changeless and of efficacy for
the conscience.
(c) That all His people are priests in the sense that
they can draw near to God by Him, having also their
own peculiar sacrifices to present 'spiritual sacrifices,'
to wit, those of their bodies, praises, prayer, obedience, &c.
(d) The former is related to the latter as consequent
and response.
DR. DAVISON. (a) The Apostles view the sacrifice of Christ
mainly as expiatory for the sin of the world ; secondarily,
30 STATEMENTS [4 a, b, c, d
as self-dedicatory and implying a mystical union between
Himself and believers.
(b) But the idea of the Priesthood of Christ is almost
confined to the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the analogy
between the High Priest of O. T. and the Heavenly
Priesthood of the Saviour is encompassed with difficulty,
if pressed in detail.
(c) The whole Church is (very occasionally) recognized
in N. T. as in a modified and metaphorical sense a
* priesthood,' intended to present only the spiritual ' sacri-
fices ' of self-consecration and thanksgiving (i Pet. ii. 5)
The eucharist is never viewed in N. T. as a sacrifice.
(d) The people of Christ accept and rest in the benefits
o/ the Sacrifice of their Lord, and look to Him as the
only 'Priest' in the full sense of the word in the
Christian religion.
DR. FORSYTH. (a) To God it is atoning and in some true
sense piacular. To man it is feeding and succouring
the source of common life and mutual help vicarious.
(b) His Priesthood unique; abolished all else but what
it might create ; the only medium of communion between
God and man. He was both Priest and Victim, and in
N.T. the name Priest is reserved for Him and no Apostle
claims it or its function.
(c) The priesthood of His people is universal in Him.
Every man in Him is his own priest and pastor other
men may be helps but are not necessaries. The Church
is thus priestly in its nature, but only as a whole, and only
as interceding, working, suffering for men ; it has a com-
munion of the vicarious, but not of the atoning side of
Christ's work. The Church is priestly as being a priest,
not as having priests, and it is priestly more by the
indwelling of Christ's Spirit than by virtue of any com-
mission or transmission.
6] AND DEFINITIONS 31
5. What relation has the idea of the Church as the
Mystical Body of Christ to the ideas of His Priesthood
and Sacrifice?
DR. MOBERLY. Priest and Sacrifice are the very heart's core
of what He became, and is, as Man. The Church, as His
Mystical Body, is wholly made one with His Manhood,
therefore it is wholly made one, par excellence ', with His
Priesthood and Sacrifice.
CANON GORE. The Church is the Body of Christ. Christ
lives, as quickening Spirit, in this body, in order that
the priesthood and sacrifice of man may be realized in
the Church.
CANON BERNARD. To ascribe sacrifice to the Church on
this ground seems to me to be pressing a figurative
presentation of truth beyond the limits to which it is
applicable.
DR. SANDAY. The fundamental question is that just stated
The passages most in point would seem to be John xv.
1-7, xvii. 21-23 ; Rom. vi. 3-11, xii. 4 f. ; I Cor. xil 12-27 ;
Eph. i. 22 f., iv. 1 2-1 6; Col. ii. 19.
It may be observed that the idea of the Church as the Body of Christ
is correlative to the idea of its members as fniaa pivot, 7101, /cXi/rci ayioi.
This character comes to them through the Sacrifice of Christ (Heb. xiii. 12,
x. 10 ; compare Rom. v. 2, &c.).
DR. FAIRBAIRN. I cannot recall a single case where the
idea of the Church as the mystical body of Christ is
associated with the idea of the priesthood. Of course,
His Priesthood and Sacrifice are the causes of its being,
as they are the ground of the Christian redemption as
32 STATEMENTS [5
a whole. But this does not mean that the Church
participated or participates in the acts or functions by
which it was itself created. They make its existence
possible, and so it lives the life of the redeemed rather
than experiences the passion of the Redeemer. Besides,
the idea of the priesthood can be got into the mystical
body an essentially Pauline idea only by conveying
Hebraic forms of thought into the Pauline phraseology.
Further, we must carefully define the sense in which
Sacrifice is here used, whether when predicated of the
body it means sacrificium or sacrificatio. The mystical
body is a body that lives, a resurrection body as it were,
incapable of death, and so incapable of being conceived
or described as a sacrificium.
DR. SALMOND. The designation 'body of Christ' being
applied to the Church by a figure (which also is only
one of various figures so applied), there is no necessary
or intended relation between the two ideas. Figures of
speech are good for illustrative not for dogmatic pur-
poses. This particular figure is introduced in relation
to the existence and use of gifts, but also and especially
in relation to Christ's Headship.
DR. FORSYTH. The relation of the Church to Christ is not
only as a Body but as a Bride. It is not only His organ
but the object of communion by the Spirit flowing entirely
from His death- work. By this the Church enjoys the
benefits of His atonement, and re-echoes the ministering
aspect of His death, both to its own members and to the
world. By this Spirit also the Church worships in the
perpetual fellowship of the Son's obedience to the Father.
But the Christian Church cannot, even by the Holy Ghost,
reproduce the sacrificial act which constituted it the
Sacrifice proper of Christ. The Atonement was not really
6, 6] AND DEFINITIONS 33
made by Christ's body or His sufferings, but by His loving
soul and holy obedient will. Its chief nature was prayer,
which is a function not of body but of soul. The Church,
therefore, in so far as it is Christ's body, can but carry out
what is foregone in Christ's act. Body is not a complete
outward to the Spirit's inward. The Church is Christ's
earthly tabernacle rather than His home. Its priesthood,
therefore, is a real but inferior function of His.
6. Does the idea of Priesthood applied to the Church
reside in the whole body collectively, or in the whole body
ideally, or in individual members of the body?
DR. MOBERLY. In the whole collective body ideally, and
in all its members as sharing in what it is ; but some
individuals are set apart, as others are not, for the public
and corporate representation of its priestliness.
CANON GORE. It resides in the body collectively and in the
individuals, therefore, as rational, personal, members of
the body.
DR. SANDAY. 'St. Peter doubtless meant by lepc&rev/xa not
a mere aggregate of individual priests, but a priestly
community. Such a priesthood is doubtless shared by
each member of the community in due measure, but
only so far as he is virtually an organ of the whole
body ; and the universality of the function is compatible
with variations of mode and degree as to its exercise'
(Hort, i Pet., p. 126). The last sentence appears to
mean that though all are priests, some may be priests
in a fuller and more special sense than others.
D
34 STATEMENTS [6, 7
DR. FAIRBAIRN. The only usage found in the N. T. ascribes
the priesthood to the living stones, whether collectively or
severally, in other words, to the citizens of the kingdom.
DR. SALMOND. In the first instance in the individual
members, each of whom is a priest in the N. T. sense.
In the second instance in the body, in so far as the
individuals are regarded as a whole ; in this sense, there-
fore, in the ' whole body collectively/ but not in the
sense of the whole body institutionally.
DR. DAVISON. If 'Priesthood' in this modified sense be
applied to the Church, the idea resides in the whole
body collectively, and in individuals separately ; but its
meaning is found in that direct access to God which is
now made possible for all believers through Christ the
One true Priest, as they offer the only ' sacrifices ' they
are called to present, viz. themselves, their thanksgivings
and worship generally.
DR. FORSYTH. In the whole body ideally without denying
that it is an ideal having its spiritual reality in Christ.
The priesthood belongs to individuals, not as such, but
in virtue of their incorporation with the spiritual body,
which is, under Christ, the only true priest.
7. Can there be any delegation of the functions of this
Priesthood ?
DR. MOBERLY. Delegation is hardly the right word. There
are some who, for public and corporate purposes, repre-
sent and discharge the priestly functions of the whole.
They must indeed be authorized by a public and minis-
7] AND DEFINITIONS 35
terial action of the body. But their authorization
requires something more than a popular appointment,
whose method might depend upon the unfettered fancy
of the contemporary body. Each generation has a
trusteeship, not an irresponsible ownership ; and must
comply with the conditions which are the guarantee of
continuity.
CANON GORE. The body is an organized whole with
differentiated organs and functions ; and particular organs
of the body (i.e. persons) may be therefore in a special
sense consecrated to priestly ministry by divine appoint-
ment or delegation from the body, or both.
DR. SANDAY. Exception is taken to the words 'delegate,'
'delegation' in this connexion (Moberly, Ministerial
Priesthood, p. 90, with context). And it would seem
that the idea of ' organs ' or ' representatives ' of the
community is more appropriate (see the passage quoted
from Bp. Moberly, ibid., p. 70 ; and for a repudiation of
any idea of 'vicarious action,' a quotation from Canon
Gore, p. 71).
Though an ' organ ' of the whole body the ministry may be a necessary
organ, and the only organ qualified to act for certain purposes (guoad
sacra).
DR. FAIRBAIRN. The priesthood of the Christian man can
be as little delegated as the passion of Christ could have
been delegated. It is of the very essence of his calling
and state ; and it can be neither assigned to another, nor
undertaken by any representative or substitute.
DR. SALMOND. Yes, in the sense that the individual members
may act collectively or corporately, and commit certain
functions or services to particular men with a view to
order, rule, convenience, or public worship.
D 2,
36 STATEMENTS [7, 8 a, b
DR. DAVISON. Properly speaking, No. The minister may
be said to act as ' representative ' or ' organ ' of the whole
body see Dr. Moberly's Ministerial Priesthood^ passim
this is for the sake of church order, and the phrase
' delegation of functions ' is likely to mislead.
DR. FORSYTH. The most priestly function of Christ cannot
be delegated, either by Himself to others, or by those
others again. The words, delegate or representative, are
both misleading, and connote an independence from the
real priestly body, the Church, which is practically un-
happy. It might be better to describe the ministers of
the Church as its organs, which can act only when the
oody is present. The distinctive acts of the ministry
should not be performed apart from the presence of the
Church, were it but of two or three. The Church
should be present in the same bodily sense as the
minister.
8. If there is such delegation, how does it affect (a) those
to whom the functions are delegated; (b) those to whom
they are not delegated ? Is the Priesthood of the Church
affected by the delegation?
DR. MOBERLY. (a) Those set apart have all their lives and
powers consecrated to the public representation of the
priestly character, and the enactment of the functions
which express and embody it.
(b) Those not set apart have no authorization to
represent the corporate priesthood publicly in relation
to a congregation. Yet their lives too (according to
their different professions and opportunities) are to be
animated by, and illustrative of, its spirit.
8 a, b, C, 9] AND DEFINITIONS 37
(c) The Priesthood of the Church is itself, for all
public or corporate purposes, expressed, uttered, and
exercised, necessarily and only through those who are
authorized to be the Church's instruments for the
purpose.
CANON GORE. Such delegation enables the body to express
its priestliness corporately. Those to whom such delega-
tion is not made obviously do not become thereby less
priestly, as members of the priestly body.
DR. SANDAY. That there should be this marking off of
certain organs for certain definite purposes is strictly
in accordance with the analogies of civil society (e.g.
the judicature, the army, &c.). Though the whole body
acts through the organs, it does not follow that every
member of the body can make himself an organ when
and as he wills (Heb. v. I, 4).
DR. SALMOND. (a] Only in respect of distinction of office
or particularity of service.
(b) In no sense implying that by their act of com-
mittal they part with any power proper to them, or
become the servants of those to whom they make the
delegation.
No.
0. What is the fundamental signification of the Laying
on of Hands P Does it involve Transmission ? And if so,
what is transmitted ?
DR. MOBERLY. Its fundamental significance is the conferring
of a blessing from God, or an appeal to God for the
conferring of a blessing. It does not, per se, involve
transmission. But blessing for ministerial office cannot
38 STATEMENTS [9
be (divinely) conferred without it, nor conferred except
by those who have received authority for conferring.
Thus (in regard of ministry) transmission of authorization
comes to be inseparably connected with it.
CANON GORE. In tJie Christian Church the normal significa-
tion for the laying on of hands is the transmission of
a divine gift lodged in the body whether pardon or
strength or authority of some kind.
CANON BERNARD. In its 'fundamental signification' it
designates the person on whom hands are laid as the object
commended in prayer to Divine favour and assistance.
* It does not involve transmission, but it is obvious that
the supposition would naturally arise, whenever this sym-
bolical action was used in connexion with bestowal of
authority or appointment to office.
DR. SANDAY. Does not the laying on of hands in blessing
tell against the idea of transmission ? The good things
invoked were not first possessed by him who invokes
them : they are in the hands of God, and the blessing is
a petition that He may bestow them.
There might seem to be more ground for the idea in
connexion with miracles of healing: and the popular
idea probably was that vital power passed from the
healer to the healed. But here, too, there is a Divine
intervention in answer to prayer, expressed or implied.
So that it would seem on the whole best to explain
these instances in the same way as in blessing. All
forms of laying on of hands will then fall into the
same category.
DR. FAIRBAIRN. The priesthood of the Christian man is
quite independent of the laying on of hands, and is as
incapable of transmission as of delegation.
0] AND DEFINITIONS 39
DR. SALMOND. That of a symbolical act, of ancient use in
solemn acts of prayer and benediction, and in the public
setting apart of men to office. It transmits nothing.
It is part of the transaction which sets apart, accompany-
ing the word of prayer which ordains and invokes
blessing.
DR. DAVISON. The action of laying on of hands is sym-
bolical only. It is appropriate as implying, Godward
a prayer for blessing ; manward a commission to teach
and fill a certain office.
There is no ' transmission ' of specific grace or power.
DR. FoRSYTH. It is a symbol, and not a channel, of con-
secration. Nothing is transmitted. It is an expressive
and impressive concomitant to prayer of ordination
specially so in the case of a personal relation as between
Paul and Timothy. It was not used by Christ as an
official act. Neither St. Paul nor St. Matthew had it ;
and the idea of transmission of spiritual faculty by it
is outside the genius of the Christian idea, and too easily
becomes magical.
The following note has been communicated by DR. DRIVER.
To lay (more exactly, to lean or rest) the hands upon
by offerer on head of wr/-offering (Exod. xxix. 15, Lev. i. 4, viii. 18,
Num. viii. 12) ; of/a-offering (Lev. iii. a, 8, 13, viii. 22, Exod. xxix.
19) ; of '-offering (Lev. iv. 4, 15, 24, 29, 33, viii. 14, Exod. xxix. 10,
2 Chron. xxix. 23).
by high priest on head of scape-goat, when confessing the people's
iniquities (Lev. xvi. 21).
by witnesses on head of blasphemer (Lev. xxiv. 14 ; cf. Susanna, v. 34).
by people on head of Levites to be admitted to menial services in the
sanctuary (Num. viii. 10).
by Moses on head of Joshua, when instituted formally as his successor
(Num. xxvii. 18, 23, Deut. xxxiv. 9).
The idea of the ceremony appears to be the solemn and deliberate
appropriation of an object, coupled with its assignation to a particular
40 STATEMENTS [9, 10
purpose 1 , by the person performing it (so e.g. Oehler, 0. T. Theol.,
126, a ; Keil on Lev. i. 4; Dillmann on Lev. i. 4, xxiv. 14, &c.).
It symbolized also the transference of the purpose, or intention,
actuating the agent, or (Oehler) 'die Zueignung dessen, was der Handelnde
dem Andern vermoge der ihm zustehenden Machtvollkommenheit zuer-
kannt.' Dillmann's words are, 'der eine theilt dem andem etwas zu,
genauer : bezeichnet, bestimmt, und erklart ihn damit, als den, auf
welchen er etwas iibertragt oder hinuberleitet, und wendet dieses ihm
zu.' Ewald (Alt. 58) : ' a symbolical transmission (in the case of Moses
and Joshua) of the whole spirit of a man upon the one whom he deems
worthy of his blessing and highest commands ; and (in the case of sacrifice)
of all the feeling which must fill the worshipper at such a moment on to
the creature whose blood is about to be spilt and, as it were, go before
God for him.'
In Lev. xxiv. 14 the idea seems to be that the witnesses were in a way
responsible for a misdeed which they had witnessed, until they disowned
the guilt themselves by solemnly attaching it to the offender. In Num.
viii. 10 the people mark out the Levites as their representatives for various
menial services. In Num. xxvii. 18 Joshua is marked out by the rite as
Moses' successor : whether the following ' command or commission
him,' and 'put some of thy dignity upon him,' are involved in the
ceremony, or are something additional to it, is not clearly indicated.
All the instances are quoted in which the ceremony is referred to.
It is not enjoined in the ordination of priests.
In Gen. xlviii. 14 the Heb. word is simply place or put, not the more
formal lean or rest.
The ceremony does seem to symbolize the transmission, or delegation,
of a moral character or quality, or of responsibility or authority (or, of
power to represent another).
10. What was the original authority of the Apostles ?
Has that authority in any way descended to those who
came after them ?
FATHER PULLER. Our Lord said: 'As the Father hath
sent (aTT&TaXKev) Me, even so send (W/wro)) I you/ Bishop
Westcott says : ' The mission of Christ is here regarded
1 Or, in one word, dedication : but (i) many things were ' dedicated ' in
which this ceremony was not used ; and (ii) ' dedication ' hardly suits
Lev. xvi. 21, xxiv. 14. So perhaps this word (or 'consecration') is
better avoided.
10] AND DEFINITIONS 41
... in the permanence of its effects (hath sent}. The
form of the fulfilment of Christ's mission was now to be
changed, but the mission itself was still continued and
still effective. The Apostles Were commissioned to carry
on Christ's work, and not to begin a new one. Their
office was an application of His office according to the
needs of men.' Now Christ had been sent to be the
Messianic Prophet and Priest and King. The Apostles
were therefore commissioned to carry on, in subordination
to Him, prophetic, priestly, and kingly work. The
Apostolic ministry has succeeded into the place of the
Apostles, and carries on their prophetic, priestly, and
kingly work. Compare St. Matt, xxviii. 20 ; and see
Godet on St. Luke xii. 41-48.
DR. MOBERLY. Their authority was the authority of living
messengers and representatives of Christ, chosen, trained,
sent, and empowered by Himself. As no one since has
been exactly this, no one (in the nature of things) has
wielded the fullness of Apostolic authority. Yet in its
main administrative and representative functions it was
carefully handed on by them to those whom they thought
fittest, with provision for its authoritative devolution
for ever.
CANON GORE. Their authority was that of witnesses of
Christ 's Resurrection, stewards of divine truths, founders
and rulers of the society, and ministers of divine gifts.
In all these respects (but in a changed sense so far
as touches the words in italics) their office has been
perpetuated in the Christian ministry.
CANON BERNARD. The primary work of the Apostles was
to be chosen witnesses and authorized depositories of the
Gospel, that is to say, of what Christ had taught and
42 STATEMENTS [10
done. From this flowed the authority which they exercised.
The office was thus of an exceptional nature, and by its
very conditions it could not continue.
DR. SANDAY. The Apostles appear to have had a large, but
in great part undefined, authority. The most explicit
passage is John xx. 2,2, f. On the other hand, Eph. ii. 20,
and Rev. xxi. 14, are not explicit. Both seem to be
susceptible of the interpretation put upon the first by
Hort (' He had in mind the historical order of the actual
structure and growth of the Ecclesia itself, not any
authority over the Ecclesia,' Rom. and Eph., p. 146).
The question is complicated by the double ambiguity,
(^ as to the relation of St. Paul to the Twelve, and (ii) as
to the relation of ' Apostles ' in the narrower sense, and
in the wider (as in the Didack^). No doubt the Twelve,
the Twelve + St. Paul, and the whole class of ' Apostles,'
all exercised a high authority; but it is not clear that
this authority was a formal jurisdiction intended to be
handed on from generation to generation. The facts may
perhaps be described in that way, but not necessarily ;
and there is danger of resting too much upon a formal
scheme, rather than upon the living work of the Spirit.
DR. FAIRBAIRN. The Apostles never claimed any priestly
authority, and so could not speak of it ' descending to
those who came after them.'
DR. SALMOND. The original authority of the Twelve in the
character of Apostles is given most definitely in Mark iii.
14, &c. It is given again at a later stage, and with a
larger scope, in Matt, xxviii. 19. Other passages (Matt,
xvi. 19, xviii. 18 ; John xx. 32, &c.) refer less clearly to
the Apostles as such and exclusively. I see no evidence
of a descent of the authority in question to other
individuals.
10] AND DEFINITIONS 43
DR. DAVISON. The Eleven derived their commission from
Christ, Matthias from a special election, Paul by direct
commission from the glorified Lord, in each case to
proclaim and diffuse the message of the Gospel (see
Dr. Hort's Eccksia). No specific authority to appoint
others was included in this commission.
They had not, nor were they intended to have,
successors. They were instrumental in founding a living
Church, with power to organize itself.
DR. FORSYTH. They were (i) witnesses, (2) intimate dis-
ciples, (3) missionaries and Church founders. They had
a natural and historic authority in the first Church, due
to their personal education by Christ, and their prestige
of personal association with Him. Their real authority
lay, not in their inspiration but in their Revelation, not in
their standing but in their word which was mightier in
St. Paul than in the Twelve. The Apostles were not
priests, but missionaries bent on the extension more than
the rule of the Church ; whereas the bishop is an ad-
ministrator and not an apostle. The authority of the
Apostles was not transmitted their personal contact
with Christ could not be except as in St. Paul's sense,
and that was not transmission, but a fresh call. The
pastoral office was quite distinct, and grew out of the
Church's needs and the Spirit's wisdom. The ministry
is but the virtual, not the official, successor of the
Apostles, i.e. they are such in virtue of the same word
of the Gospel, and not of institutional continuity.
44 STATEMENTS [ll
11. Supposing that there are some to whom the functions
of Priesthood belong in a sense in which they do not belong
to others, should not a distinction be drawn between the
historical question as to the process by which this condition
of things has arisen, and the theoretical question as to the
place which it holds in the whole Christian economy ?
How are the historical and the theoretic questions related
to each other?
DR. MOBERLY. For purposes of analysis and investigation
the distinction is an important one. But unless the
theoretical is the interpretation of the historical, and
the historical is the witness and embodiment of the
theoretical, the Church must have been on the wrong
lines from the very beginning. For those who refuse to
accept such a conclusion, the two are but distinguishable
aspects of one fact.
CANON GORE. The distinction should be drawn, but the
two questions meet in the principle, that only those can
fulfil any office in the Church who have been appointed
to fulfil it by an authority mediately or immediately
apostolic.
DR. SANDAY. I should answer the first part of this question
in the affirmative.
As to the second I would suggest a caution. It does
not follow that we can always treat the end of a process
of evolution as in itself supplying the simple and sufficient
interpretation of the process. It marks the result which
God has willed but rather in the general sense in which
all that happens is His will than in the particular sense
that either the end attained or the operative causes are
11, 12] AND DEFINITIONS 45
wholly such as He would approve. We must allow for
the element of human free-will and human error, with
the consequent mixture of good and evil.
DR. SALMOND. Granting the supposition, the distinction is
both just and important. The historical question is the
first and fundamental question, and only in the light
of it can the theoretical question be scientifically handled.
DR. FORSYTH. The theory of the ministry should be drawn
from the principle of Christ's priestly work (i. e. of
Redemption) and of His Church, and not from the
principle of any explicit commission given by Christ
to an Apostolic order.
12. What parts of the historical problem at the present
moment seem most to need further elucidation P
CANON GORE. The spare use of priestly terms for the
ministry in the N.T. ; the position of the prophets;
the development of ' *#0episcopacy.'
DR. SANDAY. The critical points would seem to be : (i) the
exact nature of Apostolic authority (on which something
has been said above) ; (ii) the transition from the
extraordinary ' gifts ' to the settled regular ministry ;
(iii) the like transition from the plural to the singular
episcopate.
DR. SALMOND. The history of the office of the ' Apostle,'
its idea, functions, and fortunes outside the Canonical
literature. The earliest history also of the eucharist;
together with the question of the first functions of the
, and the source of the term.
46 STATEMENTS [12, 13
DR. FORSYTH. Perhaps the rise of the Catholic Church out
of the N. T. Church in the sub- Apostolic age.
13. Of what parts of the theoretical problem may the
same be said?
DR. SANDAY. The points on which I should myself most
desire further light would be : (i) the relation of the
moral element in Sacrifice to the ceremonial (this has
beW alluded to under 1. (b\ but comes up elsewhere) ;
(ii) the point at which the language of Sacrifice and
Priesthood becomes metaphorical ; (iii) the extent to
which the Church and the ministry of the Church can
be said to be identified with the Priesthood and Offering
of Christ through the Mystical Union ; (iv) the relation
of the ' prophetic inspiration ' (which I believe to have
been at work in varying degrees all through the history
of the Church) to the regular official ministry.
DR. FAIRBAIRN. The parts of the theoretical problem that
seem to me most in need of elucidation are these : the
ideas of the priest, of the sacrifice, of the relation of
the priest to the sacrifice, of the relation of the sacrifice
to God who receives it, and those on whose behalf it
is offered ; and of the relation of these complex notions
to the Church and Kingdom of God as conceived in
the N.T.
DR. SALMOND. The precise place and worth of ' succession,'
' descent,' ' devolution,' and the precise relation of ' priest '
and ' minister ' to the Christian people.
13, 14] AND DEFINITIONS 47
DR. FORSYTH. The relation between the sacrifice of Christ
and the sacrifice of the Church in worship or work.
Also the relation between the individual priesthood of
the believer and the corporate priesthood of the Church
with special reference to the right of public ministry.
14. If there is a Ministerial Priesthood under the New
Covenant, can it rightly be described as a Sacrificing
Priesthood P
FATHER PULLER. There can, I think, be no doubt that the
ministerial priesthood under the New Covenant can rightly
be described as a sacrificing priesthood. To speak of
a non-sacrificing priesthood would appear to me to be
a misuse of terms.
DR. MOBERLY. Yes. The phrase, if properly understood, is
certainly not untrue. But it is a blunt phrase, in itself not
unlikely to mislead, and in use too nearly identified with
misconceptions of the truth, which it is important to
correct.
CANON GORE. Yes : if the terms are rightly defined. The
function of the episcopate ' to offer the gifts ' is widely
accepted in the first century (Clement and Didacht}.
But the important matter is to keep the function of
the ministry in its right relation of subordination to
Christ and to the Body.
48 STATEMENTS [14
CANON BERNARD. There is a Ministerial Priesthood, in the
sense of an office whereby the congregation is represented
towards God. But it has no sacrifices to offer other than
those of the devotions, alms, and self-surrender of the
congregation.
I think, moreover, that nothing is gained by the attempt
to represent the whole of man's religious life in the garb
of ' sacrifice.' The clothes are too small for the body.
DR. SANDAY. See above, on 3 (c), 5-8.
DR. SALMOND. No. It could be so called only by imposing
ap unwonted sense on the term, which would be a
misleading sense.
DR. DAVISON. The Ministerial Office is not 'priestly' in
the proper sense of the word (see above). If the term
be admitted in a modified sense, it is not a 'sacrificing
priesthood.' The distinction between the meanings of
'priest' and 'sacrifice' above indicated is fundamental
and vital.
DR. FORSYTH. In a sense, but better not ; more misleading
than useful. The priesthood makes no sacrifice but what
the Church makes, and neither makes the Sacrifice which
Christ did. The word suggests a distinction between the
sacrifice of the ministry and those of the whole Church ;
or else it absorbs the latter in the former.
15] AND DEFINITIONS 49
15. How far is the Early Church to be determinative
to-day of the questions discussed under the above heads,
and what are the limits which we ought to assign to the
determinative period P
DR. MOBERLY. In principle it may be said that
1. The corporate life and its history are an interpre-
tative comment upon the revelation, and inseparable
from it. In Canon Gore's words : ' You cannot tear the
N. T. out of the mind of the Church as expressed from
the first.'
2. All later developments or advances, of whatever
kind, must be really developments not reversals of what
was deliberately and universally accepted. They must
not constitute a real breach with their own past, by
running counter to it and condemning it ; but must
be advances along and in continuity with the really
deliberate conviction and agreement of the earlier centuries.
No definite limit of date is to be drawn. But appeal
to the Church before her great disruptions (and par-
ticularly to formal (Ecumenical decisions within that
period) will always, of necessity, be of more argumentative
weight, and of more universal application, than appeal to
any portion of the divided Church.
CANON GORE. You cannot tear the N. T. out of the mind of
the Church as expressed from the first. The generally
expressed mind of the Church, especially of the earliest
tradition, reasonably determines the ambiguities of the
N. T. documents. But no definite limits to the 'Early
Church' can be assigned.
CANON BERNARD. The teaching and practice of the Early
Church is not, of itself, determinative of these questions,
but must be carefully compared with the N.T., regard
being had to the general principles laid down therein,
and to its silences as well as to its statements.
E
50 STATEMENTS [15
DR. SANDAY. If Priesthood is a permanent institution, the
question need not be asked for our present purpose,
except as affecting the form of the Christian Ministry.
This was sufficiently determined by the date of the
Ignatian Letters (c. no A. D.), which does not seem too
long to allow the principles at work in the Apostolic Age
properly to declare themselves.
DR. FAIRBAIRN. The Church of the N. T. is the standard
by which the questions here agitated ought to be dis-
cussed and determined. The later Church may supply
illustrative material for the interpretation of the earlier,
but has no claim to be regarded as either a witness to its
constitution and beliefs, or a standard for ours.
[I regret that time has compelled me to pass over questions 11, 12 and 14,
and to handle all, and especially the later ones, more briefly and superficially
than I could have wished. What is submitted is matter for discussion,
not reasoned judgements. A. M. F.]
DR. SALMOND. Scripture, the original authority, is the only
determining authority, not the Early Church. The voice
of the latter is the voice of testimony, not of authority.
DR. DAVISON. Appeal lies to N. T. alone as authoritative ;
the usage of the Early Church is 'determinative' of
nothing. But historical evidence drawn from the de-
velopment of doctrine during the first three centuries
is very instructive, and the introduction of certain ideas
on the subject of priesthood and sacrifice by Cyprian,
and in the early part of the third century, contrasts with
the prevailing tone of the sub-Apostolic age, and the
greater part of the second century (see Bp. Lightfoot's
Essay, and the writings of the Fathers in question).
DR. FORSYTH. The praxis of the Early Church settles little
(else the Baptists are right). Its precise views and
doctrines are fontal, but not necessarily final. But its
revelation, its principle, the ideas embodied in its central
15] AND DEFINITIONS 51
fact of Christ and His cross, its spirit and Gospel of
Redemption are final, and must slowly subdue all foreign
elements to themselves. The period, broadly speaking,
would be the first century, but not necessarily the whole
N. T. Canon.
The following Memorandum was circulated privately by
Archdeacon Wilson.
SACRIFICE AND PRIESTHOOD.
To the Members of our Private Conference.
DEAR SIR,
I find myself unable to meet Professor Sanday's
wish by sending brief answers to his questions. I can only
answer them in some such form as follows. I submit my
reply to your perusal with every possible respect and
deference, and with the conviction that no good can come
from our Conference unless we are perfectly frank with one
another.
I remain,
Yours faithfully,
J. M. WILSON.
It would seem that we may enter on a discussion on this
subject with widely divergent fundamental postulates, latent
or formulated ; and that it is advisable to attempt to state
them explicitly. One way of expressing them is as follows :
see A and B,
A. We assume that the Canon of the New Testament
and the tradition of the early Church taken jointly, if they
could be critically and historically ascertained and established,
and shown to be reasonably unanimous (exceptis excipiendis\
E 2,
52 STATEMENTS
constitute a final and permanent authority, not only as to the
historical fact what the immediate followers of Christ and
their successors thought and arranged in the matter of Church
Government, but as to the absolute and ideal truth for all ages
of the relations of God to man through a ministry as revealed
by Christ.
The assumption is, in brief, that in the historical facts
of what was done or thought lies the solution, not of historical
development only, but of theological truth.
A similar assumption was made in the age of Protestant
Scholasticism after the Reformation. The Church then
hoped, by exhaustive discussion of the Bible, to find one
complete system of doctrine to which all reasonable people
must *assent, as the revelation of Christ. Some men now
indulge a similar hope as to the authority and power of a
priesthood.
The questions laid before our Conference appear to be
framed chiefly with this underlying assumption, although this
method has hitherto failed to elicit such unanimity.
B. We assume that the fact of our Lord's conferring on
his Apostles, and on the whole Church, the gift of the Holy
Spirit, and promising His own perpetual Presence wherever
men gather in His Name, as it assures the Church of a
perpetual advance into the clearer interpretation of His Mind
and Will, so also it gives to every generation the indefeasible
right of self-government and adjustment to needs ; and bids
us look for the absolute and ideal truth respecting the
function of a ministry in each age, not as something to be
extracted solely from the thoughts of the past, but as some-
thing to be won by patient truth-seeking, and by lives led in
the spirit of Christ.
This assumption is, in brief, that history and criticism play
only a subsidiary, though highly important, part in approxi-
mating to ideal theological truth. The supreme part is taken
AND DEFINITIONS 53
by the religious insight of the living Church guided to use
rightly all that is subsidiary.
Now these two assumptions are mutually exclusive. It
makes all the difference whether the results of history and
criticism are regarded as final or subsidiary in settling the
problems. They may be in a very high degree subsidiary ;
they may constitute an essential factor; but that does not
make them final.
To disregard the working systems of the past, and treat
everything as an open question and it is in such terms as
these that the view put forward in B will be caricatured by
some is sheer individualism, utterly unhistorical in spirit, and
leads to dissolution. But to treat the conceptions of priest-
hood and sacrifice that were held in any age of the Church
as so authoritative as to compel us to read the N. T. and
interpret Christ Himself in their light is a mistake that blinds
the eyes to the meaning of the Incarnation itself, and hardens
the line of division among Christians.
Those who enter on this discussion with the second assump-
tion are unable to read the records of the Church in other
than an historic spirit ; such and such were the sayings of
Christ transmitted by the memories of His followers, and
grouped by them in accordance with their conception of His
Person and Revelation. Such and such were the thoughts
of Apostolic and sub-Apostolic men, or the belief of others
as to their thoughts. Such and such were the organizations
of churches and their ministries, that grew up under such
and such intellectual and civil and spiritual influences: but
not, such and such then is for ever and for all the world the
absolute truth and the Will of Jesus Christ and the Law of
God.
With these preliminary remarks I attempt to answer the
questions proposed. I approach them from the point of view
indicated in B.
54 STATEMENTS
i. Is it possible to define the idea of Sacrifice
(a) In religion in general ?
(b) In the Old Testament (history, prophecy, and
worship) ?
(c) In the New Testament ?
I leave (a) and (b} unanswered, not at all as unimportant,
but as only remotely bearing on the point I wish to bring
out. The reply to (c) would seem to be that Christ, by His
manifestation of His own relationship to God, and by His
revelation of the Presence of the Divine Life in man, that
is by His Incarnation, transformed the whole idea of sacrifice,
and showed the spiritual reality; of which all that went
before* was an obscure and temporary symbol.
The root-idea of sacrifice henceforth for Christians is 'I
come to do Thy will, O my God ' (Heb. x. 7). It is a mere
incident in our service that, human nature being what it is,
so perverted by sin, our service of God sometimes involves
suffering much and giving up much. Christ's death on the
cross was an incident in His perfect Service of God. (I do
not, of course, say that this exhausts the effect of the Death
of Christ.)
The idea, then, of sacrifice in the Kingdom of Heaven as
taught in the New Testament is SERVICE. ' I come to do
Thy will ' to do it, cost what it may : obedience is the true
Xarpeia.
There is one book in the New Testament, the Epistle to
the Hebrews, written expressly and explicitly to teach the
new and Christian idea of sacrifice. ' He taketh away the
first, that He may establish the second.' And the second is
service. Westcott paraphrases it as 'the fulfilment of the
divine will by rational self-devotion. 1 ' Wherefore we, receiv-
ing a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace
whereby we may SERVE GOD acceptably with reverence
and godly fear' (xii. 28). I suppose men's minds are differently
constituted. To me this is the plainest lesson in the Bible.
AND DEFINITIONS 55
a. Is there
(a) A generic idea of Priesthood ; and, if so, what are
the elements and functions necessary to it ?
(b) A specific Christian idea ; and, if so, what are its
specific characters ?
(a) The generic idea of Priesthood is based on the assump-
tion that certain channels (e. g. places, times, persons, rites, &c.)
exist through which the eternal and the temporal normally
meet. An order of persons is regarded as indispensable to
these channels, and such an order is a Priesthood.
(b) The specific Christian idea of Priesthood is that Christ
Himself is the channel of Grace and Truth to the world, ' the
new and living way'; and that the Divine life, dormant in
every one, but waked into consciousness through the revela-
tion made by Christ, is in itself, for every individual the
point in which the eternal and the temporal meet. However
useful and honourable a ministry of the Sacraments and
teaching and service may be for bringing men within reach
of the Gospel that awakes the Divine life, and for assisting
their spiritual growth, an order of persons controlling for
others the channels of the Divine life is not conceivable,
under the revelation of Christ.
3. What was the teaching of our Lord Himself
(a) As to the priestly idea ?
(b) As to His own Priesthood and Sacrifice ?
(c) As to any perpetuation and transmission of these in
His Church?
I think that the answers above given convey the substance
and purpose of our Lord's teaching, seen in due proportion,
and separated from the language and illustrations and meta-
phors in which, of necessity, coming in that age and nation,
He taught His hearers, and in which they transmitted His
teaching.
56 STATEMENTS
4. What is the Apostolic teaching
(a) As to the Sacrifice of Christ ?
(b) As to His Priesthood?
(c) As to the Priesthood of His people ?
(d) As to the relation of this Priesthood, if there be any,
to His, and to His Sacrifice ?
The same answer, mutatis mutandis, may be made as in 3.
The fundamental idea is service and SELF-CONSECRA-
TION. Constant and inevitable references are made to the
current ideas of God, and of a Covenant, and of the Jewish
Priesthood and sacrifices ; but the new relation to God, which
constituted the Gospel, is now a spiritual union with God,
reveiJed by Christ and in Him, existing * through an eternal
Spirit,' and issuing in loving service and self-consecration.
The explicit teaching of the Epistle to the Hebrews is in
accordance with this view. I regard it as Apostolic. This
Epistle also tells us that ' Christ abideth a priest continually,'
and thus teaches that no new priesthood is necessary.
5. What relation has the idea of the Church as the Mystical
Body of Christ to the ideas of His Priesthood and
Sacrifice ?
The Mystical Body of Christ is all humanity in so far as
it is animated by the Spirit of Christ. The members of the
Church, consciously called to represent Christ, necessarily, so
far as they are thus animated, live the life of service that
is sacrifice ; and of consecration that is priesthood, which
marked Christ's earthly life. Priesthood and sacrifice are
thus of the same nature in us as in Him.
6. Does the idea of Priesthood applied to the Church
reside in the whole body collectively, or in the whole
body ideally, or in individual members of the body ?
Priesthood, being the consecration to a life of service, is
a mark, or should be a mark, of the Church collectively,
AND DEFINITIONS 57
and of its members individually; and, of course, of the
Church ideally.
7. Can there be any delegation of the functions of this
Priesthood ?
There can be no delegation of the duty of this life of self-
consecration and service. Other functions, of administering
the sacraments, of teaching, service, government, &c,, may
be delegated to a ministry; but not these which are the
characteristic functions of a Christian Priesthood.
8. If there is such delegation, how does it affect
(a] Those to whom the functions are delegated ?
(b) Those to whom they are not delegated? Is the
priesthood of the Church affected by this delegation ?
The belief in the possibility of the delegation of an exclu-
sive possession of the channels of grace and pardon may have
served, and may, among backward races, still serve, useful
temporary purposes of discipline ; but it has also produced
obvious and serious evils in both classes. To this belief
are due the worst elements in the Roman Catholic Church,
and some real dangers in our own. The delegation of ministry
and office to duly appointed persons in no way affects the
priesthood of the Church.
9. What is the fundamental significance of the Laying on
of Hands? Does it involve transmission; and, if so,
what is transmitted ?
The laying on of hands is a symbol of prayer, of blessing,
and of delegation of authority. It is a recognition of the
continuity of the presence of the Spirit of Christ from one
generation to the next. It is further a public recognition
of individuals by a solemn act which localizes and symbolizes
the prayers of the society that God will continue His gifts
and His presence in the Church.
58 STATEMENTS
It is a transmission of authority to teach, to administer
the sacraments, and to do certain acts, by those who have
been themselves authorized by the society both to exercise
and to transmit that authority.
10. What was the original authority of the Apostles? Has
that authority in any way descended to those who come
after them ?
The Twelve, and others like St. James and St. Paul, had
of course the authority of witnesses, and of our Lord's direct
commission to teach. They had conceded to them, as a
matter of course, the further authority to guide and mould
the new society as circumstances then required.
The dbthority to teach and govern is permanently inherent
in the Church as a whole ; and by analogy with civil govern-
ment, and from the necessity of order and continuity of
doctrine, the exercise of that authority has been for eighteen
centuries normally vested in the historic episcopate, acting
for and in the name of the whole Church, and appointed in
such way as the Church approves.
11. Supposing that there are some to whom the functions
of Priesthood belong in a sense in which they do not
belong to others, should not a distinction be drawn
between the historical question as to the process by
which this condition of things has arisen and the theo-
retical question as to the place which it holds in the
whole Christian economy ? How are the historical and
the theoretic questions related to each other ?
By a confusion of ideas, inevitable in a Church which
has been so much influenced by Paganism as well as by
Judaism, orders of ministry which are essential for the
conduct of worship, for teaching, for the preservation of
orthodoxy, and for government, arising on the analogies of
the synagogues and of civil government, have at some stage
AND DEFINITIONS 59
in their development been identified with a priesthood con-
nected with a temple, and supposed to be an exclusive
channel of approach to God, and have acquired its asso-
ciations. The historical questions concern, firstly, the growth
of the orders of the Church ministry and of government,
and their local variations: and secondly, the develop-
ment of the theoretic or theological views as to the spiritual
power of this ministry in controlling the Divine Grace.
These questions are entirely distinct ; and the truth of any
theoretic idea of the spiritual power of the ministry is not
to be established by the enumeration of those who at various
times have accepted it. How to give due weight, and not
excessive weight, to the opinions held by saintly men of
the past on this question is, in my judgement, the most
difficult of historical questions, and one on which confidence
is not a mark of wisdom.
The historical conclusions, both as to facts and opinions,
can only be subsidiary to the theological question. They
tell us only what at certain times and places some men did
and taught ; not what is for ever right and true for the Church
to do and teach.
12. What parts of the historical problem at the present
moment seem most to need further elucidation ?
(i) The intellectual or other influences which in an early
age caused the transference into the Christian ministry of
the ideas of what was originally separate from it, the Jewish
or pagan priesthood ; and (2) those influences which in the
present age are making this transference again acceptable to
a certain type of mind, and impossible to others.
13. Of what parts of the theoretical problem may the same
be said ?
The theoretical problem needs to be stated. I am not
quite sure what is meant. When stated, however, it will,
I think, be seen to be unanswerable.
60 STATEMENTS
There is the permanent contrast in human nature between
two types of minds ; between the priest and the prophet ;
between tradition and illumination ; between those who value
continuity, order, orthodoxy most, as a means of securing
to the world and themselves an approach to God, and those
who, conscious of a direct approach to God, and valuing
supremely the life of the Spirit within, place continuity and
all externals in the second place. It is the contrast of the
logician and the philosopher, of the ecclesiastic and the
mystic. The only hope of union, or even of mutual under-
standing, is in each of these types endeavouring to under-
stand, to appreciate, to emulate the characteristic excellencies
of the other. The two types are not irreconcilable, if the
ecclesiastic is content to urge the value of continuity as a
security, and because of its influence on the minds of men,
and foregoes dogmatism as to its exclusive possession of
God's gifts of grace ; and if the mystic will accept it as his-
torically proven that his mind and temperament is not a
measure of those of all men, and that the most loyal adherence
to a Church system, as highly expedient, is compatible with
utter simplicity and piety and humility.
14. If there is a Ministerial Priesthood under the New
Covenant, can it be rightly described as a Sacrificing
Priesthood ?
The phrases Ministerial Priesthood and New Covenant
should be avoided unless they are carefully defined in a
Christian sense. Such a ministry as is contemplated in the
New Testament is a ministry of teaching, and worship, and
governing, but is not a sacrificing priesthood, except in the
sense above described; it is a body of representatives of
the Church specially consecrated to the life of service. In
that sense it is both ministerial and a priesthood.
15. How far is the Early Church to be determinative to-
day of the questions discussed under the above heads?
AND DEFINITIONS 6l
And what are the limits which we ought to assign to
the determinative period ?
No limit can be assigned to the age which may be studied
as throwing light on the elements in human nature which
have introduced modes of thought or customs into the growth
of the idea of the Church as it existed in the mind of Christ.
But no age is determinative for us. We have to ascertain
the idea of Christ Himself; and a study of Church traditions
may obscure as well as illuminate that idea. From the New
Testament and especially from the Gospels, we must always
derive correctives to those idola which haunt us ; ever striving
to see the spiritual beneath the visible ; the eternal beneath
the temporal ; and to adapt our visible or temporal forms of
thought and worship, in our own age, so as best to lead our
generation to a knowledge of the spiritual and the eternal.
To conclude
If any agreement can be come to on these subjects, it must
be on some basis broad enough for both types of mind to
stand upon ; and each type must be willing to allow the other
to stand by its side and not try to push it off. Can we agree
that the Christian idea of sacrifice is the spiritual sacrifice
of ' ourselves, our souls and bodies ' ; and that the one con-
summate sacrifice is that of Christ's own humbling Himself,
giving up His glory, taking the form of man, and dying the
death of the Cross? Can we agree that each Christian is
pledged to offer a similar sacrifice of self-consecration to God,
and is therefore verily a priest ? And can we agree, finally,
that the Ministry of the Church of Christ is the representative
of the whole Church, bound even more than others to the life
of service and self-consecration, and bound to show forth the
Lord's death, by symbol, by word, by life, till He come ?
62 THE CONFERENCE
III
THE CONFERENCE
THE time-table of the proceedings will give a sufficient
idea of the manner in which the Conference was conducted.
With the exception of Mr. Headlam, Ex-Fellow, and
Mr. Lang, Fellow, of All Souls who stayed in their own
College, the non-resident members of the Conference were
entertained at Christ Church and at Mansfield College ; and
the meetings for business were pleasantly interspersed with
social gatherings in which all took part.
TIME TABLE.
Tuesday \ December 12.
Dine at Christ Church (Dr. Sanday), 7.30.
Wednesday, December 13.
Preliminaries, 10-10.15.
First Discussion (Questions i, 2), 10.15-1245.
PRESUPPOSITIONS OF NEW TESTAMENT DOCTRINE.
Definitions of Sacrifice and Priesthood.
Relation of the Ceremonial Element in Sacrifice and
Priesthood to the Moral.
Bearing of Old Testament Doctrine.
Lunch, 1.15.
Tea (at Christ Church), 345.
Second Discussion (Questions 3, 4), 4-6.30.
NEW TESTAMENT DOCTRINE OF SACRIFICE AND PRIESTHOOD.
The Sacrifice and Priesthood of Christ
Silences of the New Testament
THE CONFERENCE 63
What means are there of distinguishing between Metaphor
and substantial Reality ?
Dine at Christ Church (Dr. Moberly and Dr. Sanday), 7.30.
Thursday, December 14.
Third Discussion (Questions 5-15), 10-12.30.
NEW TESTAMENT DOCTRINE (continued").
The Mystical Union : What is it, and what does it imply ?
The Relation of the Body to its ' organs.'
Provision for the Perpetuity of the Christian Priesthood.
Lunch at Mansfield College (Dr. Fairbairn), 1.15.
Informal Meeting (at Mansfield College), 2.30.
Publication of Report, &c.
N.B. The heads for discussion are only suggestions of leading points ,
and are not meant to preclude the raising of any question relevant to the
main issue.
64 FIRST DISCUSSION [I. 1
FIRST DISCUSSION.
AT the first sitting, and throughout the Conference, the
following were present :
FATHER PULLER. DR. SANDAY (in the Chair).
DR. MOBERLY. REV. A. C. HEADLAM.
CANON GORE. DR. FAIRBAIRN.
CANON SCOTT HOLLAND, DR. SALMOND.
REV. C. G. LANG. DR. DAVISON.
ARCHDEACON WILSON. REV. ARNOLD THOMAS.
DR. RYLE. DR. FORSYTH.
CANON E. R. BERNARD.
After prayer, the proceedings were opened by Dr. Sanday,
who spoke as follows :
i. DR. SANDAY. I must express my great thankfulness that
at last we meet together face to face, and that these
friendly but serious discussions to which we have been
looking forward, through what I have no doubt have
been very busy weeks, are at last about to begin.
I know that many of those who are present have come
here at no small cost to themselves, and at cost of various
kinds. I know that they have done so from no personal
motive, but from a public motive, and from the hope
that what will be done now may ultimately, in some way
or other, redound to the general good ; and I earnestly
trust that when our meetings are over we may feel that
we shall not go empty away. I am quite aware that the
course I have proposed is a serious and responsible one.
I can quite imagine it to be possible that our Conference
I. 1] FIRST DISCUSSION 65
might have more definite and tangible success if it had
been on a smaller basis, and if it had a smaller scope.
But I ventured to aim at something more than this ;
I thought that we might go to the root of some of
the differences which affect us most as English Church-
men and English Christians. Of course I have not
allowed myself to be too sanguine. I do not suppose
that many of us here will go away thinking very
differently from the way in which we thought when
we came. I myself, from the special circumstances in
which I find myself, may be more likely to be affected
by the results of this Conference than any one here.
In any case, I think we shall bring out at least what
we have in common ; and I cannot help hoping that
the eloquent passage with which Archdeacon Wilson's
paper concludes may express the minimum of this
common ground. But beyond that, I think we may
define the extent of our differences, and see just the
point where they come in. I have great hopes that
we shall be able to clear away a great deal of irrelevant
controversy. Differences there must be ; but I trust they
will not be harsh differences, and that the more we get
to know each other, the more we shall see how much
our views really do rest upon serious and deeply thought-
out grounds, and the more we shall feel mutual respect.
There are just a few explanations that I should like
to make. You may be interested to know something
about the invitations which have been sent out for this
Conference. I am glad to say that of all the invitations
that were originally sent out only one was declined, and
I must express my own personal thanks for the very
cordial way in which they have been received. The
only one that was declined, and that after long con-
sideration, was by Dr. Armitage Robinson ; and I am
afraid that one of the main reasons why he declined
F
66 FIRST DISCUSSION [L 1
it was the very high standard which he sets himself in
approaching a subject like this. He felt that his own
work was so absorbing that it would take him away from
it too much to enable him to prepare, as he would wish
to prepare, for this Conference. Well, after receiving
that reply, I wrote to Dr. Swete, of Cambridge, and
I should have been very glad if he could have seen
his way to join us ; but unfortunately his health is far
from strong, and he did not feel equal to undertaking the
Conference on that ground. I then wrote to Mr. Lang,
of Portsea, whom I had a special reason for asking to be
present, as he has been for some time interested in this
subject, and will form a welcome link of connexion with
our friends in Scotland. I am sorry that all of those
who were originally invited are not here. Dr. Moule,
I regret to say, is away. He found that our meetings
would clash with the last ordination of the Bishop of
Liverpool, and as he stood in such intimate relation to
the Bishop he did not feel that he could be absent from
the ordination. For some time he held out a hope that
he would send us a paper of answers to our questions,
although he was not here in person. It was impos-
sible for me to overcome the modesty of my friend,
Mr. Chavasse ; and at the strong instance of Dr. Moule,
I wrote to Mr. Nathaniel Dimock, who has written
a learned work on the Christian Doctrine of Sacerdotium.
Unfortunately I wrote to an old address, and after some
days my letter was returned by the Post Office. I had
previously written to the Bishop of Wakefield, Dr. J. H.
Bernard, of Dublin, and Dr. Robertson, of King's College.
All replied most cordially, but all had engagements that
stood in the way. Almost at the last moment I thought
that I need not hesitate to write to my old friend and
fellow-worker, Mr. Headlam, and he has kindly con-
sented to come.
I. 2] FIRST DISCUSSION 67
I am extremely sorry that Dr. Barrett, of Norwich,
is also not able to be here. I have had this letter
from him :
'I am most deeply grieved and disappointed that
I am unable to be with you this week. There has
been an extraordinary pressure of work connected with
my own church which has made it impossible for me
to leave. I anticipate, with the greatest interest, the
results of the Conference. Will you be so good as to
express my sincere regret for my absence, which is
enforced by circumstances over which I have no control.'
I should add that Dr. Fairbairn at once wrote to
Mr. Arnold Thomas, of Bristol, and we are all exceed-
ingly glad that he has been able to come. That, I think,
will explain what has been done in the matter of the
invitations.
I hope you will approve of the method I have adopted
of circulating these questions and of asking for answers
in writing, and that we shall find them helpful.
I took the further liberty of asking Dr. Driver to con-
tribute notes on some of the points. I felt sure that
it would be a great advantage to us to have them
treated on strictly philological and scientific principles,
without regard to the inferences which we draw from
them ; and he has done exactly what I asked of him.
I should say that the notes as they appear are somewhat
condensed and abridged from the form in which they were
sent to me ; for those who know Dr. Driver's work will
know how profuse he is in supporting any statements he
may make by detailed references. And now, the only
question to consider is as to our method of procedure,
a. DR. FAIRBAIRN. May I, Dr. Sanday, before you pass from
these general remarks, respond to the kindly sentiments
with which you have opened the Conference, and say
that our hopes are exactly your hopes. We do not
F a
68 FIRST DISCUSSION [I. 3-5
anticipate, any more than you, that there may not be
differences of opinion at the end of it ; but we are happy
to feel as Christian brethren that we can still meet and
discuss these questions freely, even though in our hearts
there may be differences.
3. DR. SANDAY. There is the question yet to decide how
we should proceed, and I think it would be best for each
to take five minutes, and that we should follow the order
of the groups and the way in which the names appear
upon the circular. I would ask those gentlemen whose
names appear first in each group to speak first, each
taking five minutes, and so on with the others, group
succeeding group, and going round the table.
Perhaps we might see this morning how that works ;
but if amongst yourselves you would prefer to change
that order, we might well do so. My idea was that we
should each take five minutes, and then spend the rest
of the time in general conversation. We might either
make connected remarks or ask questions of each other ;
but I would propose that, if questions are asked in the
course of the five minutes' speeches, the answering of
these questions should be reserved until they are finished.
Before I ask Father Puller to speak, I should like to
know whether any one would wish to say anything as
to the method of procedure. If any one has anything to
suggest in that respect, now is the opportunity.
4. DR. FAIRBAIRN. Are we to understand that we are to
speak for five minutes on all the topics that are set out ?
5. DR. SANDAY. I think I stated on the time-table that the
heads for discussion are only suggestions of leading
points, and are not meant to preclude the raising of
any question relevant to the main issue. I think our
centre of gravity should be the New Testament doctrine.
If no one wishes to make any further remark I would
ask Father Puller to commence.
I. 6] FIRST DISCUSSION 69
6. FATHER PULLER. On the spur of the moment I have
to consider how to begin the Conference ; and it occurs
to me that I should like to lay stress on what is no doubt
very familiar to every one here, although some persons,
who are not present, seem to have misconceptions on the
subject. The point on which I wish to lay stress is the
fact that in the Old Testament sacrifices are represented
to us as processes consisting of various acts. A sacrifice
is not simply the killing of a victim, but a process of
a complex nature. The victim was first brought and
presented alive by the offerer ; then the offerer laid his
hands on the head of the victim, and in some sense con-
stituted it as his representative. The victim was next O
killed by the offerer ; and it was not until the death had
taken place, as I understand it, that the priest^s part
commenced. It was his duty to calch. the^ blqpd which
flowed from the victim, and then to offer the blood on A
the altar, or round the base of the altar, and in some
cases on the horns of the altar ; while on the Day of
Atonement the High Priest took it within the innermost
veil and sprinkled it before the Shekinah enthroned over
the Mercy-seat. It was in that blood-sprinkling that
the priestly action in the sacrifice commenced. Then the
priest had to take either the whole body of the victim /
as in the case of the burnt-offering, or, as in the case
of some other forms of sacrifice, choice portions of the
victim, and lay them upon the great altar of burnt-offering,
where they were burned in the holy fire which had come
o*ut from God. To use the remarkable language of the
Old Testament, the victim became the bread or the food
of God. Finally, there came the feasting on the sacrifice.
In the whole burnt-offering there could be nothing pf the
victim eaten, because the peculiarity of that kind of
sacrifice consisted in the fact that the whole victim was
burnt; but there was always offered with the burnt-
70 FIRST DISCUSSION [1.7
offering a meal-offering, part of which was eaten by the
priest. In the case of the peace-offering the eating was
much more emphasized. The priest had his share, and
the offerer and his family had their share. Altogether,
there seem to have been six different acts which went
to make up the great complex process of sacrifice. The
presentation alive, the laying on of hands, and the killing
these three may be described as non-sacerdotal acts,
because they were ordinarily performed by the offerer,
who was generally a layman. When the priest took
part in these acts, he was acting, not as a priest, but
rather as an offerer, or as the representative of the
oljerers. The priestly part in the work of sacrifice con-
sisted in the manipulation of the blood, and in placing
the body or part of it on the altar to be burned. Now
this may all seem at first sight unfruitful ; but I think
that it has a great bearing on the way in which we
should regard the sacrifice of our Lord, and sacrifice
generally under the Gospel dispensation. The question is a
very vital one, and it has been answered in various ways
the question, I mean, whether the sacrifice of our Lord
simply consists in His death on the Cross ; whether His
priestly action is confined to His death, or whether
His sacrificial action goes on after His death and in His
life of glory.
7. ARCHDEACON WILSON. I think that some apology is
needed from me, because of all present I have the least
claim to be regarded as a professed theologian. I feel,
with respect to these words Sacrifice and Priesthood
that they are valuable and indispensable, but that they
are attended with two bad connotations; and we are
such slaves to words that it is extremely difficult for us
to think of these words without their connotations. In
the first place, there is the association of sacrifice with
the idea of a bargain some bargain struck with God
I. 7.] FIRST DISCUSSION 71
which survives though it has been immensely altered
since the early days of sacrifice. The second bad conno-
tation, that of the word priest, is that of a human
mediator between God and man. The essential thought
that should for us Christians underlie the words is that
of self-consecration to God, always remembering that
self-consecration in our present sinful and imperfect
condition of human nature involves suffering. Tracing
back our use of the words to the Old Testament, we find
that propitiation of God and human mediation which
are the two bad connotations are practically inseparable
from some of the Jewish sacrifices ; and these elements in
our worship were, in my judgement, entirely abrogated
by Christ; and when they have reappeared in the
Church they have been mischievous. I cannot regard
the eucharist as a sacrifice. It is to me a symbol so I
read my New Testament a symbol of self-oblation of
the mystical body of Christ ; an offering of our souls
and bodies expressed in actual life in service, whether
of the individual, or of the whole body of the Church,
or of its representatives i. e. those who are appointed
as its ministers. An extremely important question
arises as to the cause of the vitality of what is regarded
by some people at any rate as the magical view of
sacrifice and priesthood. I do not wish to use an
objectionable term here, but at the instant no other word
occurs to me. There appear to be three causes for
this vitality. The first is bad ; for unquestionably the
magical view has been maintained in all religions in
the interest of priestcraft, in the belief that it increases
the power of the priest. The second is also bad, or
rather arises out of our weakness, namely, the desire on
the part of weak human nature for external mechanical
support and delegation of responsibility, and to sub-
stitute these for the actual devotion of the soul and
72 FIRST DISCUSSION [I. 8
spirit to God's service. And the third is good, namely,
the recognition that there are, as a matter of fact, special
and mysterious means of grace, to feed and support
spiritual life the recognition that just as our earthly
life, mysterious and inconceivable as it is, is supported
by external means by the food for our body, food of
an organic kind and therefore containing life so in this
unity and continuity of nature our spiritual life may be
actually maintained by some similar means.
8. DR. FAIRBAIRN. I think it would be a real gain were we
to eliminate from the discussion all abstract ideas, whether
gathered from our conceptions of religion in general, or
from certain selected historical and ethnical religions in
particular, and to confine ourselves to what alone is really
vital, the ideas of sacrifice and of priesthood in the Old
and New Testaments. Within these limits three ques-
tions seem to me at once to emerge : What is priest-
hood ? what is sacrifice ? and what is the relation between
them ? If we take our Lord Himself as the normal
priest, then we have in Him one who realizes, as the first
and essential function of priesthood, mediation. He is
mediator by virtue of His very nature as the Word
manifest in the flesh, so constituted as to be a daysman
between God and us, by the right hand of His divinity
laying hold upon God, and by the left hand of His
humanity upon man. He is thus, by the very terms of
His theanthropic person, able to mediate between the
parties at variance, who are absolute contrasts at once
in dignity and in moral state or quality of being. And
so He could be fitly described as both taken from among
men and called of God (Heb. v. 14). The priesthood, as
He fills it, is in the Epistle to the Hebrews placed in
antithesis to the Levitical (i) inasmuch as it stands for
a multitude, where son succeeds father in an order that
may not be broken j while He stands alone, ' a priest for
I. 8.] FIRST DISCUSSION 73
ever after the order of Melchizedek ' (v. 6 ; vii. 1-3, 15-
24). (2) Inasmuch as the Levitical priesthood was an
order of sinful men, who each needed to sacrifice first for
himself and then for the people : but Christ, as sinless, sac-
rificed for the people without any need of sacrificing for
Himself (vii. 26-28). This means that in His case, as in
that of His great prototype, His person created His
office ; the office did not, as in the case of the Levitical
priesthood, exist independently of the person (vii. 1 1-14).
The sacrifice which He offers comes in a form that has
been expressed by obedience, specifically as obedience
to God (x. 7). He does the Father's will (John v. 30 ;
vi. 38). But what turned His obedience into sacrifice ?
The need which has been variously expressed by the
terms expiation, propitiation, atonement. He suffers
that He may become the Captain of our salvation and
reconcile man to God (Heb. ii. 10, 14 ; iv. 16 ; v. 9 ;
Rom. v. 10; a Cor. v. 19-21). The priesthood, therefore,
involves a sacrifice which He Himself constitutes, and
which is the necessary basis of His mediation. This
sacrifice is expressly directed towards a reconciliation of
sinners with the God from Whom their sin has estranged
them. Hence out of the mediation which springs out of
the person of the priest and the expiation which is
achieved by His sacrifice, there comes absolution, which
is the bringing to man of forgiveness from God. With-
out absolution the other functions would fail of their
effect. And the three functions are marked by the same
quality which distinguishes His person : they are all
alike unique. He is the one advocate with the Father
(i John ii. 2); His sacrifice is offered once for all
(Heb. ix. 12, 26; x. 10-14); and He alone on earth
hath power to forgive sin (Matt. ix. 6 ; Mark ii. 7, 10 ;
Acts xiii. 38 ; Eph. i. 7). As to the peculiar nature of
His sacrifice, we shall essentially err if we construe it only
74 FIRST DISCUSSION [I. 9
through those sacrifices which are specified in the Epistle
to the Hebrews or described in the Levitical legislation.
We have to remember that an entirely distinct order of
sacrifice is to be found in the prophetic writings, where
the notion is transferred from an animal victim to a moral
person. The most perfect type of sacrifice given in the
Old Testament is the Suffering Servant of God, in Isaiah,
who bears our sins and carries our sorrows, who is
stricken, smitten of God and afflicted, and who stands as
a sheep dumb before his shearers (Is. liii). And this
Servant is an ideal priest as well as an ideal sacrifice,
who redeems and absolves the people whose sins he
bears (lix. 20 ; Ixi. 1-3 ; Hi. 7, 13-15), though he stands
in* absolute antithesis to all that the Mosaic legislation
meant by these terms.
9. DR. MOBERLY. As to the bearing of the Old Testament
upon the true meaning of sacrifice and priesthood, I would
urge that it is limited. The Old Testament itself is only
really understood retrospectively. Of course all that is
in the Old Testament is relevant. The New Testament
will interpret it all. But the Old Testament is not
determinative of the meaning of the New. What things
mean in the New Testament, is their true meaning. It
is only from that that you can go back and find out how
all the Old Testament had been (however blindly) leading
up to the different elements of the fullness of the truth.
As to the relation of the ceremonial element to the
moral, I would say that in all the earlier stages they
seem to me to stand comparatively widely apart. In the
Levitical law there was a great system of ceremonial,
which had indeed an inward meaning, but which was
largely separable, in ordinary observance, from its own
true inwardness. The prophets are in constant protest
against this separation. But it is only very gradually
that you approach any true conception of the fusion of
I. 10, 11] FIRST DISCUSSION 75
the ceremonial and the moral. The fusion is only
complete in the Person of Christ.
The fusion is no merely peaceful climax. Underneath
everything connected with sacrifice and priesthood runs a
certain assumption of fact, which colours all. This is
man's 'disability' (as it may be called in its more rudi-
mentary aspects) ; a disability which, as more fully
realized, becomes the deepening consciousness of sin.
, I doubt whether, save as within and tinged by the atmo-
sphere of consciousness of sin, the word sacrifice (and its
cognates) could be strictly used at all.
I should like to refer to one or two words of Archdeacon
Wilson's. He criticized the word ' bargain ' as a word of old
and false associations. I would suggest that the essence
of what underlay the 'bargain' language does not disappear
though the associations may be greatly modified in
detail. The word may have primarily suggested a
spontaneous agreement between two equal parties. But
the free bounty of an immense benefactor does, without
previous compact, impose on the recipient the strongest
moral obligations of responsive gratitude. The essence
of a reciprocal relation is created by his single act.
Conceptions gradually deepen. We may learn to tran-
scend the accidental implications of a symbolic word : and
yet the essential reality symbolized be not thereby
impaired, but more intensely realized.
10. DR. SANDAY. As the five minutes have expired, I should
like to know, Dr. Moberly, with what further subjects
you were proposing to deal.
11. DR. MOBERLY. I was proposing to welcome the Arch-
deacon's phrase ' self-consecration ' in relation to sacrifice,
but with a considerable difference \ and I was going to
challenge his implication that events ' in time and space '
could not be real causes of vast results in the spiritual
sphere.
76 FIRST DISCUSSION [1.12
i a. DR. RYLE. With regard to the presuppositions of New
Testament doctrine, I have been very strongly impressed
with the remarkable manner in which the conceptions
of sacrifice and priesthood have come round in the
present day to what seems to have been the original con-
ception that prevailed in the most primitive times. The
history of sacrifice and priesthood seems to pass through
three periods (i) the prehistoric period, (2) the Old
Testament period, and (3) the New Testament period.
In the case of sacrifice, the thought of communion with
the unseen power, and in that of priesthood the thought
of service by means of representation and of self-dedica-
tion, take us back to primitive ideas. The Old Testament
presents a stage of development in regard to sacrifice in
which the primitive ideas are no longer actually present.
They represent the three aspects called the eucharistic,
the dedicatory, and the piacular ; but the piacular idea of
sacrifice is largely predominant. Then with regard to
priesthood, the two ideas of making offerings and of
making expiation are combined in the earliest concep-
tions. The Jewish system received in Christ so complete
a fulfilment that except by the introduction of meta-
phor the Jewish ideas no longer have any place in the
Christian society. The thought of sacrifice which seems
to have been the most prominent one to the Jews was
that of expiation. This piacular side of sacrifice has
been completely absorbed in the death-offering of Christ.
I imagine that what may be called the piacular side of
the priesthood is one which is present in the priesthoods
of all religions ; and what Dr. Moberly has said about the
sense of man's disability lies at the bottom of all priest-
hoods, ethnic and Jewish alike. Sacrifice is needed to
express man's disability, and the desire of obtaining
atonement. Now if the atonement is perfect and complete,
as we receive it in the New Testament, the fundamental
I. 18] FIRST DISCUSSION 77
piacular idea of priesthood and sacrifice has been, as it
were, abolished in Christ, and only the more general and
secondary purposes of priesthood and sacrifice remain.
13. DR. SALMOND. The presuppositions of the New Testa-
ment ideas of sacrifice and priesthood are to be sought
chiefly, if not wholly, in the Old Testament. Little
is gained, it seems to me, by attempting to go beyond
that. It is in terms of the Old Testament system
that the New Testament speaks of these ideas ; and it
is in the light of Old Testament conceptions, institu-
tions, and usages that the New Testament conceptions
and expressions are to be interpreted.
With respect to the idea of sacrifice, it does not
appear to me to be possible to get to anything generic.
It is doubtful whether we can unite in a single, definite
idea the various terms, notions, and usages connected
with sacrifice even in the Old Testament itself. Far
less are we entitled to say that we can travel back, by
the way of history and archaeology, to the primitive
idea of sacrifice. We have not the means of reaching
a conception which can be called generic, or of which
it can be said that all races had it at first. It is true
that a strong case is made out for the idea of a common
meal a participation on the part of a god and his wor-
shippers in a common act of eating and drinking, which
was significant of kinship between them as the original
or fundamental conception. But it is in the line of
Semitic religion that the argument in behalf of this
has been best worked out ; and I do not know that we
can speak of it as made out in the same way also for
the non-Semitic religions. It is a hasty and, to my
mind, unscientific way of dealing with such matters
when men leap, from a case held to be established
on strong grounds of probability for one great class
of religions, at once to the conclusion that the same
78 FIRST DISCUSSION [I. 13
holds good for all religions. What we actually see in
the case of the non-Semitic religions is a number of
sacrifices of different kinds and apparently of different
meanings, of which we cannot say with any measure
of certainty when they arose in the life of the different
races, how they stood related to each other, whether
they had the same significance in different races, or
even in the same race at different periods, or whether
they followed the same course of development in the
history of different peoples. We are not in a position
to affirm even that the unbloody sacrifices preceded the
bloody sacrifices in the case of this or that people. Investi-
gation into the history of the non-Semitic religions must
be carried much beyond what it has yet reached before
we can attain to the generic idea of sacrifice. The real
question is, what is the significance that is attached to
sacrifice in Scripture itself? and, in particular, what is it
in those Old Testament writings and institutions to
which the New Testament ideas are most nearly akin ?
It appears, then, that in the Old Testament at least
three ideas are connected with sacrifice, viz. those of
gift, expiation, and communion or participation, that
is to say, in a common meal. Of these, however, the
last has a subordinate place in the Old Testament,
particularly in the Levitical system; while in the New
Testament it practically disappears. It is true that
in the Old Testament acts of eating are mentioned
in connexion with certain sacrifices. But it does not
appear that the ' eating ' was the essence of the sacri-
ficial act. It is assumed that the Tsebach was accompanied
by a meat-offering. But this is only a probable supposi-
tion. And, in any case, it seems to me impossible to
explain the most solemn sacrifices of the Old Testament
system in terms of the third of these ideas. In the New
Testament view of sacrifice the idea of a fellowship
1.13] FIRST DISCUSSION 79
between God and the offerer, or anything like a par-
ticipation in a common life, is conspicuous by its absence.
It cannot be introduced except by recognizing the Lord's
Supper to be a 'sacrifice,' and one of a definite kind.
The only passage outside this that has any plausible
relation to the question is Hebrews xiii. 10. But few
will undertake to say, few competent exegetes at any
rate, that the ' altar ' in view there is that of the Lord's
Supper.
The important thing, however, is that there is a dis-
tinction between two great orders of sacrifices those
that take the form of thank-offerings and the like, and
those that relate to offences. There are some offerings,
indeed, in which the specific idea may be doubtful, e. g.
the burnt-offerings. But the broad distinction referred
to is recognized all through the Old Testament ; and it is
explicitly affirmed and acted on in the New Testament,
the Epistle to the Hebrews (v. i) having it in view when
it speaks of ' every high priest ' being ordained to offer
' both gifts and sacrifices for sins.' The distinction is a
vital one, and the second class of offerings, the ' sacrifices '
as distinguished from the ' gifts, 5 in other words those
offerings which are known as sin-offerings and trespass-
offerings, express the idea of liability or guilt and its
removal. They deal with offences^ with the penalties
attached to offences, and the provision for relief. The
various theories elaborated by Bahr and others seem to
me to fail here, whether we look at them in the light of
the statements made in the Old Testament itself on the
purpose and efficacy of these sacrifices, or in that of
the interpretation of them which is given us in the New
Testament. The great passage in Hebrews, ix. 9-14,
which again distinguishes between ' gifts ' and ' sacrifices/
certainly ascribes to 'the blood of bulls and goats' under
the Old Testament a positive efficacy, an efficacy vastly
8o FIRST DISCUSSION [I. 13
beneath that belonging to Christ's sacrifice of Himself in
death, and one operating in a different sphere of things,
but yet a real efficacy, and one meaning the removal of
certain disabilities or penalties. These Old Testament
sacrifices availed to ' the flesh,' to ceremonial ends, to the
rectification of disturbed relations between an Israelite
and the law or the congregation, which were caused by
some offence ; the sacrifice of Christ avails for the ' con-
science,' and the removal of guilt in the moral sphere.
This distinction is of importance to the whole question
of the relation of the moral to the ceremonial, and in
particular to those disavowals or denunciations of sacrifice
which are so frequent in the Old Testament itself,
especially in the Psalms and Prophets. Like everything
else pertaining to worship or service, the ceremonial
requirements of the Mosaic system might be observed
wrongly or perfunctorily, without a due sense of their
meaning and value. It is not strange, therefore, that all
through the Old Testament we have strong things said
against sacrifices, which are dealt with as a mere opus
operatum. And in point of fact, it appears that most
that is said in this way in the Old Testament refers to
the ' gifts ' in particular, or to that abuse of the ordinance
of sacrifice generally which made it stand for all that was
required of the worshipper, and put it apart from the
spirit of obedience and the moral qualities of life and duty.
With respect to priesthood, time permits me only to
say that in its case, as in that of sacrifice, it is difficult to
reach the generic idea. If we look to the Old Testament
itself, however, and to the New Testament interpreta-
tions of the term, we see that the general idea of a
' priest ' is that he is one who ' draws near to God,' who
in doing so brings gifts and offerings, and who does this
in particular for others, so that they find access to God
through him.
I. 14] FIRST DISCUSSION 8l
14. CANON GORE. I should like to make three remarks by
way of supplement to my printed answers on questions
(i) and (2).
(1) If we look upon sacrifice as a typical act of religion
all over the world and at all times, we shall have to admit
that it is a typical act which has been always or generally
of a social character. It is an act not primarily of an
individual man, but of man as a member of a body a
tribe or family or nation or church. In the Bible,
sacrifice is closely connected therefore with covenant.
The divine covenant is the basis of a society first Jewish,
then catholic. And as the sacrifices of the Old Testa-
ment were the acts of a society, so the eucharist was
regarded as ' the Christian sacrifice,' because it was a
corporate act in which the whole society was bound
together into one body in being bound to God in Christ.
The eucharist thus expresses the idea which has most
deeply underlain the institution of sacrifice all over the
world.
(2) If, with your eye on the records of universal religion,
you give the word ' sacrifice ' its extended meaning, you
include manifold outward ceremonial acts of sacrifice
which have exceedingly little ethical meaning. There
are sacrifices and rituals which are entirely non-moral.
My point is that the institution of sacrifice is presented to
us in the Old Testament under the discipline of a divine
education ; and the New Testament or perfected concep-
tion of sacrifice involves the position that the acceptable
sacrifice is essentially an offering of persons, and of things
or rites only as adjuncts or expressions of persons. Here
again the eucharist realizes the ideal of sacrifice, because
(according to the truest conception of it, which Augustine
is for ever emphasizing) it culminates in the corporate
offering of the worshippers, all together in one body
offering themselves, their souls and bodies, in union with
G
82 FIRST DISCUSSION [1.15
the offering of the perfect Person to whom they have been
afresh united in the communion of His body and blood.
(3) Sacrifice is a far broader conception than propitia-
tion. Christ's propitiation is not the abolition of sacrifice,
but the establishment of the true priestly race, which
having won, through His propitiation once made, its
position of sonship, can henceforth enjoy and exercise the
freedom for approach, the freedom for divine communion,
which is the perfection of sacrifice. He not only offered
Himself for us, but offered us in Himself. Christ is our
High Priest and Sacrifice, in order that we in Him may
have both light and power to be ourselves priests and to
|hare His sacrifice. The eucharist is regarded as the
chief mode in which the priestly life of the Church is to
be expressed or realized. As we look widely over the
ethnic religions and, more closely, into the religion of
the Old Testament, we are bound always to bear in mind
that Christ came ' not to destroy, but to fulfil.'
15. CANON BERNARD. I believe that hitherto the idea of
sacrifice has been too exclusively studied from the Old
Testament. That affords an inadequate conception of
God's whole dealings with humanity. The most worthy
explanation of the universal instinct of sacrifice is that He
Himself planted in the minds of all mankind the desire
to approach Him and find their way to Him. I cannot
admit that communion with the god by a sacrificial meal
is an invariable characteristic of sacrifice. It was not so
even in Semitic sacrifices, for no one partook of the burnt-
offering in Hebrew ritual. Still less can this be made
good of sacrifice generally. And I also dissent from the
view expressed that sacrifice was primarily a corporate,
not an individual act, although the corporate character
may preponderate in Semitic sacrifice. But we are dealing
with a wider circle of ideas, and Tylor's account of sacrifice
in Primitive Culture, vol. II. 375 ff., will not justify this
I. 16] FIRST DISCUSSION 83
limited view. It is important to decide whether these
conceptions are fundamental, because a good deal, and
I think too much, has been built upon them in regard to
sacrifice in the New Testament.
It is through the instinct of sacrifice in all its varied
forms, some lofty, some corrupt and degrading, that man-
kind have been led up to see ultimately that it is moral
obedience and spiritual devotion which are the things that
are really acceptable to God. It was these things which
were exhibited in the life and death of our Lord Jesus
Christ. It seems to me that Church teaching and Church
ritual have allowed the elements through which this true
idea was evolved to influence them too much, and that,
having got to the sense that it is moral and spiritual
devotion which are really acceptable to God, we might
very largely put aside the ideas that have led up to that
thought the oroi^eTa TOV KOCT-/AOU.
1 6. DR. DAVISON. I should not like to say anything that
might seem to reflect on the arrangement of these questions.
But it seems to me a mistake to begin with the widest
generalizations. In attempting to deal with the ' pre-
suppositions of New Testament doctrine,' we shall find it
almost impossible to define sacrifice in general, and hard
to define it even in the Old Testament. I am glad to
find Dr. Driver in his printed note makes a similar state-
ment. He doubts whether the Hebrews had any term
exactly co-extensive with ' sacrifice.'
The Old Testament doctrine has, of course, an important
bearing on the New ; but I agree with what Dr. Moberly
has said on page 6, that it is only possible to reach real
definitions retrospectively. The sacrificial ideas embodied
in the Old Testament ceremonial expiatory, dedicatory,
eucharistic, &c. do not admit of broad generalizations
and succinct definitions. These ideas must be clearly
distinguished. Whatever word be used 'propitiatory,'
G2
84 FIRST DISCUSSION [I. 17
' expiatory,' or ' piacular ' this idea forms an essential
element in the Mosaic ritual. And I wish to contend
very strongly for this element, viz. the removal of dis-
ability arising from sin as the main element in the sacrifice
and priesthood of Christ, while it does not belong to the
priesthood and the sacrifices of the Christian Church. In
speaking of ' a specific Christian idea ' of sacrifice, there
is some danger of our losing sight of the vital and funda-
mental distinction between a sacrifice which avails for the
remission or removal of sin and other sacrifices, which
are only self-dedicatory or eucharistic on the part of the
offerer.
17. CANON SCOTT HOLLAND. We seem to be all agreed,
practically, that the sacrifice of Christ is absolute and
real : and that in it is to be found the full interpretation of
all that it comes to fulfil whether (i) in the Levitical
ceremonial, which lay nearest to it of all the other
religious forms which sacrifice takes ; or (a) in the
deep moral meanings underlying the term, wherever
it is used.
And, in relation to these moral meanings, I would
venture to doubt whether the terms (i) 'bargain' or (a)
' mediation ' ought to be excluded, as Archdeacon Wilson
appeared to require. Surely (as Canon Moberly has
suggested) the word 'bargain' is only the lowest term
of that which, under moral transfiguration, takes the
shape of a covenant, a bond, a transaction between
two parties which places them under moral and spiritual
obligations to one another. The conception of covenant
of a covenanting act lies deep in sacrifice, and in the
Jewish and Christian conceptions of man's relation to
God. This might have its germinal expression under
the grosser form of a 'bargain' (such as Jacob made
on waking from his dream) ; but our interest lies, not
in excluding the term, but in watching the gradual
1.17] FIRST DISCUSSION 85
historical process by which it becomes spiritualized and
refined. This is the historical task to retain the
germinal form and to note its moral disclosure.
So, again, with (2) mediation. It had many bare or
elementary forms. But Christ is, after all, above every-
thing a Mediator, a human Mediator, a man who stands
between us and God. To qualify Himself for this, He
became a man so necessary is human mediation.
He adopts the root-conception, uplifts it, transfigures it.
That is the moral process which we have to watch.
And, then, about the contrast that has been so fre-
quently made between ' outward ' and ' inward ' in
sacrifice. It has been implied that the moralizing of
sacrifice lies in dropping the 'outward' expression and
in accentuating solely the ' inward ' act of will : so that
Christ's perfect sacrifice is wholly inward, ' of the heart/
But is it not essential to sacrifice that it should be the
outward act by which the inward intention is realized,
is pledged, is sealed ? The inward self-dedication only
becomes sacrificial when it has discovered the appropriate
offering by which it can verify itself. Only through
attaining this expression, in outward realization, does
the language of sacrifice apply to it. It has somewhat
to offer, by which it can pledge its loyalty of self-
surrender: there is its relief, its reality. The process
by which the sacrifice is moralized is, not by dropping
the external offering, but by raising the moral quality
of that which it expresses. This can, for ever, be rising
higher and higher ; but always, as it rises, it will need
to make its external offering ; and Christ completes all
sacrifice because He gives perfect outward expression
to the inner motive. He recovers for it its true realiza-
tion by the offering of His body, by which act, once
done, all man's capacity of self-dedication is sealed
and crowned. He can take up in His hands, and
86 FIRST DISCUSSION [I. 18
bring before God, that in which His oblation of Himself
is verified and eternalized.
1 8. DR. SANDAY. I find myself in a rather different frame of
mind from that of many who have spoken. It is natural
to me to approach the subject from below rather than
from above, and I may say that I am much impressed by
the earlier ideas. I am filled with wonder not at their
crudities, but at their promise and depth of meaning.
In regard to what fell from Archdeacon Wilson, I
rather deprecate saying, This idea is bad, and that idea is
good. They require careful analysis ; and when we look
into them we find that each of those ideas has bad
elements and good elements, and we want to distinguish
between them.
Then, again, I feel rather specially bound to lay stress
upon those ideas which are not popular and are not
attractive to men's minds at the present day. For this
reason I welcome very much what Dr. Davison said on
the subject of Propitiation. It was also admirably
expressed by Dr. Moberly in what he said about dis-
ability. I only wish I could express it half so well
myself. With reference to what fell from Dr. Salmond
and Canon Bernard, I cannot help thinking that their
views are somewhat at variance with facts. The idea of
life-communion in sacrifice seems to be very deeply
rooted indeed. Jevons and Robertson Smith argue that
the idea of communion through the sacrificial meal is
prior to the idea of gift, tribute, or propitiatory offering,
because the idea of kinship is earlier than that of property ;
and the argument appears to be sound. I think the concep-
tion of life-communion, instead of being subordinate, will be
found to run right through from the beginning, and what
we should like to do would be to watch the gradual puri-
fication of those ideas.
I have a feeling that in studying the Old Testament
I. 19] FIRST DISCUSSION 87
the ceremonial side does not get justice done to it.
We cannot help remembering, for instance, the 84th
Psalm ' How amiable are Thy tabernacles, O Lord of
Hosts' which shows the intense feeling that centred
in the Temple and the Temple services. The 12 2nd
Psalm also proves what a strong feeling there was for
Jerusalem itself. It all centred in the Temple worship.
I am afraid there was a tendency in Dr. Fairbairn's answer
to get rid of this ceremonial side rather too much. There
is a chapter in Montefiore's Hibbert Lectures which made
a considerable impression upon me when I read it. It
referred primarily to the attachment which the Jew had
to the Law, and the wealth of meaning that he found in
it ; and I think we may say the same thing of the cere-
monial side of Old Testament religion.
19. THE REV. ARNOLD THOMAS. Father Puller threw out
a hint in regard to the continued sacrifice of our Lord as
suggested and symbolized by the complexity of the
sacrificial system in the Old Testament, and I would like
to say a word as to my own conception of the manner in
which that divine sacrifice has been continued since the
death of Jesus. Christ died once, and dies no more.
He reveals Himself to St. John as the ' Living One.'
His sacrifice now, therefore, is not the giving up of life.
It is rather the giving out, the communicating, of life.
He lives ; and He lives in direct relations with His
people knowing their works, concerned in their welfare,
moving hither and thither among the golden candle-
sticks, aware of all that is happening, and having His
part in it all. Now if in the idea of sacrifice there are
the three ideas of giving something that is precious, of
suffering or cost connected with that giving, and of
coming into fellowship with another, we see how Christ
is still, through His Spirit, continuing His sacrifice.
i. As He gave His body on the cross, so He now gives
88 FIRST DISCUSSION [1.19
His life, His very nature, to those who yield themselves
to Him in faith and obedience. It is this perpetual giving
which is symbolized by the Sacrament of the Holy
Supper. The bread and wine speak to us of the com-
munication of His very self for the nourishment of our souls.
2. This sacrifice always must involve suffering so long
as men reject Him, and grieve His Spirit. He is
persecuted by Saul of Tarsus: He is trodden under
foot, and crucified afresh, by those who forsake and
despise Him. As Browning puts it :
'Is not His love at issue still with sin,
Visibly when a wrong is done on earth ? '
Tnis sacrificing of Himself through His identification
with our race is suggested in the description of the Last
Judgement.
3. As the priest by sacrifice came into fellowship and
communion with God, so Christ, ever giving and sacri-
ficing Himself, comes into fellowship and communion
with His people. He stands at the door, and knocks,
and will come in and sup with those who will receive
Him. This is the man-ward aspect of His con-
tinued sacrifice. Of its other aspect I do not venture
to speak.
The point I would especially urge is, that in the New
Testament Christ is constantly represented as being
alive, and in living contact with the souls of men. And,
if I may say so, it is a distress to me to note the prevail-
ing tendency to localize Him on the altar, or to conceive
of Him as being carried in the hands of the priest,
because I do not see how that mode of thought is to be
reconciled with what I take to be the scriptural concep-
tion of a Living Personality, of One who knows, loves,
counsels, helps, warns, is ever present in our midst.
The ' Real Presence ' as commonly understood seems to
I. 20] FIRST DISCUSSION 89
me to be incompatible with that other ' Presence ' which
is so much more real.
20. THE REV. C. G. LANG. I feel that if any one ought to
apologize for taking part in this Conference, it is I.
I come from an extremely busy and active life, without
the opportunity for thought and study which many here
have. Nevertheless, it seems to me that we run the risk
of manifold confusion when we attempt to elaborate
the ideas underlying sacrifice with anything like
systematic precision. We must be content with a
general impression, which all forms of sacrifice bear.
It is indeed sufficiently striking. It may perhaps be
thus described : Sacrifice is the offer by man to God of
something which is deemed to be pleasing to God, so
that man may thus be put right with God and secure
His favour and fellowship. The differences are rather in
the matter than in the purpose of the sacrifice. But
sacrifice in some form, as the means to man's union with
God, represents one of the fundamental instincts of
human nature. In primitive times, the conception of
what is pleasing to God shares the imperfections of the
conception of God's nature.
The characteristic mark of the Old Testament stage
in the development of the idea of sacrifice is the impressive
insistence on moral righteousness as the offering which
pleases God and restores man to His favour and fellow-
ship. The ethical conception of sacrifice was the great
gift of the prophetic teaching. They sought to raise the
fragments of ceremonial sacrifice which they found
existing to this high level.
It is essential to remember that the full development
of the ceremonial law of sacrifice came after, not before,
the prophets. They were not in essential opposition to
one another. The ceremonial law carried with it the
ethical teaching of the prophets. It was its expression
90 FIRST DISCUSSION [I. 21
in ordered and elaborated symbol. The elaboration of
the symbolic element may have resulted in the practical
obscuring of the ethical element. But the ethical
purpose was there. The fundamental conception was
still the offering of righteousness the abandonment of
the sinful will, the acceptance of its penalty.
Further, the corporate as well as the individual con-
ception of sacrifice was strongly brought out. The
sacrifice was the act of the people, or of the individual as
a member of the chosen people. The highest spirit of
Jewish sacrifice was expressed in the conception of the
'suffering servant,' the embodiment or type of the
nation offering righteousness perfected by penitence and
the acceptance of penalty to Jehovah. These concep-
tions were fulfilled in the great offering of the righteous
will of the Son of Man to the Father.
The ethical and the corporate conceptions of sacrifice
are both fulfilled in the great offering of the life and
death of man's Representative. Being thus a perfect
fulfilment, His sacrifice is eternal. The perfect is the
eternal. It is not past only it is eternally present.
And by virtue of our union with Christ as the members
of His body, we have our share in the presentation and
the efficacy of that eternal sacrifice.
21. THE REV. A. C. HEADLAM. Many of our difficulties arise,
I think, from definitions and meanings of words. We
are in danger too of making some rather crude, and as
I believe, unreal distinctions. An instance would be the
tendency, a tendency which I have noticed is becoming
rather common in certain writers, of emphasizing very
strongly the distinction between the prophetic and
Levitical elements in the Old Testament, and of con-'
demning the latter, or at any rate minimizing very
considerably its importance. This cannot be defended
either on critical or historical grounds. Critically, even
I. 21] FIRST DISCUSSION 91
if the origin of the Levitical element is different, its
presence in the canon is not affected ; historically, the
Levitical element was as essential to the development
of the Jewish nation as the prophetic. It formed the
framework without which the continuity of the religion
and life of the nation would have been impossible ;
while for a Christian the authority of either is equally
good. We accept the Old Testament on the authority
of Christ, and Christ bears witness to both the Law and
the Prophets. Dr. Fairbairn, I notice, would go even
further and eliminate the Levitical element from the
New Testament idea of sacrifice. That is, I believe,
impossible. To take only one instance : the Levitical
as well as the prophetic idea was in St. Paul's mind
when he wrote the Epistle to the Romans. You cannot
read the third verse in the twelfth chapter without seeing
that at once.
A similar distinction, often made very crudely, is that
between the moral and ceremonial. Throughout history
we find the moral taught through the ceremonial, and
the ceremonial necessary for the expression of the moral.
Even if we take one of the most rudimentary forms of
sacrifice the banquet that the Homeric chieftain gives
to his gods there was a moral element in it. All the
moral element that there is in showing hospitality would
be present in what was religious hospitality. Among
the Jews their sacrifices and sacrificial ideas gradually
inculcated the lessons of obedience, self-sacrifice, and
self-dedication, and these had their supreme manifesta-
tion in the sacrifice of Christ. May I express my thanks
to Archdeacon Wilson for showing that our sacrifices,
imperfect although they are, may be of the same
character as the sacrifice of Christ Himself?
I should like to inquire how far we can really say,
as has been suggested, that prayer is in a sense ' pro-
92 FIRST DISCUSSION [L 22
pitiatory ' ; and if prayer, which is human and limited
by the conditions of humanity, can be, whether the same
can be used of anything else that we are able to do ?
22. DR. FORSYTH. One feels in discussions of this kind
one's own unfitness swamped in a sense of the unworthi-
ness of mankind to penetrate into these great mysteries,
and our inability to do so because of our distance from
the Saviour. I make that remark as striking my key-
note in approaching these questions in such brevity.
Confining myself as far as possible to the suggestions
which have been placed upon the table, and with special
reference to the relation between the Old and the New
Testaments, I would say that in the Old Testament
it is the prophet that interprets the priest much more
than the priest \hat interprets the prophet. We might
extend that reference and say that instead of carrying
forward both priest and prophet we should look upon
the New Testament as continuing and interpreting the
prophetic rather than the priestly line. The Apostle
represents the prophet, while no Christian carries on
the priest. The one was an inspiration, the other an
institution. It may be possible to indicate the relation
between the two Testaments, both as to sacrifice and in
other respects, in this way that while the Old Testa-
ment explains or accounts for the New Testament, the
New Testament interprets the Old. Throughout, it
appears that the moral interprets the ritual and the
ethical interprets the ceremonial. One is struck by the
general recognition to-day of the developing principle
pervading the Old Testament, namely, that sacrifice is
in the nature of it righteousness, not a substitute for it.
Sacrifice is in the nature of it obedience. It is not an
experiment on God's mercy, but an obedience to the
institution of His grace. If we look to the continua of the
Old and New Testaments, I think the most important
I. 23] FIRST DISCUSSION 93
of all is this, that the typical relation of man to God is
obedience, especially in its inward and spiritual form of
faith. Sacrifice both in the Old and the New Testa-
ments is in its nature personal it refers to the attitude
of the heart and will towards God. Another continuum
is this, that the primary relation of sacrifice in both
cases is to sin, not service. It is piacular more than
altruist, it bears on God more than man, on forgiveness
more than help. Further, every man is his own priest,
both in the oldest Old and the whole New Testament,
by God's ordinance and God's grace. Yet in both sacri-
fice is a corporate thing. It is chiefly the nation's in the
Old Testament, and in the New Testament it is Christ's
as our federal head. Moreover, in both it is the fruit
of grace and not its root. There is no reconciling of
God. In the Old Testament there was judgement for
those sins outside sacrifice and mercy. In the New
Testament both these lines converge in the sacrifice of
Christ, which was the judgement of sin no less than its
forgiveness. I was going on to say that ritual and
ceremony belong to the primary and educational stage,
and that they have done a good deal, perhaps most,
in the history of religion to retain man in that stage of
minority, when they ought to have passed him on towards
their complete realization in Christ. In both Testaments,
ritual develops towards its own absorption and disap-
pearance.
[At this point the five minutes speeches ended, and the general
discussion began^\
23. DR. FAIRBAIRN. Dr. Sanday, the possible varieties in
the interpretation of the ideas as to sacrifice and priest-
hood in the Ethnic religions are practically infinite ; and
94 FIRST DISCUSSION [I. 24-31
so were we to attempt to enter this field we should be
betrayed into a vaster inquiry than we can here pursue.
I feel, therefore, that it would be better for us to confine
our discussions to the ideas that underlie priesthood and
sacrifice in the Holy Scriptures. If this be allowed, then
I should like Canon Moberly to explain certain state-
ments concerning the sacrifice and priesthood of Christ
which he has made in his answers to the first and second
questions.
24. THE REV. C. G. LANG. May I point out that that is what
we are to discuss this afternoon ?
25. DR. SANDAY. I think we are coming on to that. It
seems to be an answer to the question we dealt with this
toorning.
26. DR. MOBERLY. The first subject we have for this after-
noon is the sacrifice of Christ. Personally I should
prefer not to enter on that subject in the form of an
answer to a question, this morning.
27. DR. FAIRBAIRN. Very well then, we have all spoken
this morning about priesthood and sacrifice in general ;
but I feel that what we really need to do is to try to
express what we mean by priesthood and sacrifice in our
own religion. So far as it is concerned, sacrifice may be
corporate without being external.
28. DR. MOBERLY. I think that it is precisely in the New
Testament that the real explanation of the terms is to be
found.
29. The REV. ARNOLD THOMAS. It seems to me that the
question of the priesthood is not receiving so much atten-
tion as that of sacrifice.
30. CANON GORE. The question hinges round the corporate
character of sacrifice. I cannot conceive that corporate
rites, or corporate religion, or corporate sacrificial life,
can be carried on otherwise than through outward acts.
31. DR. SALMOND. It would be useful to define the meaning
I. 82-37] FIRST DISCUSSION 95
of this word ' corporate.' There is the corporate idea in
the Old Testament view of the relation of God to Israel
as a people. There is the corporate idea also in the
system of sacrifice under the Levitical institutions, and in
a very definite form in the ceremony of the great Day of
Atonement, in which the High Priest acted in behalf
of the whole people, and offered sacrifice for the sins of
the year. But what of the New Testament and the
Christian system ?
33. DR. FAIRBAIRN. What I wished to call attention to was
this : the external expression is not necessarily the corpo-
rate, nor is the corporate necessarily external. The two
ideas are quite distinct ; there may be a sacrifice which is
corporate yet not external.
33. CANON SCOTT HOLLAND. Our point is that a corporate
act must be external to the individuals who unite to
make it.
34. DR. FAIRBAIRN. We agree that there can be no religion
without its proper external expression. That is one thing,
but it is quite another thing to say that the corporate act
or expression must be external. The corporate is not the
corporeal, but may even be its antithesis or negation. The
sacrifice of Christ expressed corporate relations and
interests, but these were not exhausted by His corporeal
form and suffering.
35. CANON SCOTT HOLLAND. No ; but the corporeal form
supplies the externality which is essential to a corporate
act of sacrifice.
36. DR. MOBERLY. It is not necessary to say that the external
involves the corporate.
37. CANON SCOTT HOLLAND. The sacrifice is not identical
with the righteousness which is the spirit of the sacrifice.
Our Lord's action, when He says ' I come to do Thy will,'
becomes a sacrifice, because he offers His sacred humanity;
that is, an outward offering by which the inward will is
96 FIRST DISCUSSION [1.88-45
realized as a sacrifice ; and the sacrificial language we use
about our thoughts and prayer and praise is only intel-
ligible in view of the fact that there is a sacrificial gift and
outward act which constitutes them our sacrifices.
38. DR. FAIRBAIRN. What is the sacrificial idea behind this
sacrificial language ?
39. CANON SCOTT HOLLAND. The outward sacrifice of
Christ's body, in union with which we offer our inward
spiritual sacrifices.
40. DR. FAIRBAIRN. If the sacrifices be inward can they be
corporeal acts ? and in whait sense are they corporate ?
41. CANON GORE. Surely what our Lord created for us by
His expiatory sacrifice was the freedom of approach to
<&od. It is that expiation of His which admits us into
that life which is (not in the expiatory, but in the more
fundamental and general sense) sacrificial. The wisest
and truest use of language appears to me to restrict the
phrase ' propitiation or ' expiation ' to Christ's initial work
for us ; but to assert also that propitiation does not exhaust
sacrifice, but rather restores the worshipper to its true and
original exercise.
42. DR. SALMOND. We have again and again, as I have said,
and in very explicit terms in the Epistle to the Hebrews,
the distinction drawn between two sacrifices gifts and
sacrifices for sin. Now when Canon Scott Holland speaks
of our ' sacrifices/ does he mean that they belong to the
second category sacrifices for sin ? I admit that the New
Testament says that we have sacrifices to offer, but in
what sense and of what kind ?
43. CANON SCOTT HOLLAND. Only in the sense that Christ
was our sacrifice, and that we take part in His atoning
sacrifice.
44. DR. FAIRBAIRN. Does then our sacrifice like His atone
for sin ?
45. DR. MoBERLY. Apart from Him it does not.
I. 46-58] FIRST DISCUSSION 97
46. DR. SALMOND. Apart from Him, we all agree, it has no
virtue. But has any sacrifice we can offer any virtue in
itself, or any such expiatory virtue as His has ?
47. DR. MOBERLY. We become a part of His sacrifice, and
our acts are echoes or expressions the result of God's
grace and not the cause.
48. DR. SALMOND. 'Is there anything in the New Testament
which attributes to our sacrifices the capability of effect-
ing the remission of sins, any propitiatory or expiatory
efficacy?
49. CANON GORE. My inclination would be to deny that our
sacrifices were propitiatory or expiatory.
50. MR. ARNOLD THOMAS. What sacrifices are we speak-
ing of?
51. CANON SCOTT HOLLAND. We are speaking of the
sacrifice of a broken heart, and the value it has in Christ.
52. DR. SALMOND. We all agree that the grace of the Spirit
comes to us through Christ, and that it is only in virtue
of that that any offering we are competent to make has
any worth.
53. MR. LANG. May I ask what Dr. Salmond means by
sacrifices ? I think he has in his mind such sacrifices
as the offering of prayer for forgiveness of sins.
54. DR. SALMOND. Yes. The sacrifices which the New
Testament speaks of the believer as offering are those
' spiritual sacrifices ' of which prayer is one.
55. MR. LANG. Then our prayer for forgiveness of sin
would avail, not for any inherent efficacy of its own, but
because it unites us with the atoning sacrifice of Christ.
56. DR. FORSYTH. I would ask, can the Church reproduce
the sacrificial act which constituted it ?
57. CANON SCOTT HOLLAND. No.
58. MR. HEADLAM. May I inquire in what way is the prayer
of a righteous man efficacious in what way is it propitia-
tory or expiatory ?
H
98 FIRST DISCUSSION [1.59-67
59. DR. MOBERLY. I think that the question might be asked
even more effectively with reference to penitence ; because
penitence, in relation to sin has certainly about it some-
thing which can be described as of an ' atoning' character.
60. DR. SALMOND. I should hold the term ' atoning ' entirely
inapplicable to penance or to prayer.
61. MR. HEADLAM. I want to know whether we can get at
a definition which will bring this home to us. It is
because of Christ's death and sacrifice that we are in
mystical union with Him.
62. CANON GORE. I think that every one must admit that we
avoid an extraordinary amount of misrepresentation and
misunderstanding if we limit such phrases as propitiatory
and expiatory to the work of Christ for us. It is only
a limitation of phrase adopted to express what we all
mean.
63. MR. HEADLAM. There is no doubt that a very large
part of Christendom, both in the East and the West,
believe that the eucharist is propitiatory. Although we
don't agree with that, we must find out what inherent and
fundamental truth there is in it. Can we in any sense
say that prayer is propitiatory, although we dislike the
phrase ? In the same way they may say that the eucha-
rist should be propitiatory, although we wish to avoid the
phrase.
64. DR. SALMOND. Of course the Roman Catholic Church
goes far beyond that.
65. DR. MOBERLY. I don't think you can ask what the
sacrifices of a Christian are, on the hypothesis that they
can conceivably be at all apart from Christ. The hypo-
thesis implies a distinction which is necessarily misleading.
66. DR. FAIRBAIRN. Then are you not arguing for a position
which identifies the creation with the Creator ; the equiva-
lent in Christian Theology of Pantheism in Philosophy ?
67. DR. MOBERLY. I do not think so.
I. 68, 69] FIRST DISCUSSION 99
68. DR. SANITAY here intimated that the time for the adjourn-
ment had arrived.
69. DR. FAIRBAIRN. I think, Dr. Sanday, you have every
reason to congratulate yourself with regard to this con-
ference. It has begun well and is leading up to important
questions.
The Conference then adjourned.
H a
100 SECOND DISCUSSION [II. 1, 2
SECOND DISCUSSION.
1. DR. SAND AY. I think it will be best on the whole to
follow the same order of proceeding as this morning. We
shall have to finish quite punctually by half-past six, and
I therefore think we will begin with five-minute speeches.
I will once more call upon Father Puller to commence.
2. FATHER PULLER. I will take up the line I suggested
tttis morning in regard to the complex character of the
sacrificial act as set forth in the Old Testament, and apply
it to that which we are now prepared to discuss the New
Testament doctrine of sacrifice and of priesthood. I would
lay great stress on the thought that while our Blessed
Lord's death on the cross is a most essential and funda-
mental element in His sacrifice, His priestly work is
especially to be connected with His life in glory. I have
pointed out that the killing of the sacrifice was not in the
typical dispensation a sacerdotal act, and that it was only
accidentally that a priest ever took any part in it, and that
when on any occasion the priest did kill the victim, he
was not acting as a priest, but rather as the offerer.
Similarly I am accustomed to regard our Lord, when He
was dying on the cross, rather as the victim than as the
priest. This, I think, is the teaching of the Epistle to
the Hebrews. The author of that Epistle seems always
to connect our Lord's priesthood with His life in the
state of glory. I would refer specially to Heb. ii. 17;
v. 5-10 ; vi. 20 ; vii. 28 ; viii. 2, 3 ; and I would lay
stress on the fact that Dr. A. B. Davidson, of Edinburgh,
in his remarkable commentary on the Epistle to the
2] SECOND DISCUSSION IOI
Hebrews, to a great extent bears me out. Dr. Davidson,
on p. 151, says : ' It is doubtful if the Epistle anywhere
regards the Son's death considered merely in itself as
a priestly act. . . . The Epistle seems to confine the high-
priestly ministry to the acts done in the sanctuary, and to
refrain from including under the priesthood, when it is
spoken of distinctively, any acts not done there.' I would
call special attention to what is said about our Lord's
becoming a High Priest in Heb. v. 5~ IQ - The holy
writer says : ' So Christ also glorified not Himself to be
made a High Priest, but He that spake unto Him, " Thou
art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee." ' Here I note
in passing that our Lord's elevation to the High Priesthood
is by implication described as a glorification of Him by
the Father; and it is also implied that the Father was
glorifying the Incarnate Son to be High Priest, when in
the words of the second Psalm He said, ' Thou art My
Son, this day have I begotten Thee.' But those words
are interpreted by St. Paul of our Lord's Resurrection
(see Acts xiii. 33 and Rom. i. 4). The writer of the
Epistle to the Hebrews goes on to say : ' As He saith
also in another place, " Thou art a priest for ever after
the order of Melchizedek." ' And these words are taken
from Psalm ex., a psalm of our Lord's life in glory, a psalm
which begins with the words, ' The Lord said unto my
Lord, Sit Thou at My right hand, until I make Thine
enemies Thy footstool.' Thus our Lord's glorification to
be High Priest is connected with His resurrection and
His session in the heavenly places. The rest of the
passage, Heb. v. 7-10, will be found to corroborate this
result. Thus, it would appear that, when our Lord
entered the heavenly sanctuary and was about to present
Himself to the Father, He became a High Priest, and in
some mysterious way He fulfilled what the high priest did
on the Day of Atonement, when he went within the veil
102 SECOND DISCUSSION ' [II. 3
v**J^Jr*~~3
and offered the blood. Again, our Lord no doubt also
fulfilled the other priestly act of presenting His Holy
Body as a sacrifice.^ St. John, in the Book of the Revela-
tion, looking up into heaven, saw ' in the midst of the
throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst
of the elders, a Lamb standing as though it had been
slain.' There was the sacrifice in heaven. The lamb
was the sacrificial animal par excellence^ and our Lord is
described not simply as the Lamb, but as the bpviov s
(crQayufvov, which last word is the usual word in Leviticus
for the mactation of sacrifices. Yet the Lord is not now
dead. He is standing, for He is alive for evermore. Thus
He is represented as a living sacrifice, who has passed
through death. The Jewish sacrifices had to be offered
in death with no resurrection life in them ; while the
Christian sacrifice has passed through death and ' is alive
for evermore.'
3. ARCHDEACON WILSON. The special subject we have to
consider is the sacrifice and priesthood of Christ. I think
that when we are speaking of the sacrifice of Christ we are
speaking of the work of One whom we can only imperfectly
understand even in His functions and relations to man, and
still more imperfectly in His divine and eternal relations
to God. Those relations existed prior to, and during, and
subsequent to that which we speak of as His earthly life
and death which took place in time. Much of the con-
fusion and difficulty arises in speaking too positively and
precisely of an aspect of the subject with which we are
necessarily unable to grapple. I desire, therefore, to put
those latter relations aside as unknown to us except
through revelation as in a glass darkly; and to con-
centrate our thoughts on His human work, which we
have the faculties, at any rate in part, for understanding.
Those functions, seen from their human side, are in the
strictest sense an atonement or reconciliation with God
II. 4] SECOND DISCUSSION 103
through identity of will, perfect obedience, and service ;
and are therefore, it seems to me, rightly described
as priestly and sacerdotal, and are the perfect model
for our imitation. The only part of Christ's sacrifice
we can repeat in this spirit, forming, as we do, His body
on earth, is the perpetual consecration of life in obedience
to His spirit. Now with this understanding our priest-
hood and sacrifice are of the same nature as His, and
that is as far as they are capable of intelligible state-
ment. Something I said this morning made it seem
to one speaker that I demur to the very use of these
words. I do not demur to the use of the words
priesthood or sacrifice, although they have the mis-
fortune of gathering around them some misleading
associations. I think the only test we have of truth
in religion is vitality and permanence. Ideas which
are permanent, must be rooted in human nature, and
are not accidents of association, or of race, or of educa-
tion. It is on these grounds of vitality and permanence
that we are obliged to believe in the personality of God,
in the possibility of approach to Him through prayer,
in the possibility and reality of the eternal life. Sacrifice
and priesthood come into that category, and have been
so vital in human nature as to lay claim to correspon-
dence with real truth. The danger to us is that we should
be drawn back into the lower and magical conception
of a sacrificing priesthood, when we should go forward
towards the higher and ethical. The thought of God
of our service to Him has to be detached from the
materialistic conceptions and made more spiritual. This
appears to me to have been the special characteristic of
Christ as a teacher.
4. DR. FAIRBAIRN. When we come to our Lord's own
teaching we are met by the difficulty that He never
names Himself a priest, makes no explicit reference to
104 SECOND DISCUSSION [II. 4
His priesthood, and does not interpret His death in
the terms of the Levitical sacrifices. If we grant the
presence of the priestly idea in His mind, we shall be all
the less able to regard this failure to find some fit ritual
expression for it as accidental or insignificant. On the
contrary, it may better be described as abstention than
as silence or as reticence. If we conceive how the
priesthood and their ritual constituted the very atmo-
sphere within which the local religion lived and breathed,
we shall see how impossible it was, spontaneously or
undesignedly, to think or speak concerning worship in
terms which shut them out. But this our Lord did,
never speaking of Himself or His disciples as priests, or
indulging in any form of sacerdotal speech. If we are
to seek a reason for this remarkable abstention, we
shall find it in the governing idea or thought which
filled His mind. This is embodied in the title which,
if He does not directly use it of Himself, He yet ex-
pressly invites and allows others to apply to Him the
Christ. (Cf. Matt. xvi. 16; xxvi. 63; xxvii. n, 12, 17,
22.) He is the Messiah ; it is because He claims to be
the Messianic King that He is crucified ; and the king-
dom He founds, with its laws and ideals of conduct and
worship, is the social expression of His Messianic king-
hood. Out of the same title grew the functions He
described Himself as having come to fulfil, especially those
which stood directly associated with His sacrifice. Thus
it is out of Peter's famous confession which our Lord
Himself elicits, 'Thou art the Christ,' that His first
explicit reference to His sufferings and death grows
(Matt. xxi. 1 6, 21). The Messianic idea is even more
distinctly expressed in the second reference: 'the Son
of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister,
and to give His life a ransom for many' (Matt. xx.
26-28). The associations here are not those of a
II. 5] SECOND DISCUSSION 105
priestly ransom, but of a kingly sacrifice ; the act of
One whose right was to be ministered unto, but whose
actual work was to minister. Hence He places His
sacrificial kinghood in contrast to the dominion exer-
cised by the great ones of the earth ; they lord it over
man, while He redeems by giving Himself unto death.
When He goes up to Jerusalem it is the Messianic
idea which fills His mind, and the minds alike of His
disciples and of the people (Matt. xxi. 5, 9, 12-17).
He is welcomed as David's son, and does not refuse the
name; the question He puts to the Pharisees is, 'What
think ye of the Messiah? Whose son is He?' (Matt,
xxii. 41-46). When He institutes the Supper He does
not cease to be the King, nor does He become a priest
save in the sense in which every Hebrew father was
a priest. The vision which fills His imagination was
Israel coming out of the house of bondage, the great
domestic sacrifice by which it was achieved, and the
solemn domestic ceremonial by which it was com-
memorated. His death was the reality foreshadowed
in those paschal sacrifices which belonged to the family
and not to the priesthood ; and it signified that in His
blood a new covenant had been established, which meant
that a new people stood before God, because God had
become a new and more gracious Redeemer of His
people (Matt. xxvi. 17-28; Luke xxii. 14-20; i Cor.
xi. 23-25). But though emphasis falls on the lamb, and
the blood, and the covenant, there is no place for the
priest; the father, the family, the household are all
here, but not the temple or any of the forms proper to
sacerdotal worship (Ex. xii. 3, 21-28, 43-46).
5. DR. MOBERLY. I said this morning that the ceremonial
and the moral, the inward and the outward of sacrifice
and priesthood were but very gradually fused, and fused
perfectly only in the person of Jesus Christ. In Him
106 SECOND DISCUSSION [II. 5
outward actions or sufferings were the direct expression
of the consecrated will ; along this line of thought I can
re-echo much of what Archdeacon Wilson said just now.
But if His sacrifice may be said to find its culmination
in consecration of will, I utterly demur to any inference
that the darker implications of Old Testament sacrifice
have therefore passed out of the word. It is the whole
Old Testament, not one aspect of it, that is fulfilled in
the New. If there is the prophetic protest against merely
outward sacrifice, there is also the whole ritual of sacri-
fice itself to be accounted for ; and the principle which
lies far back in it, that 'without shedding of blood is
np remission.' Nothing of all this is in vain. It is all
not abolished, but taken up and made vital in Christ.
I do not dwell now on the thought (supremely impor-
tant though it is) that the term 'blood' never simply
means death, but essentially life ; though, no less essen-
tially, life that has passed through dying. I do not
go further into that. But if we speak of the supreme
sacrifice as finding its culmination in consecration of
will, obedience, &c., the obedience in question is not
so much obedience in its other, or brighter aspects, as
particularly the obedience of penitence. It is the culmina-
tion of moral righteousness in reference to sin the actual
consummation of perfection of penitence. Penitence, on
analysis, is found to require no less than personal identi-
fication with absolute holiness ; but with holiness par-
ticularly in its aspect as the absolute condemnation
of sin. All penitence within our experience is imperfect
penitence. Perfect penitence is only possible to the
personally sinless. In Him it would mean the surrender
of self, on sin's account, as part of the self's relentless
condemnation of sin, by virtue of that self-identity with
sinful man, which was constituted by the Incarnation,
for the very purpose that this sacrifice might be possible.
II. 6] SECOND DISCUSSION 107
I am endeavouring to answer Dr. Fairbairn's question
as to the meaning of my printed definition of the
sacrifice of Christ. It is the self-consecration of the
absolutely sinless, self-identified with the sinful so
that the absolute condemnation by righteousness, of
sin, may be made complete by the self, within the
self, and at the cost of the self; which is the ideal
consummation of what penitence, if ever it could be
absolutely perfect, would mean.
My time is finished. If I am able to add anything
further, I would rather try to do so in the time of
general conversation by-and-by.
6. DR. RYLE. I think it is essential that our attention
should be called to the absence from our Lord's teaching
of anything definitely relating to His priesthood. Our
Lord, who called Himself the Good Shepherd, and who
identified Himself with ' the Lamb who was slain,' never
identified Himself with the priest, whose work was
necessarily occupied in the constant performance of
animal sacrifice; though He dwelt in an atmosphere
of ritual associated with the sacrifice of animals, and
was Himself connected by relationship with one who
was born a priest. Our Lord and His great forerunner
were prophets and teachers ; and that part of their work
stands in the forefront of the Gospel teaching. True, our
Lord appropriated to Himself terms implying consecra-
tion ; and He called Himself a ransoming victim. But
this was only metaphorical language that would naturally
be employed in addressing Jewish hearers. In the institu-
tion of the Last Supper He introduced a memorial of
His death, a feast of sacrifice which was associated with
the thought of the lamb of the Passover, when the victim
was not killed by the priest, but by the head of the house-
hold. Moreover, both in the institution of this sacrament
and in the words with reference to Holy Baptism, our
108 SECOND DISCUSSION [II. 7
Lord addressed Himself to the Apostles as representa-
tives of the whole Society, and not as any priestly order.
The work of our Lord as a priest will include, of course,
His function of intercession, benediction and absolution.
These belong to His eternal priesthood. So far as His
historic work is concerned, there is no teaching in the
New Testament which would imply either that His
mediatorial office and sacrifice for sin were otherwise
than completely finished in Himself and in His own
person ; or that the duties of service are not to be per-
formed by all alike who were His disciples. The priest-
hood and sacrifice of Christ 'in the heavenlies,' in the
presence of the Father, seem to me matters quite beyond
the range of our conception. The self-surrender of
Christ is presented to us in the New Testament as a
propitiatory offering. The metaphor was intelligible to
the Jews, although it may not be to the modern and
Western minds which are quite unfamiliar with the
eastern sacrificial idea The Apostolic writer, in his
Epistle to the Hebrews, speaks of the Levitical system
as coming to an end. In Christ the old sacrifices were
abolished. The law and the prophets were ' fulfilled ' in
the sense of receiving their full and final meaning, not of
obtaining a new and undefined expansion. The work of
Christ as the Divine Head which has to be continued by
His ' society ' or ' body ' is not the work of expiation.
I cannot understand any way in which that atoning
work of Christ, once completed, can be said to be carried
on by those for whom the historic sacrifice was offered
7. DR. SALMOND. In endeavouring to ascertain the New
Testament ideas of sacrifice and priesthood, we should
begin, I think, with our Lord's own words, and try to get
His own conception of His work. From this we should
next proceed to the teaching of the various New Testa-
ment writers.
II. 7] SECOND DISCUSSION 109
There is less of direct utterance, however, on these
subjects in our Lord's own words than we should expect,
especially with regard to priesthood. He does not speak
directly of Himself as a priest. He speaks of His work,
however, in priestly terms, and in terms of a sacrifice.
He speaks in general terms of ' giving His life for the
sheep/ of ' sanctifying Himself,' or setting Himself apart
as a sacrifice in His death, &c. But He speaks also more
specially of ' giving His life a ransom for many,' and the
idea of ' ransom ' (X-urpov) is that of procuring by a price
or payment a great benefit, such as a deliverance from
captivity or from the doom of death. And in another
saying of fundamental importance He speaks of His
blood (of which the Supper was to be the memorial,
and the shedding of which was the great act of His
ministry) as a covenant offering that in which the new
covenant was founded as the Sinaitic covenant had been
founded in the blood of sacrifices of old, and not only so,
but as having specifically in view ' the remission of sins '
(Matt. xx. 28, with parallels). According to His own
testimony, therefore, the act or work which made His
peculiar sacrifice was not one done simply for the good of
others, but definitely for the remission of sin, i.e. the
cancelling of guilt, or the relief from penalty.
When we look to the New Testament writings we find
that the various expressions used by Christ Himself are
taken up and have their sense developed. The work, the
death, the sacrifice of Christ, is presented by the several
writers in different aspects, and with different points of
incidence. Peter, e. g. speaks of it as a redemption from
a vain traditional way of life (i Pet. i. 18-20), but also
as a ' bearing of our sins in His body ' (i Pet. ii. 24), which
has for its effect righteousness and healing. John speaks
of it specially as a 'propitiation' (i John ii. a ; iv. 10).
With Paul it is an ' offering ' and a ' sacrifice '
110 SECOND DISCUSSION [II. 7
6v<ria, Eph. v. 2), a sacrifice like the Passover (i Cor. v. 7),
but also specially a redemption which 'declares' the
' righteousness of God ' in the pretermission of sins (Rom.
iii. 25) ; which had a propitiatory meaning (t&.) ; which
effects a reconciliation (KaToAAayTjv) between God and
man (Rom. v. 10-11 ; 2 Cor. v. 18-20) ; which expiates
sin, redeems from the curse of the law, and answers to
the ' sin-offering ' of old, &c. (2 Cor. v. 21 ; Gal. iii. 13 ;
. Rom. viii. 3 ; &c.). The Epistle to the Hebrews speaks
of Christ as High Priest, and of His offering or sacrifice
as the one perfect sacrifice for sins, requiring no repeti-
tion, purging sin away, propitiating God in respect of sin,
purifying the conscience ; obtaining eternal salvation, the
remission of sin, &c. (Heb. i. 3 ; ii. 17 ; v. 9 ; vii. 27 ; ix.
11-14, 26, &c.).
Taking these things together it will appear, I think,
that the New Testament draws an absolute distinction
between Christ's sacrifice and anything that can be called
' sacrifice ' on our part, and this not only in respect of the
greater intrinsic worth of the former, or the perfection in
virtue of which it needs to be done but once, but also
definitely in respect of its efficacy in the cleansing of the
conscience, the removal of guilt, the remission of sin,
the rectification of broken spiritual relations between God
and sinful man. In particular, in the great passage already
referred to in Heb. ix. 11-14, Christ's sacrifice is described
in terms of the expiatory offerings of the Levitical system,
and has a positive efficacy ascribed to it comparable to
what they had, but acting in the moral sphere, while they
belonged to the ceremonial, and availing for the removal
of the penalties or disabilities of sin and the satisfaction
of conscience. The New Testament speaks, indeed, of
' sacrifices ' which it is competent for us to offer, and to
some extent it specifies what these are (Rom. xii. i ; Heb.
xi. 15, 1 6 ; i Pet. ii. 5). But it speaks of these only in
II. 8] SECOND DISCUSSION III
terms of the ' gifts ' as distinguished from the ' sacrifices
for sins,' and never applies to them the phraseology of the
Levitical sin and trespass offerings which is used of
Christ's sacrifice. There is nothing in the New Testament,
as I read it, to warrant us to speak of the Lord's Supper
as a ' sacrifice,' or of the Christian minister as a ' sacrificing
priest.' The term ' priest ' itself indeed (lepevs) is not
used of the Christian minister as such, though it is used
of the Christian man or the Christian people. Nor, again,
do I find anything in the New Testament to warrant us
to speak of Christ's sacrifice as continued in any sense on
earth. It has its memorial in the Church, and its virtue
abides. But that is all. In the heavenly life Christ's
priesthood is continued in the form of intercession, and
in the sense that He appears in the presence of God for
us (Heb. vii. 25 ; ix. 24). But beyond this the New
Testament does not carry us.
8. CANON GORE. I should like to say something about the
silence of Christ on the subject of His own sacrifice, and
our relation to it, as referred to by Dr. Fairbairn. I sup-
pose that as one studies the New Testament documents
more closely, nothing gets hold of one more in regard to
them than the central place held in the earliest Church
by the ideas derived from Isaiah liii. These ideas under-
lie the early speeches of the Acts in such a way as forces
one to realize that from the first beginning of the Church
the conception was dominant that Christ's death was the
realization of the ideal suggested by Isaiah. And our
Lord Himself, in all that central spiritual labour of His
life, which consisted in habituating His disciples to the idea
of glory through death, was but recalling them to the lost
conception. 'Ought not the Christ to have suffered?' was
an appeal more especially to Isaiah liii. The forerunner,
according to St. John, had already prepared the way for
this recall by pointing to Christ as ' the Lamb of God
112 SECOND DISCUSSION [H. 8
who taketh up and expiateth the sin of the world*
Surely the idea of Christ the sacrifice is at the very
centre and kernel of the New Testament. These general
considerations give distinction and emphasis to the one
or two special utterances of our Lord about the sacrificial
character of His own life and death. The words ' This
is My blood which is being shed' (or 'poured out')
'for you,' characterize His death as the spiritual coun-
terpart of the sacrifice which inaugurated the first
covenant. There is also the passage ' For their sake
I consecrate Myself that they also may be consecrated
in truth' a phrase which identifies priesthood and
sacrifice in Christ, i. e. brings out the fact that the sacrifice
i* essentially of the person, which means, of course, that
priest and sacrifice are identified. I am afraid that
Dr. Fairbairn somewhat left out of sight two important
passages when he said that our Lord never associated
His own death with that of His disciples. One passage
is that in St John ' Except a com of wheat fall into the
ground and die, it abideth by itself alone, but if it die it
bringeth forth much fruit' (chap. ia, ver. 24). These
words were used when the Greeks approached and asked
to see Jesus, and Jesus postpones His fruitful manifesta-
tion in the wider world until the way has been opened by
His death. After using the words I have quoted, our
Lord goes on to say, ' He that loveth his life shall lose
it ; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it
unto life eternal,' &c. This means that the law of
sacrifice the law of living through dying which is the
law of His own life is to be also that of His disciples.
There is also St Matthew xvi, where Peter rebukes our
Lord for His anticipation of His death, and where our
Lord refers to the cross which is to be the instrument of
His own death, adding, ' Whosoever will come after Me,
let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow
II. 9] SECOND DISCUSSION 113
me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it, and
whosoever will lose his life for My sake shall find it,' &c.
Here again He implies that the cross, the instrument of
His own sacrifice, is to belong to the disciples as well.
I should have thought, however, that the New Testament
as a whole required us to draw a distinction between the
spiritual meaning and efficacy of our Lord's dying or our
Lord's sacrifice, and anything which we, through Him,
can share. I own that I claim to confine the word
propitiation to that inaugural act by which our Lord
treading the winepress alone brought humanity by His
single incommunicable act into a new relation to God,
and inaugurated a new covenant ; and I would altogether
reserve that word for the sacrifice of Christ without the
least failing to recognize that there is ambiguity in all
theological terms, which may give to almost any proposi-
tion an almost boundless application. Nevertheless
I think that ' propitiation/ and words that go with it,
should be strictly reserved for the great inaugural act
which reconstituted humanity on a new basis, and
inaugurated a new covenant in virtue of the remission of
sins which it won for us.
But I should also have thought that propitiation does
not exhaust the meaning of Christ's sacrifice. In its
deeper sense it expresses what is, even apart from the
alienation caused by sin and requiring atonement, the
fundamental relation of man to God which Christ
restores to us ; and in this sense the whole of the New
Testament implies that it is to be perpetuated in us and
in our religion, both towards God and towards one another.
9. CANON BERNARD. I do not think that I have anything
to add to what has already been so well said on this
question by Dr. Salmond and Dr. Ryle. I will only
remark that I think that the teaching which has been
drawn from Hebrews as to our Lord's high-priestly work
I
114 SECOND DISCUSSION [tt. 10
in heaven has been obtained by using the Old Testament
to interpret the New, which I do not look upon as legiti-
mate. It has been well said that the Old Testament
explains the New Testament, while the New Testament
interprets the Old Testament. The distinction between
explaining and interpreting is a very important one. But
in remarks made at the beginning of our discussion the
maxim was practically inverted. I do not like to pass
by the opinions expressed this morning as to the possi-
bility of the Church or individuals, by virtue of their
union with Christ, exercising the same atoning power for
sin which He exercised. Accept that, and you have
enough foundation for the doctrine of the Mass. I feel
mat I must dissent from any agreement with such a view.
10. DR. DAVISON. I had intended to emphasize the absten-
tion, or silence, observed by our Lord in relation to
priesthood, and especially as to any transmission of
priesthood or sacrifice in His Church. But almost all
the speakers have agreed that such testimony as we have
is indirect. Dr. Sanday plainly says so (p. 22), and the
passages quoted by Dr. Moberly and Canon Gore imply
the same thing. But is not this a very significant fact,
especially as much of the indirect evidence is uncon-
vincing ?
As to the Apostles, I find for the most part silence
among them in relation to our Lord's priesthood
though they have much to say about sacrifice the
exception, of course, being the Epistle to the Hebrews.
As Dr. Fairbairn has urged, this silence or abstention is
very significant, and weight must be given to it when so
much stress is being laid on ' sacerdotal ' characteristics.
I doubt whether we can build much upon our Lord's
priestly work in heaven, because we know so little
about it.
Leaving that part of the subject, therefore, I would
II. 11] SECOND DISCUSSION 115
refer to that large measure of identification between our
Lord's priesthood and that of the Church, or the indivi-
dual, which some are anxious to establish. I cannot
accept such statements as that of Dr. Milligan, ' What-
ever the Head is or does, the body must in a measure be
or do' (p. 27) ; or that of Canon Moberly, ' They are what
He is ' (p. 25). If we are to understand that in any
sense our Lord's priestly work is perpetuated in the
Church, is the piacular element included in that work ?
If so, on what basis, with what Scripture sanction ?
I cannot accept this inclusion in any form.
Dr. Moberly said that 'the chief atoning element in
the world is penitence,' and if that be the main element
in Christ's atoning work, we might be said in some
sense to continue it. But surely this is misleading.
M'Leod Campbell dwelt unduly upon our Lord's con-
fession of man's sin as atoning, but he did not use the
term 'penitence,' which does not properly describe
Christ's sacrifice at all. In that sacrifice we cannot
share. Whatever it was, it was perfect, offered once for
all. It was unique, partly because of His person, partly
because of His mission. I find no guidance in the New
Testament on this identification of Christ's sacrifice with
ours, and I shrink from all language concerning priest-
hood and sacrifice, which, under cover of expressing one
set of ideas, introduces, or makes it easy to introduce,
widely different ones.
ii. CANON SCOTT HOLLAND. I am most grateful to
Archdeacon Wilson for his strong assertion of the
depth to which the elemental conceptions of priesthood
and sacrifice are rooted in the story of human develop-
ment, and of the necessity of our retaining elements so
radical and so vital. They belong to the inherent
essential experiences which are the ground of all our
inductive certainty.
I 2
Il6 SECOND DISCUSSION [II. 11
Any words that have been used which would minimize
or explain away such ground ideas, seem to me disastrous
to the faith. We have only to consider the living powers
that would be gone out of the Creed of Christ, if the
appeal to the sprinkling of the blood, the pleading of
the one sacrifice and oblation, the uplifting of the cross,
were withdrawn as antiquated ; and we should be aware
how profoundly serious the situation would be.
The Epistle to the Hebrews pronounces the older
sacrifices to be antiquated and ready to vanish away
on one ground only i.e. that every detail of the
sacrificial system has been taken up into Christ. The
blood of bulls and goats is useless because the blood
of *Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin. Sacrifice is trans-
figured, not abolished.
Language has been used to-day implying that Christ
came in response to the prophetic, rather than the sacri-
ficial and priestly elements in the older covenant. But
is it not the note of the vital difference between the
Baptist and Jesus Christ, that the prophetic office had
come to an arrest ; had found its own impotence to
fulfil its aspirations, in the Baptist ; and that its advance
was blocked unless the road could be opened for it by
that which was essentially priestly and sacrificial ? The
Baptist was a c prophet, and more than a prophet.' He
carried prophecy to its highest value. He shook souls,
he convicted, he drew to God. But he was so great
a prophet because he knew and confessed that, in
exercising the full powers of the prophet he had done
nothing to secure his aim. He might preach ; men
might repent and confess ; and yet they were no
further on ; for the sin was in them, and they could
not wipe it out. They could but signalize a need ;
they could but wait for another to deliver. The pro-
phetic office revealed in the Baptist its own limitations.
11. 12] SECOND DISCUSSION 1 17
And 'the other' would deliver because he would bring
into play the regenerating efficacy of sacrifice. He
would come to the relief of arrested prophecy by the
power of the priest and the victim. ' Behold the Lamb
of God which taketh away the sin of the world.'
In these words, the Baptist fulfils his mission ; he
brings the prophetic office of man under the power of
the redemptive blood. And is it not worth while to
recall the pregnant words which were made the accusa-
tion of our Lord at His trial ? We know from St. John
their true form and intention. 'Destroy this temple,
and in three days I will raise it up.' He was speaking
of the temple of His body. The old temple would be
destroyed by its sin ; but its significance, as the home-
altar of sacrificial acts, would become alive again in
Him, would be absorbed into Him. And this would
be through and in His body the body in which He
died the death ; the body which was prepared for Him
the body of His offering.
These words hold in them the whole Epistle to the
Hebrews. And they were uttered at a moment which
revealed to the disciples the passionate attachment of
our Lord to the old temple and its worship, which
burnt in Him as a fire.
1 2. DR. SANDAY. I should like to say a word in regard to
the silences of Scripture. I think it is quite possible to lay
too much stress upon these. If we take only one passage
that great passage which contains the Words of Institu-
tion (Matt. xxvi. 28, and parallels), we find that they are
full of sacrificial meaning. I think I should estimate the
extent of the sacrificial element in the teaching of St.
Paul much higher than Dr. Fairbairn has done. Nearly
all the references to the ' Blood ' of Christ must be sacri-
ficial. So also would be the use of iAao-r^ioy, ikdo-Kcvdai,
I see that Dr. Fairbairn questions the Levitical
Il8 SECOND DISCUSSION [II. 13
sense of Uaorq/xoi; (p. 27) ; but I think that he would find
most commentators against him on that point. There
are great masses of sacrificial teaching in the Epistle to
the Hebrews. Does not all this language point back-
wards to something ? Could we not understand it much
better if there had been something in our Lord's teaching
to suggest it ? Can a saying so weighty as that of our
Lord to which I have referred (Matt. xxvi. 28) stand
quite alone ? In any case it is an exceedingly pregnant
saying.
Then there is the great point which was raised by
Dr. Davison, a point on which I am specially looking for
heip from our discussions. I mean the identification of
the acts or funclions of the Church as the Body of Christ,
with those of Christ as its Head. A few years ago
I should have been content to take a view which I under-
stand is that of Dr. Davison and of Canon Bernard ; but
I have been obliged to ask myself whether, in doing so,
I should have really done justice to the teaching of
Scripture; and that is what is haunting my mind at the
present time. On the other hand I must confess that my
imagination is staggered by Dr. Moberly's answer to
Question 5 (p. 31). It is so very large, and so very
inclusive; and the question, to my mind, is, whether I can
make such language a reality to myself. I see its depth,
and fullness, and richness. I see it all ; and I am well
aware that there is a great deal of very remarkable
teaching in the Epistles. I will only now express my
own great gratitude for what I have heard to-day. You
will not ask me to express a positive opinion, because
I am feeling my way to new ground.
13. THE REV. ARNOLD THOMAS. In considering the New
Testament doctrine of priesthood and sacrifice, it is
important to bear in mind what we must feel to be a
characteristic note of New Testament teaching, namely,
11.18] SECOND DISCUSSION 119
the emphasis which is laid on the universal presence
and operation of the Holy Spirit in the Church. The
ministration of the Gospel is pre-eminently a ministration
of the Spirit. And I understand that to mean that we
are all brought through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ
into the presence of His Father, who thus becomes in
the dearest and fullest sense our Father, and into direct
and intimate filial relations with Him. We all, all, with
unveiled face, reflect as a mirror the glory of the Lord.
We are transformed into the same image as from the
Lord the Spirit. Whether Jew or Gentile, we come
through Jesus unto the Father, having access to Him in
one Spirit. We are all sons of God through faith in
Christ Jesus, having received into our hearts the Spirit
of God's Son, whereby we cry, 'Abba, Father,' so that
we are no longer bond-servants, but sons. It is impos-
sible to study the New Testament without being struck
with the prominence which is given to this wonderful
conception of the Christian life. And I feel that we
must only accept such ideas of priesthood and sacrifice
as are consistent with this conception of the believer as
a child who has been brought into his true home.
How then can we, who live under the New Testament
economy, be priests, and what sacrifices can we offer ?
We can be priests only inasmuch as we stand by the
grace of God in the very sanctuary of His presence.
And the sacrifices we may offer are those sacrifices only
that belong to a spiritual dispensation, namely, the
sacrifice of a consecrated will, of the love of a loyal heart,
and the devotion of the whole life.
If these are true conceptions of the calling and state of
the Christian, it is difficult to see what need there is, or
what room there is, for any official priest in the household
of God. What I need is the human teacher and guide
who can convince my mind, and touch my conscience,
120 SECOND DISCUSSION [II. 14
and awaken my faith ; and to admit an official inter-
mediary, when once the spirit of adoption has been given
to me, is to part with the child's most precious prerogative.
It is to say that Christ's work is but imperfectly done, and
that He has not brought us to God Himself, but only as
it were into an outer court, from which we may hold
intercourse with Him through agencies specially appointed
for the purpose.
14. THE REV. C. G. LANG. It is exceedingly difficult to
speak at the end of a discussion like this, and my wiser
self tells me I had better be silent, but there are a few
points upon which I may try to interpret my own thoughts
and perhaps those of others. With regard to the silence
of the New Testament, and the reticence of our Lord
on the subject of sacrifice, surely it is easy for us to
understand, if I may say so reverently, why there should
be that reticence. If our Lord had used very directly
familiar sacrificial language it would have connoted at
that time associations which were transitory, and which
He Himself was to render unnecessary. The essential
point of His teaching was to concentrate the minds of
His disciples upon the thought that it was not any
particular acts that He did that constituted his sacrifice,
but that He Himself was the sacrifice for the sins of the
world. Our Lord's method would be to bring them to
the root-idea of His sacrifice ; and in order to do that, it
would be necessary to be sparing in the use of the
ordinary sacrificial language, which had been, and was so
completely misunderstood. Yet this very fact surely
makes that impression of the spirit of sacrifice upon the
whole of our Lord's life, and the whole teaching of
the New Testament, just so remarkable. It is from this
very reticence that the wonderful impressiveness comes
when He does use sacrificial language. What can be
more impressive than that our Lord should have been
II. 14] SECOND DISCUSSION 121
ushered into His ministerial work with the words ' Behold
the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the World ' ?
How significant that in the institution of the eucharist
He should have used language directly sacrificial in its
meaning ; and that St. John, who entered into the inner
secrets of His life, should have used the memorable words
' The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.'
These things are so much the more impressive because of
the normal reticence of our Lord on the subject. I agree
with Canon Scott Holland that we should altogether miss
the force of such language if we were to regard it merely
as an accommodation to the times, or as simply figurative.
The fact that our Lord so carefully avoided the risk of
accommodation to current conceptions of sacrifice, makes
us feel that when He did use such language, then the
words were of eternal significance. And when we con-
sider what has been the effect of the words the ' sacrifice
of Christ,' and the ' Blood of Christ,' one cannot take
sacrifice out of the New Testament. As to the very
profound subject of the nature of our Lord's sacrifice,
surely it is necessary from His own language to feel that
there was more in the sacrifice than the mere dedication
and sacrifice of His own will that He looked forward to
the death on the cross as the great deed that was to work
some great achievement ; that that achievement was to
be done once ; and that once done it was to have eternal
significance and efficacy. Whatever the act of death
meant, it was at least the completion of the sacrifice in
time, but its significance and efficacy were to be eternal.
I agree with Father Puller that in thinking of the
sacrifice of Christ of the Eternal Son it is impossible
to think of it merely as an event past in time something
that has come to an end. The conception of our own
share of that sacrifice depends entirely upon what inter-
pretation we put on the mystical union of our Lord and
122 SECOND DISCUSSION [IL 15-17
His Church ; unless we are clear as to what we mean by
that union we shall be disputing largely about words as
to our share in the sacrifice ; and I am glad to see that that
is put down for our discussion to-morrow morning. It
seems strange to me that there should have been so little
recognition of what I should have thought an essentially
characteristic conception of St. Paul's teaching, viz. our
union with our Lord. I think we can claim to be united
with our Lord's sacrifice in the sense that we can unite
ourselves with that act in so far as it is eternal But
I apologize for speaking at all on so vast a theme.
15. THE REV. A. C. HEADLAM. The general topic has been
discussed very amply, and up to a certain point there has
been a remarkable and unanimous agreement. We all
agree that the propitiatory character of our Lord's death
is something unique, and the point at issue is, how far and
in what way the effects are shared in by us. I should
like now to pass on and ask how far, and in what way the
term sacrifice may be applied to the eucharist, and what
relation the eucharist has to the sacrifice offered by our
Lord on the cross. I do not know whether I should be
advancing too rapidly.
1 6. DR. SANDAY. I think not.
17. MR. HEADLAM. I should like, then, to say that although
the eucharist is never called a sacrifice in the New Testa-
ment, I do not think that we can eliminate the sacrificial
idea from it. And that firstly on account of the character
and occasion of its institution. It was instituted at the
time of the Passover, with all the ideas and associations
of the Passover in the minds of those taking part in it.
Secondly, when St. Paul refers to it in the Epistle to the
Corinthians, he uses the analogy of sacrifices, both Jewish
and Gentile, to explain it, and this quite dearly and
distinctly.
Now if we refer to the Passover we can distinguish the
II. 18] SECOND DISCUSSION 123
following parts of the rite : the slaying of the victim, the
sprinkling of the blood, and then, afterwards, the sacrificial
meal ; there was also the offering of first-fruits. It seems
to me that the analogy runs thus : instead of the paschal
lamb the sacrifice to be once offered was that of our Lord
on the cross. The effects of that sacrifice were to be
continued. Therefore, though the death is accomplished,
the communion in the sacrificial rite and the effect of it
in the new covenant live on ; and in that sense the
eucharist is a sacrifice. There is not time to go into
the general question of the interpretation of the New
Testament in the early Church, but from the beginning
we find that a favourite expression always is 'the un-
bloody sacrifice.'
1 8. DR. FORSYTH. I should disavow the idea of a sacrifice
as describing the eucharist. If it is true in any sense
in respect to the eucharist, it is in a very subordinate
sense. It is so misleading, especially for the earliest
Church, that I think it would be much better to dispense
with it altogether, except where there is opportunity to
explain. It is more mischievous than useful to allude
to it in that way. Dr. Loofs traces all the abuses of
the eucharist to the time when it began to be treated
as a sacrifice. Perhaps the nearest we could come to
Mr. Headlam's idea is that in worship and rites like
these we do not ourselves offer, but we proffer the eternal
offering Christ has made. I do not think that the word
' priest ' so finally and absolutely applied to Christ should
be applied to any of Christ's people, and I fear that
the nemesis of doing so has been very serious in the
history of the Church. Dr. Moberly refers to Christ's
sacrifice as ' consummating human penitence.' I hesitate
to describe as penitence any work of Christ, because
historically we cannot find any trace of repentance of
a vicarious repentance in His mind. Besides, vicarious
124 SECOND DISCUSSION [II. 19
repentance is a moral impossibility. I also make a dis-
tinction between penalty and punishment, and demur to
the description of Christ's priestly work as penal. God's
penalty on sin fell on Him by His own act, but He cer-
tainly was not punished by God. His work far
exceeded the work of producing or completing peni-
tence or amendment. It is not satisfactory to say that
amendment can atone, and that Christ came in order
to complete the atonement of human amendment or
penitence. I think that Christ's work is much more
profound than that. There is nothing really atoning in
penitence. Penitence cannot undo, and Christ did. Had
there been time I should have gone on to allude to the
extraordinary and vital distinction that there is between
the expiatory effect of Christ's work, and every other
aspect or effect of it. This involves, of course, a great
limitation of what the Church can be or do as the body
of Christ, and a great restriction in the function of those
who are the organs of the Church's priestly quality.
And so long as this distinction is clearly grasped the real
danger in priestly claims ceases to exist.
\Here the five minutes' speeches ended, and the general
discussion began^\
19. DR. FAIRBAIRN. May I put now to Canon Moberly the
question I proposed to ask at the morning session ?
Would he kindly explain the definition of the Christian
sacrifice given in his answer to the first question : ' the
living consecration, in perfect love, of perfect holiness
to consummate human penitence ' ? In particular I should
like to know what the phrase ' to consummate ' means,
and whether any expiatory or sacrificial value is attached
to human penitence.
II. 20] SECOND DISCUSSION 125
20. DR. MOBERLY. I don't know how far it will be possible
for me to make my answer to Dr. Fairbairn intelligible,
in any short compass. The question turns first upon the
place given to penitence. What do we mean by peni-
tence? All the penitence of which we have practical
experience is, of course, at its best, eminently imperfect
as penitence. I wish to think of penitence, not as it is in
our imperfect experience, but as it would be if it were
not imperfect. Even indeed within experience what
I said was true, as far as it went ; that, when a man has
sinned, there is nothing which approaches so far towards
atoning for his sin, as his penitence. I do not of course
say that any merely human penitence ever reached the
point at which it could really atone. I only say that
heartfelt penitence approaches more nearly towards an
' atoning ' character, than anything else that our experi-
ence can furnish. But what would penitence be, if its
fullness of consummation were ever reached ? The point
of penitence is that it is the re-identification of the sinful
consciousness with holiness. If it were consummated
perfectly, it would be the perfect consummation of per-
sonal identification with holiness. Unfortunately, the
more clearly I realize what its perfectness would be, the
more obvious is the impossibility of my attaining it.
The more I have sinned the greater is, no doubt, my need
of repenting ; but also ipso facto, the more impossible is
it that I should repent. Meanwhile, even the least
reality of sin bars for ever the possibility of the perfect
consummation of my penitence. The very things which
increase my identification with sin do blurr thereby my
power of keen discernment of the sinfulness of sin, and
my possibility of absolute self-identity with holiness.
Yet no penitence could reach its perfect consummation
until the self-identity with holiness was absolutely perfect,
without fleck or flaw. In other words, penitence, by the
126 SECOND DISCUSSION [II. 21
very cogency of its own meaning when analysed, could
never be conceivably possible except only to the per-
sonally sinless.
I can quite understand people turning round and
asking, but how can it be possible to the personally
sinless ? Perhaps the shortest way of making any reply
to that question would be to suggest an illustration.
Imagine a child who has gone grievously wrong. The
very self-identification of the child with evil makes it
incapable of that whole-hearted detestation and antithesis
against evil which is necessary. But there is a possibility
in the mother whose own the sin is not which is not
in the child. In proportion as the mother approaches
towards being on the one hand personally identified
with holiness, and on the other personally identified, in
nature and in affection, with the child, you approach the
possibility in the mother of a heart literally broken for
sin which is not her own and yet her own. In the
broken heart of the mother (broken, be it observed, not in
proportion to her own part in the sin, but to her own
affinity with holiness, and yet her own capacity withal of
self-identification with the sin-consciousness of the child)
you get the nearest approach in human experience to the
supreme consummation of penitence, the sin-bearing of
the sinless. Her heart, broken at once and yet tranquil,
seems to me to have in it more than anything we know
of that contradictory consciousness of desolation and
holiness, which is the mystery of the great cry from the
cross.
I am conscious that it is impossible, in anything like
this compass, to make a full answer to the question. But
I hope that what I have said may indicate my meaning
enough for the present purpose. And perhaps it would
be convenient that I should stop at this point,
a i . DR. FAIRBAIRN. We are very much obliged to Dr. Moberly
II. 22, 23] SECOND DISCUSSION 127
for his most sympathetic and illuminative exposition ;
but there are two points on which I should like further
light, viz. how he would, on the one hand, connect this
consummation of human penitence with the sacrificial
terms that have been applied to the death of Christ, and
on the other hand, with the sacrificial significance which
has been given to the eucharist ? In other words, can
such an act of consummation be described as piacular
and peculiar to a priest, or as constituting a sacrifice ?
22. DR. MOBERLY. I would rather deal with the question of
the significance of the eucharist later, as it belongs to
a later subject ; as to the connexion of what I have tried
to say with sacrificial language, I feel no difficulty at all.
The connexion seems to me to be natural and obvious.
For the penitence of which I speak involves death.
Self-identification of human nature with holiness cannot
be consummated without that absolutely supreme self-
surrender of which the final expression known to us is
death. Only as consummated in death is the sacrifice
of penitence, and therefore of atonement, complete.
Penitence cannot be consummated as atonement, until it
has become the ' life that has died.'
23. DR. SALMOND. I have listened with extreme interest to
the exposition given by Dr. Moberly, but I find it
impossible to realize how an absolutely sinless being
could have that consciousness of sin which is required.
When you speak of penitence as being consummated by
Christ's work, do you mean more than that through
Christ's work you come to real penitence, and that Christ's
work gives to penitence any value it has ? And in what
sense can we conceive of our penitence being an atoning
penitence ? I do not understand the phrase you used,
Dr. Moberly, as to penitence being ' consummated,'
unless it means that through Christ's work we receive
power to repent, and to do that from grace to grace.
128 SECOND DISCUSSION [II. 24
I
I do not see in what appropriate sense you can speak of
repentance as atoning.
24. DR. MOBERLY. As to the possibility of calling penitence
' atoning,' it depends, no doubt, on what precisely we mean
by ' atoning.' Let us put it in this way. The problem is
how the really sinful can become really sinless. When
I speak of penitence as atoning, I mean to indicate that
the nearest approach we know towards the transforma-
tion of a sinful person into a not sinful one is when the
person truly repents of his sin. Penitence, at least, really
tends (as nothing else does) towards an erasing of
sinfulness.
When I speak of Christ as ' consummating ' penitence,
t don't for one moment suggest that He merely puts, as
it were, the finishing touches on something that was real
of its kind though unfinished without Him. From
end to end the whole reality of penitence only is His ;
and our penitence only is possible, even in its measure,
as made possible by His. I mean by the word to
emphasize the fact that His work, and His only, is
a consummate completeness, not falling a hair's breadth
short of the fullness of perfection.
If this is the relation of our penitence to His, I am
glad to have the opportunity of utterly deprecating any
statement which would seem to imply that penitent sur-
render on our part was an act of our own a following
after Christ in the way of imitation. If I speak of His
sacrifice as penitence, and speak also of penitence in our-
selves, I do not suggest that we, in repenting, are inde-
pendent imitators of Him. We have no power to
imitate Him. Any such achievement or any imitation
of it is beyond our possibility. On the contrary, as
I said, penitence is absolutely necessary for us in propor-
tion as it is impossible, and impossible in proportion as
it is necessary.
II. 25-31] SECOND DISCUSSION 129
25. DR. FAIRBAIRN. That brings us to the root of the whole
matter. What do we conceive Christ accomplished by
His death ? What was its purpose, its terminus ad quern
as it were ? Is its influence exhausted in what it enables
man to do or to become ? Or does it so concern God that
because of it and through it He has new relations to man ?
26. CANON SCOTT HOLLAND. It restores union with God.
27. DR. FAIRBAIRN. Certainly, it restores union with God,
but on what grounds, for what reasons ? Paul speaks of
a ' righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ,' and also
of God having 'set Him forth as propitiatory through
faith in His blood to show His righteousness . . . that He
might be just, and that justifier of him that is of faith
in Jesus.' Now how is this consummation of human
penitence related to the righteousness of God through
faith ? and to the righteousness which is demonstrated in
the sacrifice of Christ ?
28. DR. SALMOND. What I wish to understand, Dr. Moberly,
is what you precisely mean when you employ the terms
' propitiatory ' and ' atoning ' in relation to ' penitence '
29. DR. MOBERLY. I should not naturally use the words at
all of the penitence of our human experience, because it
never can reach the point of being really atoning. But
when I come to consider the efficacy of Christ's suffer-
ing, it seems to me to fulfil the (otherwise unconceived)
ideal of penitence ; and, moreover, to be effectively
atoning, just precisely because it is penitence con-
summated.
30. CANON SCOTT HOLLAND. They are used as the terms
most akin to atonement, Christ being the only atone-
ment.
31. DR. SALMOND. I think your statement might imply
that Christ atones by taking our sins sympathetically
upon Himself, and evoking thereby in our hearts feelings
of penitence and love, with which God is pleased.
K
130 SECOND DISCUSSION [II. 32-37
32. ARCHDEACON WILSON. The word 'atonement* has two
different meanings one of reconciliation and another of
propitiation.
33. CANON SCOTT HOLLAND. Would you not say that it
is to reconcile man to God by an act of propitiatory
penitence from man to God ?
34. ARCHDEACON WILSON. The word 'atonement' does not
appear in the Revised Version.
35. DR. SALMOND. Have you any word which you can
substitute for ' atoning ' ?
36. DR. MOBERLY. As I have said, I do not ordinarily call
penitence atoning. But in the sense in which I have
explained that I do so, I do not know that ' reconciling,'
or ' satisfying/ or any other word would be felt to be
any more helpful.
37. DR. FAIRBAIRN. If we get into the habit of using such
terms as ' expiatory ' and ' atoning ' both of Christ's
sacrifice and acts or states of our own like penitence,
will it be possible to maintain any distinction, as regards
intrinsic character, between them? But if we restrict
these terms to Christ's sacrifice alone, can we any longer
affirm the identity of His acfc and ours ? Canon Moberly
says that, apart from Christ's accomplished work, I cannot
repent. That indeed is true ; but His work has a merit
which makes my repentance not only possible to me but
acceptable to God. That seems to me to require some
modification of the phrase ' consummation of human
penitence,' for surely the sacrifice which is at once the
cause of our penitence and the means of securing for it
consequences and rewards it would never by itself obtain,
stands in a higher category than what we may call its
immeritorious resultant. And I do not see what func-
tion the priest has in connexion with human penitence,
nor how it can be limited to acts which can be termed
sacrifices of the Church.
II. 38-40] SECOND DISCUSSION 131
38. CANON GORE. I do not feel some of the doubts that
have been expressed, but I do feel in some difficulty with
reference to the interpretation put by Dr. Moberly upon
some of the language in the New Testament. I cannot
see that his interpretation of the words ' My God, My
God, why didst Thou forsake Me ? ' is justified by either
their original Old Testament use or their application in
the New Testament it does not seem to be in line with
the thoughts of the New Testament exactly.
39. Mr. LANG. I feel precisely what has been said on the
other side. With much also that Dr. Moberly has
said, I cordially agree, but I think that the use of the
word 'penitence' brings with it associations which mislead
more than they help. I agree that ' penitence ' is almost
universally used as meaning 'sorrow for my own sin.' In
the illustration which Canon Moberly used of the mother
and the child, there is no penitence : there is sorrow for
sin ; there is repudiation of sin, with all the abhorrence
of a righteous nature of the results it may have upon the
child, but there is no penitence in the mother, and I do
not see how you can get penitence in the experience of
the mother. He might have used the words 'repudiation
of sin ' or ' condemnation of sin/ but ' penitence ' in such
a case is a word that I cannot make real to my own
mind.
40. DR. FAIRBAIRN. Canon Moberly's theory, though not
the terms in which he expresses it, has, I suppose, been
suggested by the work of John Macleod Campbell on
' The Atonement,' and lies open to the objections which
applied to it : it reposes on a principle or idea which, in
order that it may be logically verified, must be capable
of being applied to both sides and to the whole case.
Thus the illustration so admirably worked out by
Dr. Moberly of the mother's penitence for the sin of her
son breaks down at the cardinal point. She stands not
K 2
132 SECOND DISCUSSION [II. 41, 42
only under the corporate law of which so much has been
heard to-day, but she stands under it in a twofold
capacity as a fallible and by no means sinless individual,
and as a link in the chain of heredity ; a means by which
taint or defect may be propagated. Hence she cannot
quite rid herself of a sense of responsibility for her son's
sin, or of the feeling that it may have been due to some
conscious or unconscious error of her own, or to some
tendency which he owes to her or hers. And so
' penitence ' may be possible in a mother in a sense
which is quite impossible in the case of a Saviour who is
without sin and without responsibility for it.
41. CANON SCOTT HOLLAND. But her penitence is purer
than that of the child. Repudiation is at least a part of
the action of penitence, and the hatred of sin which is the
offering of penitence is only possible according to the
measure of the freedom from sin.
42. DR. FAIRBAIRN. But granting all that, her sorrow is
essentially sorrow on account of a sin to which she has
been in a sense contributory, and for which she is in
a degree responsible. But before turning to other
questions, I wish again to express our obligations to
Canon Moberly for his careful exposition of his views.
May I now put a question to Canon Gore relative to
a criticism he made on some words of mine ? We are
agreed in holding that there is an efficacy and a
significance attributed to the death and blood of our
Lord which are never attributed to those of His
apostles. In this respect His death and theirs are
never associated. Now I want to ask Canon Gore
whether he finds our Lord or His Apostles speaking of
any disciple as giving his life a ransom for many, or as
shedding his blood for the remission of sins ? And if not,
whether this does not signify an absolute distinction
between His death as the consummation of His sacrifice,
II. 43] SECOND DISCUSSION 133
and the death His disciples might suffer? And if this
be so, whether the terms priesthood and sacrifice have
anything more than a metaphorical sense when applied
to offices and acts of the Church or its ministers ?
43. CANON GORE. I must wholly decline to identify ' sacri-
ficial ' with ' propitiatory,' which is only a department of
it. What is unique in Christ's sacrifice is its propitiatory
power: its power to reconstruct a violated relationship
between man and God to restore man into union with
God and with one another in the Church. But this
restoration is a restoration to the original and funda-
mental life of priesthood and sacrifice which sin had
destroyed. And the Church's acts or attributes of priest-
hood and sacrifice are no more ' metaphorical ' than
Christ's. St. Paul exhausts almost all the resources of
sacrificial language in application to the Church, includ-
ing the language of vicarious sacrifice (Col. i. 24). And
he represents Christ not only as offering Himself for us,
but as offering us in Himself (Col. i. 22, &c. ; cf. Col. i. 28,
Rom. xv. 1 6).
At this stage the Conference was adjourned till the
following day.
134 THIRD DISCUSSION [III. 1-4
THIRD DISCUSSION.
1. DR. SANDAY. Our discussion to-day will no doubt be
the most crowded of those ifl which we have been
engaged, owing to the number of subjects that are
down for our consideration. I think that yesterday
afternoon we drifted away somewhat from the main
points which were before us, though the questions raised
were so interesting in themselves, and the treatment of
them was so helpful, that I could not regret it; but
I would suggest that we should try this morning to
keep to the three points which are on the paper:
(i) 'The Mystical Union what is it, and what does it
imply ? ' (2) ' The relation of the body to its " organs " ' ;
and (3) ' The provision for the perpetuity of the Christian
priesthood.' Perhaps as the third subject is a very
wide one it may be advisable to narrow it down to
the question of transmission.
2. FATHER PULLER. I am afraid that what I am about
to say will transgress some of the suggestions that you,
Dr. Sanday, have made. I do not propose to keep to
the question of transmission, but rather to speak of
matters bearing on the question of the perpetuity of the
Christian priesthood.
3. DR. SANDAY. They were only suggestions for general
guidance.
4. FATHER PULLER. I think that we shall all agree that
our Lord is a 'priest for ever,' however much we may
differ in our views as to the functions of His priesthood ;
but I am afraid that we shall not all be agreed that His
III. 4] THIRD DISCUSSION 135
sacrifice continues for ever, that it is a perpetual sacrifice.
To my mind, however, the perpetuity of our Lord's sacri-
fice is brought out with very special clearness by St. John
in the Apocalypse. In his vision he sees our Lord in
glory as the ' Lamb standing, as though it had been slain.'
It certainly seems probable to me that that particular
symbol was used with the object of expressing the idea
that our Lord continues to be a sacrifice, and that, what-
ever there may or may not be on earth, there exist at any
rate in heaven not only a High Priest but also a Sacrifice.
But in fact I believe that Holy Scripture teaches that the
oblation of the sacrifice of Christ is not limited to heaven,
but that it takes place also on earth in the celebration of
the eucharist. The whole account of our Lord's institution
of the eucharist implies the sacrificial character of that
rite. Every detail is sacrificial. I notice first that our
Lord taught us to use at the eucharist bread and wine. It
may be admitted that to an ordinary Englishman of the
nineteenth century these elements may not suggest sacri-
ficial ideas. But it was surely otherwise with those who
were gathered around our Lord in the upper room. The
meal-offerings consisted of preparations of fine flour.
The drink-offerings consisted of wine. Bread and wine
were also largely used in the heathen sacrifices. The very
word, ' immolation,' is derived from ' mola,' the sacrificial
meal that was sprinkled on the victims. Thus the bread
and the wine, which formed the basis of the eucharistic
rite, were sacrificial things. These sacrificial things our
Lord blessed and consecrated ; and having consecrated
them, He identified them with His own precious body
and blood. He said : ' This is My body,' ' This is My
blood.' But His body and blood are the sacrificial things
which He perpetually presents in heaven. He has, as
our High Priest, brought His 'blood of sprinkling ' within
the veil, that it may ' speak better things than that of
136 THIRD DISCUSSION [III. 5
Abel.' He appears openly before the face of God on our
behalf, clothed with His glorified body, the body of the
' Lamb standing, as though it had been slain.' Moreover,
by the institution of the eucharist our Lord was inau-
gurating a new covenant. He said : ' This cup is the new
covenant in My blood, which is being poured out for you.'
And according to the teaching of Holy Scripture coven-
ants are made and ratified by sacrifice. Once more, our
Lord, after instituting the eucharist, gave an injunction
to His Church, saying : ' Do this for My memorial ' (eiy
TT)Z> e'jUTjy avdfj.vrj<nv). The word avd^vqats corresponds in
the LXX to the Hebrew rn?}*?, which is also rendered in
some passages of the LXX by the word pvrjn6<ruvov. It
nbrmally signified a sacrificial offering burnt on the altar.
Thus in Lev. xxiv. 7 it is written : ' Thou shalt put
pure frankincense upon each row [of the shew-bread], that
it may be on the bread for a memorial (eis avdjAvrja-iv), even
an offering made by fire unto the Lord.' In the case of
the meal-offerings the 'Ti3]K was that part of the offering
which was burnt on the altar, the rest being eaten by the
priest. From what has been said it seems clear that
the principal words used by our Lord at the institution
of the eucharist, and also the elements which He appointed
to be used in that rite, point in the same direction, and
indicate the sacrificial character of the ordinance ; and it
would require very explicit and authoritative statements
in the opposite direction to induce me to give up my
belief that the holy eucharist was instituted by our Lord
as a sacrifice, the earthly counterpart of the sacrificial
oblation which is being carried on in the heavenly taber-
nacle. Had there been time I should have gone on to point
out how from the Apostolic age onwards the eucharist has
always been understood in the Church to be a sacrifice.
5. ARCHDEACON WILSON. We are now approaching the real
point at issue. We are agreed that the idea of sacrifice,
III. 5] THIRD DISCUSSION 137
and the usually concomitant idea of priesthood, are all
but universal in men, and were highly developed in
Judaism, and to a certain extent (on the amount of which
we differ) underlie the reports of our Lord's teaching and
that of His disciples as regards His work, both in the
eternal world where He is with the Father, and in the
temporal life which He spent on earth. We are agreed
also that the element in Christ's sacrifice, which we may
imitate and share, is the life of self-consecration ; and that
His whole Church and every member of it, and especially
its ministers, are bound to repeat, continue, and present
that sacrifice in Him and through Him, and that this has
no propitiatory effect, but helps us to draw near to God
as Christ's mystical body. Now we come to the dividing
question, which is really prior to and underlies heads
(a) and (3) of the questions set down for to-day. Are
there any propitiatory, mediatorial, absolving powers
committed to any order of men, or any powers other than
ministerial and representative ? Are there any powers
which are exclusive, personal, transmissible ? any which
we are wise in calling sacerdotal, remembering what that
word connotes as well as denotes ? On this question
I have only time to offer three remarks, (i) If this power
of transmitting grace through individual men is real it
must be demonstrable, by its results. As in everything
else, proof finally rests on observation and is of an inductive
nature. The theory is tested by facts, and is either
verified or disproved, and there is no appeal. To my
judgement the verdict of experience on the claim for
exclusive possession and mediation of grace on the part
of any order of men is that such claim is disproved. The
gift of the Spirit is wider than any human ministry.
(2) We all wish not to minimize the high and true con-
ception of sacrifice and priesthood, but we wish to
minimize what we regard as the lower conception ; and
138 THIRD DISCUSSION [III. 6
I regard as lower all those actions which are professional
and delegated, and consist in special and personal acts,
as contrasted with those which are human, universal, and
affect the whole life : in a word, the mechanical as con-
trasted with the ethical. We wish that the thought of
sacrifice and priesthood shall not remain longer than
necessary on the lower plane. Our Lord, as we think,
lifted it to the higher or ethical plane. We think that
He was followed by His disciples ; but that it slipped
back, owing to our imperfect nature, and specially to
those elements in it which are so strong in Paganism
and Judaism. We desire to keep it ethical, spiritual, and
universal, and to free it from that which is mechanical
a*nd professional. (3) It is impossible to dissociate the
question from that of the supernatural, and our view of
it. In some minds the contrast of natural and super-
natural is sharp ; and to lose the sharpness is to such
minds the loss of the supernatural. In others the distinc-
tion fades away. My own belief is that the distinction is
not tenable. The spheres described are identical, and the
contrast is provisional, depending on our knowledge and
its limitations. To those who take the other view, the
supernatural element in the human priesthood must be
very dear and necessary. Before they can understand
how devout minds can dispense with all sacerdotal claim
as commonly understood, they must face the question of
natural and supernatural, and their possible identity or
continuity; and that of certain other contrasts which
seem to me to be arbitrary, artificial, and to belong to
what may be called the Latin type of mind.
6. DR. FAIRBAIRN. I should like to thank Archdeacon
Wilson for what he has just said as to the piety of
peoples who know no priesthood, and as to the inability
of mere Church mechanism to create the higher godliness.
I come of a race which loved the ministry though it had
in. e] THIRD DISCUSSION 139
no priesthood, yet it is a race whose piety is as eminent,
as real, and as abiding, as any that history knows. As
their son, born and nurtured in the heart of their awed
and reverent godliness, I feel that I dare not think of any
institution or agency as necessary to the higher piety
which was superfluous or even alien to theirs. Characters
that are to me ideals of Christian saintliness would become
reproachful memories, were I to attempt to believe that
failure in some matter of outward order had restricted
or obscured the grace of the God in whose eye they so
tremblingly lived. But we have so many grave questions
to discuss this morning that even personal affection must
not tempt me to linger by the way. 'The mystical
body ' is a Pauline idea ; ' the body of Christ ' is a
Pauline phrase (cf. i Cor. xii. 27 ; Eph. iii. 6 ; iv. 12,16 ;
Col. i. 1 8); and so we are bound to interpret idea and
phrase through the Apostle to whom we owe them. But
it is here as in the case of our Lord : there is no refer-
ence to any priesthood in the Church which is the body
of Christ, or to the performance of priestly functions by
its ministry. What we have is not simply silence, where,
indeed, silence would be inexplicable, but the picture
of a state where the priest as a priest does not exist.
This appears most impressively in the account of the
eucharist. The cup is a communion of the blood of
Christ, the bread a communion of His body (i Cor.
x. 1 6 ; cf. xi. 23-29) ; but this participation is not
effected by any specially commissioned person in a
specially defined office, but is an act performed in
common. ' The cup of blessing which we bless,' ' the
bread which we break'; and the 'we' who constitute
the 'one body* are defined as 'the many,' i.e. the
Christian people or multitude. Cf. the careful distinc-
tion as to what the Apostle himself does, and what the
corporate people do, in the verbs Ae'yo> } $T\V.( (i Cor. x. 15,
140 THIRD DISCUSSION [III. 6
19), and ev\oyoviJLv, K\&nev (ver. 16). The terms that
would have turned the rite into a priestly sacrifice are
absent ; it is a communal rather than sacerdotal cere-
mony ; preserves the domestic forms or family customs
under which the most creative and important of all the
events in the history of Israel had been wont to be
celebrated. And so out of the eucharist as Paul
describes it and he is the one Apostolic writer who
does describe it, though only in one of his epistles
the idea that it was a sacrifice offered by a sacrificing
priesthood cannot, by literary exegesis, be reasonably
deduced. And this inference is confirmed when we come
to look at his idea of the ' body ' through his enumeration
o*f its constituent organs or ministers. Here we have
three most significant passages. First he tells the Corin-
thians (i, xii. 27, 28) that they are 'the body of Christ,
and severally members thereof ' ; and then he specifies,
as organs or members set in the Church by the act
and will of God, 'Apostles, prophets, teachers, miracles,
gifts of healing, helps, governments, kinds of tongues.'
The priesthood is not simply conspicuously absent ; it is
not even glanced at in any of the offices or functions
enumerated in the list. Secondly, in Rom. xii. 4-8, the
Church appears as the body of Christ, with members
who though they differ in duty or office, are all yet
as it were so inter-incorporated, as to be members one
of another through each being an organ of the whole.
The gifts which he specifies as differentiating each organ
or member from the others, even while enabling each to
contribute to the harmony and efficiency of the whole
body, are prophecy, ministry (StaKovia), teaching, exhor-
tation, charity, government ; but he never names priest-
hood, nor anything priestly. What he conceives is
a worship by the spontaneous obedience of God and
the ethical service of man, rather than by the observance
III. 7] THIRD DISCUSSION 141
of sacerdotal forms. Quite as explicit is the third refer-
ence in Eph. iv. u, 12. The Church, as Paul there
conceives it, is c one body, and one spirit ' (ver. 4) ; and he
specifies the various organs which are needed for ' the
perfecting of the saints, unto the work of the ministry,
unto the building up of the body of Christ.' And what
were these organs or ministers ? Apostles, prophets, evan-
gelists, pastors, and teachers ; but again, no priest, and
no reference to any priestly office or function. These
are decisive passages, for they are the great texts con-
cerned with the mystical body and its organs ; and I feel
quite unable to conceive how Paul could have omitted
all reference to a priesthood and its sacrifices if they
had been in his mind, or the mind of the Apostolic
Church, necessary either to the being or to the well-
being of that Church. And this suggests another thing
which belongs to the perspective, and what we may
term the general proportion and harmony, of the picture.
Consider the place assigned to the priest and his sacrifices
in the Roman Church, to the eucharist and to the cele-
brating priest with his ritual and his robes in the
Anglican Church ; then imagine a series of letters as
individual in character, and as specific in detail as are
our Pauline Epistles, addressed by some person high in
authority to each province of the Roman Church, or
to each diocese of the Anglican ; and could you conceive
the questions touching the priesthood and its functions
and sacrifices treated, or rather completely omitted from
treatment, as they are in these epistles of Paul ? And
does not this imply a total change, if not, as regards
the thought, in the centre of gravity, yet in the perspective
of the picture, and in the proportion, quality, and value
of the figures that represent and embody its life ?
7. DR. MOBERLY. I begin with one or two comments upon
what has been already said.
142 THIRD DISCUSSION [III. 7
1. The crucial question is whether the corporate body
of the Church can be said to be priestly. It seems to
me a mistake to let the discussion turn primarily upon
the application of priestly terms to an order within the
Church. This is not unimportant, but it is, comparatively
speaking, a detail. Whether Christ's priestliness can be
predicated of the Church as a whole is a question of
cardinal importance. If this be once conceded, the use
of priestly terms of the Church's ministry is a mere
corollary, which will drop into its own proportions, and
follow in its own time.
2. Archdeacon Wilson used terms just now about the
ministerial order (as separate, exclusive, &c.), to which
C should demur. Without staying to make any com-
ment, I would merely offer instead the phrase that the
so-called ' priests,' instead of exclusively absorbing the
priestly character, are strictly the ( ministerial organs of
the Church's priesthood.'
3. I should like to say that the suggestion of the
identity or continuity of the natural and supernatural is
one which I do not at all shrink from. Again I would
comment only by offering the single, unexplained
phrase, that ' ideally, in the Church, everything is
supernatural.'
Turning to our main question, I observe that there is
much tendency to accentuate the contrast between what
Christ is, and what the Church can be said to be. ' Oh,
yes ! ' it is apt to be implied, ' we quite agree that such
or such a thing is true of Christ ; but it is not true of the
Church of Christ.' I do not say that there are not
aspects in reference to which such a distinction may have
to be drawn. Christ is a separate figure in history, as
well as a spiritual unity. Nevertheless, it seems to me
that we are, speaking broadly, upon the wrong tack,
when we are constantly basing ourselves upon this
in. 8] THIRD DISCUSSION 143
distinction. The Pentecostal Church is the expression of
Christ, and the presence of Christ. Of course the phrase
' body of Christ ' is scriptural and familiar. But that
very phrase is sometimes treated as if the emphasis were
all upon body the body of Christ, but not Christ. But
it is the body not as contrasted with spirit. The body
is alive, and the spirit is the breath of the life of the
body. The spirit is everything. Ecclesia proprie et
principaliter Ipse est Spiritus. ' If any man have not the
Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.' Whether we think
of the individual personality of a Christian, or of the
Christian corporate body as a whole, I think we are
wrong when we essay to find what either is by itself
in contrast with, or separation from, Christ. The deeper
way of understanding either is precisely the opposite.
Either individual personality or the corporate Church, is
what it is by virtue of identity an identity of spirit
even more than of body with Christ. Our main prin-
ciple should be that what Christ is, the Church is ;
because the Church is the body, whose breath is the
spirit, of Christ ; because the Church is Christ. That
Christ is this or that, but that the Church of Christ is
not, is a dangerous basis of thought.
If I do not wholly say that it is an inadmissible
distinction ; if there are spheres and purposes for which
it has reality ; yet, after all, it is not so much that there
are such and such reserved points predications which are
to be made of Christ, but denied of His Church ; as that
He alone is in Himself the cause and the possibility of all
that identity of the Church with Himself: an identity
which, when caused and made possible and actual by
Him alone, is then itself, ideally, quite absolute and
without reserve.
8. DR. RYLE. I wish to preface what I have to say with a
reference to a remark of Canon Scott Holland yesterday.
144 THIRD DISCUSSION [m.
He demurred to the use of the word metaphor as applied
to sacrifice and priesthood. It is important that there
should be no misapprehension here. I should be very
sorry if any words I had used could be thought to
derogate from the supreme importance of the doctrine of
the atoning sacrifice. From the physical point of view
the death of Christ was a dying ; from the Roman point
of view it was an execution ; from the Jewish point of
view we may say it was a murder. From the Christian
point of view it was a sacrifice, and it becomes sacrificial
by the description of the historical fact under meta-
phorical terms. The reference to sacrificial institutions
was the best means for interpreting eternal truths. Then
toith regard to the priesthood, there is a very funda-
mental difference as to the way in which we regard
the question. In Christ we have a new priesthood in
which all have complete access to the Holiest an
access which before was only permissible to the high
priest. The Christian ministry may be conceived of as
a priesthood, an order representing the community in the
dedication of service and of offerings ; and in that way
the eucharist may be regarded as sacrifice. The phrase
'a sacrificing priesthood* for the Christian ministry
appears to me to be either incorrect or misleading.
It is incorrect if it indicates that the sacrifice of Christ
was not absolutely the one complete expiatory offering.
It is misleading if the priest is simply offering sacrifices
of thanksgiving or almsgiving ; for sacrifice is generally
associated with expiatory offering. No doubt the
phrase was used in early times, but it was used with
reference to an offering of prayer and thanksgiving.
We cannot dwell too strongly on the fact that we have
but one expiatory sacrifice.
9. DR. SALMOND. I should like to refer for a moment to
some remarks which fell from Dr. Moberly, and which
III. 10, 11] THIRD DISCUSSION 145
seem to me of great importance. If I understood him
aright, he is quite willing to dissociate his position from
the use of terms like sacerdotal and priestly, and would
prefer to speak of ' ministerial organs of the Church.'
Now that is exceedingly important.
10. DR. MOBERLY. I do not think that is correctly quoted.
You have left out the word ' priesthood.' It was ' minis-
terial organs of the Church's priesthood.'
11. DR. SALMOND. Then that leaves me not without hope
that a good deal of our difference is a matter of terms
and definition of terms. (' Hear, hear.') I wholly admit,
of course, that Christ founded a Church, and that He
instituted certain rites in it. I also hold that it is open
to the Church to take order for its administration and
organization, but then I have to part company with many
brethren after that. I see that the New Testament speaks
of a priesthood of the Christian people, but I discover in
it nothing like a priesthood of any particular official. As
I have already said I do not find the recognized term for
' priest ' applied anywhere in the New Testament to the
Christian minister as such, but I find it always restricted
to Christ Himself, and to the Christian people, where the
Christian idea of a priest or a priesthood is in view.
I have no proof, therefore, of the institution by our Lord
in His ' Church ' of anything like priestly rites or prero-
gatives, using the term priestly in the proper sense of
sacerdotal. Hence all such phrases as ' sacrificing priests,'
' a sacrificing priesthood,' &c., seem to me to be without
New Testament warrant, and also to be as misleading as
they are inappropriate.
But I understood Canon Moberly to say further, that
it was a mistake to distinguish between Christ and the
Church, because the Church has the Spirit of Christ.
Now in this there is something that I could at once and
most cordially accept, but it would be with the explana-
L
146 THIRD DISCUSSION [III. 11
tion that it is not in the sense of such an identification
between Christ and the Church as is sometimes meant
by it. And this brings me to the immediate questions
What is the mystical union, and what is the point of the
phrase ' the body of Christ ' ?
Now there is no doubt that the idea of the mystical
union, and the description of the Church as ' the body of
Christ,' have a large place in the New Testament. But
what is meant by them ? Do they lend any support to
the sacerdotal conception of the Christian minister and
to the various things connected therewith ?
If we go back to our Lord's own discourses we find in
them much that relates to the question of unity. In His
*words unmistakable and varied expression is given to
the great truth that there is a oneness between Him and
His disciples. He speaks of it also in more than one
aspect. He speaks of it as a union which is not realized
at present, but which is to be aimed at now, and to have
its complete fulfilment hereafter (John xvii). He speaks
of this oneness also as a relation of life (John xv), on the
believer's side a relation of dependence so vital that apart
from Christ he can do nothing. Paul takes up these
truths and unfolds their meaning and applications in the
light of his own knowledge of Christ and his own experi-
ence of the Christian life. In his writings this idea of
oneness between Christ and His disciples is set forth at
large, in various forms, and, in especial, in its relations to
Christ's death and resurrection. He speaks of a union
with Christ to moral effects (Rom. vi. 1-6 ; Col. iii. i, 2 ;
Eph. ii. 5, 6) ; of a union with Him to legal effects, or
effects of standing and relation (Rom. v. 12-19 ; viii. i ;
2 Cor. v. 21) ; of a union with Him in life (Gal. ii. 20).
All this with much else is said with reference to the
individual believer. But in Paul we have also the larger
conception of a oneness between Christ and the Church
III. 12] THIRD DISCUSSION 147
the Church as a whole. This is what he illustrates by
the figure of the ' body ' of which Christ is the ' Head '
(Eph. i. 23). It is a great and singular conception, of
which my time permits me to say but one or two things,
and these very shortly. In the first place it should not
be forgotten that this is only one of various figures under
which Paul expresses the relation between Christ and
His people, or His Church. It is not to be pressed,
therefore, to the neglect of others. If we wish to get
a correct and complete view of Paul's idea of the Church
and its relation to Christ, we must take all his different
figures and forms of statement together. In the second
place, it is to be noticed that the particular respect in
which this great figure of the body and the head is
introduced in Eph. i is that of dependence on Christ,
subjection to Him as Lord of and over all. And in the
third place it seems to me to be very evident that by the
Church^ which is called Christ's body, Paul does not mean
a visible society or organization, but the general body of
believers, the totality of those, wherever found, who are
described in the preceding verses as ' chosen,' ' fore-
ordained unto adoption as sons,' ' holy,' ' believing,' ' for-
given,' ' sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.'
12. CANON GORE. In my opinion the very essence of
Christianity is the conception that Christ is realized in
the visible body of the Church, and everything that
weakens that conception is to be deprecated. It is in
and through corporate fellowship that we realize all that
is possible for us as individuals. I was rejoiced to find
in 'the catechism of the Free Churches' a recognition
of the doctrine of the visible body, the importance of
which it was hardly possible to exaggerate. Christ lives
as a quickening Spirit in the body in order that the
whole body may become a great priestly race. If the
Levitical priesthood is abolished it is that the funda-
L 2
THIRD DISCUSSION [III. 12
mental or Christian priesthood that priesthood which
the whole of the New Testament exists in order to
express may be found through Christ in the Church,
and I would ask whether it is not in that truth that
lies our best hope of being drawn together. I agree
with what Dr. Moberly said about the mystical union,
and I would say in public what I have already said
in private to some members of the Conference. It
appears to me that the difficulty about ' sacerdotalism '
would be best met if the opponents of ' sacerdotalism/
instead of introducing the idea of the priestliness of the
whole body as a mere repartee or foil to the priestliness
of the ministry, would agree to emphasize this priest-
hood of the whole body in its rich positive meaning.
I think we all on this side of the table are conscious
of the perils of ' sacerdotalism,' which history has only
too abundantly illustrated and which we all most
earnestly desire to counteract. It is the same idea of the
priesthood of the whole body which is our best antidote
to any false emphasis on the priesthood of the ministry.
I believe, then, we could make one important step
towards agreement if we all realized that the true way
of counteracting the evils of a false sacerdotalism lies
in emphasizing and not minimizing the priestly character
of the Christian life and society as a whole. Arch-
deacon Wilson has referred to the Eastern and Western
theologies. I think that you will never acclimatize the
type of doctrine which is identified specially with Clement
of Alexandria and Origen, in England ; but if you want
a man whose doctrines are best calculated to undermine
mistaken ideas of sacerdotalism, you will find him in
the Western Saint Augustine. In his doctrine of the
eucharist you have that which counteracts all that is
mistaken in sacerdotalism. Again, I cannot easily con-
ceive any human composition which expresses the
III. 13] THIRD DISCUSSION 149
ethical character of Christianity more completely than
those liturgies in which the first Christian company
expressed their ideas about the eucharist. That is my
point let the true sacerdotalism expel the false the
broader conception the falsely narrow the ethical the
mechanical.
13. CANON BERNARD. Something has been said about
dying with Christ as bearing on the thought of our
joining in Christ's sacrificial act. But is it not the case
that St. Paul (as in Rom. vi. 4) associated this thought
of dying with Christ with the sacrament of baptism, and
not of the eucharist ? No view of the ' mystical union '
ought to be taken which evacuates the meaning of a
personal, independent existence of each soul, and any
system which overlooks that in any way cannot be
brought home to the people generally. There has been
mention made in this Conference of convictions which lie
deep in human nature, which must be taken account of in
all attempts to bring religion home to men ; and this
conviction of separate individuality is one of them. It is
extenuated and disregarded when we look at the indi-
vidual exclusively in the light of his relation to the
Church or even of his relation to Christ. The great steps
which were made towards individualism under the
guidance of the prophets, and particularly Jeremiah and
Ezekiel, were not retraced under the Gospel. I know
that the question between the Church and the individual
as to which is the proper subject of justification is sup-
posed to be left open in the Epistle to the Romans, but
for myself I believe that the important conception always
will be that of the individual human soul over against
Christ, devoted to Christ, inspired by Him, and in com-
munion with Him : Christ alone atoning once for all, and
the believer apprehending the atonement more and more.
I should also like to protest that the idea of offering to
150 THIRD DISCUSSION [HI. 14-16
God the elements in consecration, is a matter entirely
distinct from the early Christian conception of offering
alms and food, prayer and thanksgiving, and I believe
that the date of the new conception can be fixed by
Church historians with tolerable clearness.
14. DR. SANDAY. Would you say when ?
15. CANON BERNARD. About the time of Cyprian, I sup-
pose.
With regard to the use which was made at the
beginning of the discussion, of dra/izn/o-is as suggesting
with other things a sacrificial idea of the eucharist, it
is hardly necessary to remind the Conference that St. Paul
explains dva/AVTjo-iy, in I Cor. xi. 25, by KarayyeAAere
in ver. 26, and that that word is always used in the New
Testament of proclaiming to men, and never of setting
forth to God.
When St. Paul (i Cor. x. 1-4) wished to produce
parallels from the wilderness-history for the two sacra-
ments of the Gospel, why did he choose manna and
water from the rock, instead of sacrifices, as a parallel for
the eucharist, if the character of the latter was primarily
sacrificial ?
16. DR. DAVISON. It appears to me that the position the
discussion has reached is this. There is a general agree-
ment, I am happy to think, that our Lord's sacrifice and
priesthood are unique, that there is a piacular element
which constitutes that a work by itself, and we proceed
this morning to ask whether it is desirable to emphasize
that part of our Lord's work in which the Church may
claim some share under the style and title of Priesthood
and Sacrifice.
I think we must all agree with most of what has fallen
from Dr. Moberly and Canon Gore, and I at least was
glad of an indication such as they furnished of a common
in. 17, 18] THIRD DISCUSSION 151
ground upon which we might meet together. Agreeing
as I do, with them on what has been said concerning the
mystic union, may I say now why I cannot go further
with them? It is because of the very nature of the
subject that has called us together, viz. sacrifice and
priesthood. The mystic union does not join Christ and
His followers together in this respect. I know that the
word ' sacrifice ' covers a wide area, and that is the very
reason why I do not think it desirable that it should be
emphasized to describe the work of the Church or of an
order in the Church. In this I am following the New
Testament, whether we take St. Paul, or the Hebrews, or
other Epistles.
17. CANON GORE. My object was to begin at the other end,
with St. Paul's conception of our Lord's priesthood.
1 8. DR. DAVISON. I know that there is a line of continuity
between Christ's work and that of His Church, and
I value it highly. But is it not clear that the attempt
to preserve it down the line of priesthood and sacrifice
has brought in disputable and even mischievous
elements ?
We must remember, too, that we cannot take 'sacri-
ficing priesthood ' without ' absolving priesthood.' Very
little has been said about that to-day, but it is an integral
part of the subject. And in coming to what are called
the ministerial ' organs ' of this priesthood in the Church,
does not all history show how easily and imperceptibly
these tend to fill the place of Christ Himself? It is for
this reason that, while holding a continuity on certain
lines between the work of Christ and that of His Church,
yet on the subject of Sacrificing Priesthood I think the
most important thing is to preserve the contrast between
the two.
I have not time to speak of what is called ' the eucha-
ristic sacrifice,' but I find in the New Testament no
152 THIRD DISCUSSION [HI. 19
warrant for speaking of the Lord's Supper as a sacrifice
a mode of speech which properly begins in the Church
about the time of Cyprian. The ' offerings ' spoken of
in Clement of Rome, the Didache, Ignatius, and the
earlier Fathers, are capable of, and demand, a different
explanation.
19. CANON SCOTT HOLLAND. Dr. Fairbairn has alluded to
the rarity of reference to the priesthood in the Epistles.
But I cannot help recalling what was said once by the
Archbishop of Canterbury in St. Paul's, that, in reading
the Bible, we must remember that the most important
things were often what it left out. We want to know the
habitual and everyday facts of the early Christian life ;
and these are just what are omitted as not worth notic-
ing. So, in the Epistles, the points of the Creed that
were in dispute occupy the main bulk ; while if we desire
to know the deep elemental verities about which every
churchman was agreed, we have to unearth them from
casual and passing references to them in the Salutations
or Benedictions with which St. Paul opens or closes an
Epistle.
Now the references to the eucharist may be rather
rare ; but, when they occur, they obviously refer to some-
thing that everybody is bound to know and understand
to some recognized and indisputable ground of belief
and conduct common to the whole body. The rehearsal
of the matter in i Cor. ix and the appeal to it in
chap. x. 1 6 make this absolutely certain.
As to the sacrifice of Christ, I want still to plead what
I have said before, that the inward motive is not, in
itself, sacrificial until it has obtained an outward
realization until it can succeed in making an offering.
The ' Lo ! I come to do Thy will ' becomes sacrificial
when it has completed its intention in the offering of
the body prepared for it. The will that is to be done
III. 19] THIRD DISCUSSION 153
is that He should have a body to present in sacrifice.
And so it is that our own offerings of spiritual thanks
and praises only gain the right to use sacrificial lan-
guage through the sacrifice, present in their midst, of
the body and blood. It is this that constitutes them
sacrifices.
We have all agreed that the sacrifice and priesthood
of Christ are absolutely unique and alone effectual.
There is no other sacrifice ; there is no other priesthood.
The only question is how do they reach and touch
this or that soul across the centuries? What is their
mode of arrival ? Canon Bernard says, they arrive at
each soul individually, by the direct and hidden action
of God upon the individual. We say, they arrive at
each soul through its membership in the body. The
body, the society, the Church, is the scene of the action
is the organ of contact. The body mediates the sacrificial
life. The contact with the eternal offering of Christ
is a social act. It happens to the soul through its
place in the fellowship. We plead that this tallies with
all St. Paul's language.
If so, then it arrives through man to man. Men are
the material of the body. For the law of ' through man
to man ' is the primal law of the Incarnation. To fulfil
its necessities, Christ became a man. Everything that
we know of Christ is mediated through men to us.
We have no single phrase or word of His that has not
reached us through another man's memory and mind.
Christ chose this method of making Himself known,
when He abstained from all writing, and gave us no
means of knowing what He said, except by the im-
pression conveyed through another.
In everything, salvation uses man to bring God to
man. Why not in the sacrament ?
And does not this thought open out into criticism
154 THIRD DISCUSSION [in. 20
upon a phrase that has been used of ' Every man his
own priest'? Is that not a contradiction in terms?
A priest is one essentially who acts on behalf of
another.
The priesthood of the layman lies in his power to
put out his powers to succour another, to plead for
another. We have confined our talk very largely, in
these Conferences, to the nature of the soul's own salva-
tion. But the soul's capacity for priesthood begins at
the point where, being already saved, it can lend itself
out to the redemptive purposes of the body. It is when
it has become capable of service, that it can claim to
be priestly. Every Christian is a priest, so far as he
il not saved alone, to and for himself, but is incorporated
into a brotherhood to which he can contribute force,
as well as receive force from it.
ao. DR. SANDAY. This has been the most important of
our meetings. It was, of course, to be expected that as
we became used to the method of proceeding we should
go more directly to the point. The speeches of this
morning are of extreme value, equally those of both
sides. I would say just one word as to the annulling
of the Levitical priesthood and sacrifices. Might we not
say that they were only annulled qua Levitical not qua
sacrifice or priesthood ?
Then as to the mystical union, I feel that I am not
arguing with any one I am arguing only with myself.
I appreciate very strongly both sides of the question
which have been put before us. It has been present
to my mind just as has been stated. We have the
mystical union applied in a number of ways in Scripture ;
but is it not the case, that just the way in which it does
not seem to be applied in Scripture is in connexion with
these two ideas of sacrifice and priesthood ? That is my
difficulty. The question is can we generalize the idea ?
III. 20] THIRD DISCUSSION * 155
I feel very strongly the arguments that have been put
forward for generalizing it.
Another question of fundamental interest has been
raised with reference to the doctrine of Personality.
Some years ago I took a certain view which was entirely
due to that doctrine ; but I have been shaken as to the
validity of the conclusions I then drew. That has come
to me, I may say, partly because it has been my duty in
the last year or two to lecture upon the doctrine of the
Holy Trinity, and so to reconsider the whole question as
to the nature of Personality.
Another point upon which, if there were time, I should
be glad to hear a little more said would be as to the
question of the ministry under the form of organs of the
body. There again I face both ways. On the one hand,
with reference to the way in which the question has been
presented to us by Archdeacon Wilson, I suspect that
my friends on the right could not accept a good many
of the terms in which he described the relation of the
organs to the body. On the other hand, I should very
much like to know from my friends on the left what
exactly is their view in regard to such relation. Do
they think that these particular organs are interchange-
able with other organs, with the members of the body
generally? Do they think that it is open to any
member of the body to undertake those functions which
are specially appropriated to a particular organ ? I am
not putting it very well, and they will do it much better.
I should like to ask for some sort of answer to that
question.
The third point was in relation to Transmission. I
must confess that I appealed to Dr. Driver with the
view of getting an expert's account of the real meaning
of the ' laying on of hands ' in the Old Testament, but
strange to say, just the one passage on which I had been
156 THIRD DISCUSSION [III. 21
in the habit of laying most stress myself (Gen. xlviii. 14;
see pp. 38, 40), was the one that he ruled out of court.
It is, of course, not ultimately ruled out of court because
the word used was a different one in Hebrew to that
which was used in other connexions ; still the fact must
be noted. I confess that I was taken quite by surprise.
I have not yet got my ideas quite in order. I suspect
that the fundamental passage, so far as the transmission
of office in the Church is concerned, has been that which
relates to the laying on of hands of Moses upon Joshua.
I share the feeling which is strong on my left that we
should guard against the idea of magical effect in
ordination, if I may use the word for want of a better.
ai.*THE REV. ARNOLD THOMAS. It has been a pleasing
and surprising thing to me to find how much I am in
sympathy with gentlemen on the other side. Scarcely
a sentence has been said to which I could not cordially
assent, though of course it is possible that I should not
interpret some terms which have been used quite in the
way in which they would be interpreted by the speakers.
Still, it is one of the happiest results of this Conference
that we find ourselves so near to one another in things
that are most essential and most sacred.
I am glad of all that has been said by Canon Scott
Holland who appears to be three parts a Congre-
gationalist on the subject of the Church. I do not
think we can make too much of the Church, and its
claims, and functions, and privileges ; and I may say
that one reason why some of us value Congregationalism
is that it attaches so much importance to the idea of
the Christian fellowship, and affords its members such
large opportunity of mutual and common ministries in
spiritual things. While claiming independence of secular
control we recognize in the most practical way our depen-
dence on each other for the mutual society, help, and
III. 21] THIRD DISCUSSION *I57
comfort, that we feel one ought to have of another in
the family of God.
But is it not possible, in laying so much stress on the
relation of the individual to the society, to be too little
mindful of the personal relation of the soul to God?
One speaker said, I think, that the Christian life begins
in the Church. But is that quite so? 'The life,' says
St. Paul, 'which I now live in the flesh I live by the
faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself
for me.' There is something intensely individual in that
confession. The Apostle's Christian life had a beginning,
it would seem, that was not related to the Church, but
directly to Christ And while we may, no doubt, carry
individualism too far, may we not also err in the opposite
direction, and give too little heed to the responsibilities
for the exercise of the faculties of thought, and feeling,
and faith, which rest on the individual soul?
Much has been said on the priesthood of the whole
Church, and I am thankful for it. But how is this
priesthood to be exercised by the laity, if their priestly
functions are delegated to special officers ? Is there not
danger that this delegation will come to mean practical
surrender ? Will not the layman, though de jure, perhaps,
still a priest, cease to be one de f octal That is my fear
whenever an order of priests is instituted. What is the
prerogative of the Christian priest? It is, I suppose,
to enter into the Holy of Holies, to have access to
the Father, and to offer the spiritual sacrifices of the
new dispensation. But must not every Christian do
these things for himself? can such offices be discharged
by proxy ? and if we transfer these rights to others, do
we not part with a privilege which we are not at liberty
to part with? When the spirit of adoption is crying
within me 'Abba, Father,' a human mediator would
seem to be superfluous. There is no need for him.
158 THIRD DISCUSSION [III. 22
There is no room for him. The child, accepted in
Christ, is face to face with his Father.
It is true, of course, as has been most justly said, that
God uses men in the fulfilment of His redeeming and
reconciling work. But my brother's function is to bring
me, by instruction and persuasion, into the holy presence,
and when he has done that his work is accomplished. It
is not for him then to stand in any way between the
soul and the Saviour. That intercourse must be personal,
immediate. So I interpret the New Testament. As
I have heard it put : ' When a man walks with God,
there is no room for the priest between them.'
A word on the meaning of the Church. I understand
* Canon Moberly to say that it is the indwelling of the
Spirit of Christ that is the making of the Church.
But can we say, then, of any community in which this
Spirit is manifestly dwelling that it is no part of Christ's
mystical body ? And if we find, as I think we do find,
that the gift and operations of His Spirit and grace are
limited to no one form, or polity, or means of communi-
cation, can we say that these saintly people are ' of the
body,' but that those other people, equally saintly, are
not 'of the body'? Are not all 'of the body' who
are filled with the Spirit? There are differences of
opinion among honest and learned men as to what
our Lord did, or intended, in regard to the constitution
of the Church, and what was left thus doubtful can
surely not be of the first importance. But has He
not made it clear by the evidence of indubitable facts
that His Spirit is bestowed on all alike who trust
Him fully, and serve Him faithfully with the surrender
of the heart and will, and do not these facts suggest
a larger conception of the Church than that which
has frequently prevailed?
22. THE REV. C. G. LANG. There is no one in this room
III. 22] THIRD DISCUSSION 159
who can better appreciate the force of Mr. Arnold
Thomas's words or those of Dr. Fairbairn than I do.
It is known to mos*t of you, I suppose, that if I had
followed the way of my birth and early training, I should
have been sitting on the opposite side, and not where
I am now. No one who has had, with Dr. Fairbairn, the
experience, graven into his life by his very blood, of the
singular piety, devotion, and nearness to Christ of genera-
tions of the Scottish Presbyterian ministry, can allow any
view that he may come to take, to narrow his sense of the
bond which unites all to the one Christ through the one
Spirit of God. Let me say a very fragmentary word in
regard to this point of the mystical union with our Lord,
and how we are to connect it with our share in His
sacrifice. Surely it all depends upon the conception we
have of the office and work of our Lord in the eternal
sphere. It is impossible to dissociate that conception of
the office of the living and eternal Christ from the sacri-
fice which He has achieved once and for all. With Father
Puller I am still feeling that that sacrifice is not a thing
completed in the sense of being past in time, and therefore
ended. It is completed in the sense that it is perfect
there is nothing to be added to it it is eternal. That is
why I cannot quite agree with Professor Ryle's words ;
because I feel that in some deep mysterious sense
a sense which it is hardly possible to express in lan-
guage, for language is of things in space and time the
function, so to say, of that sacrifice is not ended, but is
eternal as itself. I can imagine nothing that speaks to
one's life's need more than the conception of being asso-
ciated with the perpetual pleading of the eternal sacrifice ;
it is there that the importance of the eucharist comes in.
In the eucharist, we have the assurance of the Divinely
appointed pledge and symbol of being identified with the
eternal sacrifice of the Lamb of God. And so I cannot
160 THIRD DISCUSSION [III. 23, 24
conceive it as being a mere commemorative rite. It is in
some mysterious sense a real sharing of the body and
blood of a living Christ, who is the eternally perfect
sacrifice. The symbolic act is not in itself expiatory. It
is nothing in itself apart from Christ, through whom it is
offered. It is not, therefore, to my mind expiatory, but
it associates us with the eternal presentment by our Lord
our eternal High Priest of His sacrifice for the sins
of the world. It is an act by which we are permitted, by
Divine condescension, in some degree to share in what
Christ is doing.
One word only as to the conception of priesthood.
I feel very strongly that the point of real importance
ts the priestliness of the whole body. It is the one
thing which it is necessary to contend for. The special
priesthood of any class within the body is derivative
from the priesthood of the body itself, and that is deriva-
tive from the priesthood of its head. It is more or less
a matter of history as to how that priesthood has been
exercised. Such an historical investigation is beyond
our present purpose.
23. THE REV. A. C. HEADLAM. So much has been already
said on either side that perhaps there is little left to
emphasize. First of all I should like to associate myself
with Dr. Moberly's phrase, ' the ministerial organ of the
Church's priesthood,' and secondly, I should like to
associate myself, as far as transmission goes, with what
Archdeacon Wilson has written (see p. 57 f.). I will now
pass on to a point touched upon by Archdeacon Wilson
and Canon Gore the Eastern Church. I suppose that
what Archdeacon Wilson desired to draw our attention
to and to emphasize was the survival in the Eastern
Church of certain aspects and traditions of the primitive
Church which have been lost or obliterated in the West.
24. CANON GORE. I quite agree.
III. 24a-26] THIRD DISCUSSION l6l
24a. MR. HEADLAM. This is, I think, particularly important
with reference to the subject we are now discussing. The
Eastern Church brings out much more clearly than the
Western not only the Roman, but also the Anglican
that sacraments are not the work of the priest, but through
the priest. ' The seven sacraments,' a Russian writer
tells us, ' are in reality not accomplished by any single
individual who is worthy of the mercy of God, but by
the whole Church in the person of an individual, even
though he be unworthy 1 .' So in the East, they do not
say, ' I baptize,' but ' So-and-so is baptized.' I think
I am right in saying that until the sixteenth century,
when it came under Roman influence, the Eastern Church,
like the primitive, had no form of absolution which was
not a prayer. And, to give one more illustration, in the
Coptic liturgy it will be noticed how the people generally
by their responses are clearly shown to take a part and
share in the whole consecration prayer 2 .
Turning to the question of the eucharistic sacrifice, I may
say that I am not particularly anxious to call it a sacri-
fice, my point is that it has been so called from the
beginning. It seems to me that those who explain away
the sacrificial language of St. Paul in the Corinthians on the
institution of the Last Supper, can explain away anything.
25. DR. RYLE. What kind of sacrifice ?
26. MR. HEADLAM. I merely refer to the word sacrifice.
What I mean is that we should develop a wholesome
idea of eucharistic sacrifice, as against one that is unwhole-
some. I do not like the phrase ' sacrificing priesthood '
at all, and I think that the way in which we should
guard against erroneous ideas, and the way in which
English Nonconformists could help us, is not by con-
tinually attacking the use of the word sacrifice or priest,
1 Khomiakoff in England and the Russian Church, by Birkbeck, p. 306.
a See Brightman's Liturgies, pp. 176, 177.
M
162 THIRD DISCUSSION [III. 27-31
but by joining us in developing the real sacrificial ele-
ment. If we do not do that, we put a strong weapon
into the hand of those whom we should both alike be
glad to correct. With reference to what Dr. Sanday
said, I find in reading carefully the writings of the early
Church from the fourth century backwards, that two
elements come out strongly the idea of the congre-
gational element, and the idea of the theory of trans-
mission in the ministry, and we have to keep both these
elements clearly before us. In the Church of England
we want to emphasize the congregational element, and
perhaps in other Churches there is the necessity of
getting a clearer hold of the element of transmission.
37. DR. FAIRS AIRN. Would you use or substitute the word
' continuity ' for the word ' transmission ' ?
28. MR. HEADLAM. I use 'transmission' in the sense of
transmission of authority, as it was used by Archdeacon
Wilson.
29. DR. SALMOND. You say continuity as a means of trans-
mission ?
30. MR. HEADLAM. Yes.
31. DR. FORSYTH. I value all continuity. Everything
depends on the nature of the continuity. Let it only be
a continuity of ministerial office and not a continuity of
a distinct and separate order. I would lay stress on the
continuity of sacrifice in man's relation to God, and
I would go further than some by adopting the word
' associated ' in connexion with the eucharist that there
is active association of us with the sacrifice of Christ, and
more than a mere commemoration. Of course, we must
take care that our identification is not with the primary
atoning work of Christ, as was made clear yesterday, but
with what I may call the inferior and ministering aspect
of Christ's work, which we may participate in. I should
fully agree that what the Church is, the priest is. The
III. 31] THIRD DISCUSSION 163
priest is the expression of the Church's priestliness.
I think we might regain and perhaps Dr. Moberly
may help us to regain or to restore the sense of the
Church's inherent priestliness, using it more than we do
as a positive principle rather than a weapon of war ; only
we should take more care than he has always done to
confine it to the ministering aspects of Christ's work, and
not to its piacular aspect. The true nature of the Church
is priestly. The priest is what the Church is. He is
representative, not imperial. But I cannot follow
Dr. Moberly when he goes on to say in his fine book
that the Church is what Christ is. That means an
ecclesiastical pantheism. The Creation is not the
Creator. With reference to what Mr. Arnold Thomas
said as to the Christian beauty and power of indivi-
duals in bodies in which the sacraments were not
observed, I would observe that we cannot, in the face
of facts, say that sacraments are absolutely necessary
for individuals. But such people have been reared often
in a sainted home or body, whose traditions and sacra-
mental influences they unconsciously inherit and carry
on. In my judgement, sacraments are essentially cor-
porate acts, and they are necessary for the continued
existence and power of a corporate body like the Church.
The question to consider really is how, on the Catholic
theory, we can explain the growth, both in extent and
energy and sanctity, of those Churches which have
repudiated utterly the Catholic ideas of the sacraments,
some of them having reduced the sacrament of the
eucharist almost entirely to a commemorative act.
I would also ask whether the continual and fertile
presence of the Holy Ghost in the long history of the
non-episcopal Churches is not a surer fact than any
exclusive commission from Christ to a ministry of a
particular kind.
M 2
164 THIRD DISCUSSION [m. 32, 33
[At this point the general discussion began^\
32. DR. FAIRBAIRN. I fear it would be very inconvenient
were we to spend any of the little time remaining to us
in breaking fresh ground, but we have reached a point
where we might very profitably deal with some questions
which have emerged in the course of the discussion.
We have made manifest our belief in the truth and
reality of the Church, in the continuity of the Church,
in its being our common mother, as it were, in whose
bosom we were born, through whose gracious influences
we were reborn, and within whose sacred precincts lived
those who brought us into holy and real communion
with God and His Son. But three ideas which have
played a great part in our discussions, ought to be most
carefully analysed and clearly defined: first, what do
we mean when we speak of the Church as ' the mystical
body of Christ'; secondly, what does its priesthood
mean ; and thirdly, what do we intend the phrase ' the
ministerial organs of its priesthood' to signify? We
have the more need to be here explicit and distinct, as
it is evident that while we are all agreed as to the priest-
hood of the Church, we are yet by no means agreed as
to what that priesthood is and involves. In order to
make a beginning with the first of these ideas, may I put
this question to Canon Moberly? If, as he said, the
Spirit of Christ constituted the Church, would he con-
vert that proposition and say : Where the Spirit of Christ
is, there is the Church ?
33. CANON GORE. When Dr. Sanday was saying that it
was exactly to the particular point of the sacrificing
priesthood that the doctrine of the mystical body was
not so conspicuously applied, I felt that I should like to
bring to his mind a few sentences from his own printed
' answers ' : and that I should find in these sentences
III. 34, 35] THIRD DISCUSSION 165
exactly the answer which I think should be given to
Dr. Fairbairn's questions. " St. Peter doubtless meant
by UpcJreujua not a mere aggregate of individual priests,
but a priestly community. ' Such a priesthood is doubt-
less shared by each member of the community in due
measure, but only so far as he is virtually an organ
of the whole body, and the universality of the function
is compatible with variations of mode and degree as to
its exercise' (Hort, i Pet., p. 126). The last sentence
appears to mean that though all are priests, some may
be priests in a fuller and more special sense than others."
I should have thought that expression could not have
been improved upon ; and Dr. Sanday further says
(on p. 27) 'it may be observed that the idea of the
Church as the body of Christ is correlative to the idea
of its members as fiyiaa-pdvoi, &yioi, KATJTOI &ytoi. This
character comes to them through the sacrifice of Christ.'
I think those words exactly express what the 'mystical
body of Christ ' means on its priestly side.
34. DR. FAIRBAIRN. We owe the phrase ' the Church is the
body of Christ ' to St. Paul, and it is a sure as well as
a simple lesson of exegesis that the phrase ought to be
interpreted in the terms and through the usage of the
man who coined it. Now while he uses terms of the
Church that signify that its members are ' holy,' ' called,'
and ' beloved,' he nowhere describes them as priests ;
while he speaks of its ministers as ' Apostles,' 'prophets'
* pastors,' ' teachers,' or ' evangelists,' he does not ascribe
to them sacerdotal acts or functions. And so I do not see
how it is possible to extract from the phrase, as it stands
in the original and authoritative source, the ideas either
of a priestly body or a ministerial priesthood.
35. CANON GORE. St. Paul's metaphor of the body expresses
a truth which St. John and St. Peter teach as well as
he the truth that the ' saved ' relation to Christ is only
166 THIRD DISCUSSION [in. 36
realized in the community. And St. Paul, like St. Peter
and St. John, holds that the community of the redeemed
is a priestly body, i. e. one existing to offer up spiritual
sacrifices (Rom. xii. i) which are more than individual
which have a corporate reference (Rom. xv. 16,
Phil. i-i. 17, iv. 1 8, Col. i. 24, i Tim. ii. i). Is there any
other sense in which St. Peter or St. John held the
Christian community to be priestly ?
36. DR. SALMOND. I should like to say a word or two on
this point. If I understood Canon Gore aright, he begins
with the idea of a corporate society. Now we have a
corporate society and we have the individual member,
and everything hinges on the place which we would
give to each of the two. Canon Gore's view appears
to be this, that the corporate society is the prior thing,
that it is in virtue of our entering it that we become
individually members of Christ's body, and that it is
through that corporate society we get all that we have
and need in the Christian life. That is his view, and
he argues that Paul's words could be interpreted in no
other light than that. Now I wish to say that I take
absolutely the opposite view, and hold that we must
begin with the individual believer. I cannot say, in the
sense apparently intended by Canon Gore, that the
Church makes the individual member. I say rather
that the individual members make what we call the
Church that body of Christ, which consists of all those
lovingly subject to Him. I cannot read Paul's language,
even in the great passage to the Ephesians, in any other
way, because I find that there, as everywhere else, he
is speaking of persons chosen of God in Jesus Christ,
not of persons chosen of God or sanctified in the Church ;
and it is these persons that he speaks of as forming that
great whole, the totality of all believing and separated
ones, of which Christ Himself is the head. Any other
III. 37-42] THIRD DISCUSSION 167
view than that seems to leave us with an idea of Christ's
Church which identifies it with some particular organiza-
tion. With that I disagree, believing it to be far short
of the spiritual view of the Church which appears in
Paul and all through the New Testament. In Paul's
Epistles certainly I find nothing to bear out the idea
that the Church in its ultimate definition is an organiza-
tion, far less an organization of one, fixed, essential form.
37. CANON GORE. St. Paul speaks of being ' baptized into
Christ.' He says also ' by one Spirit we were all baptized
into one body.' That which brings a man ' into Christ,'
brings him also ' into the body ' or community. There
is no being in Christ, except as a member of the com-
munity. I quite admit that those who become Christians
in the belief of the heart are at first outside the body.
And the faith that leads them into the body comes to
them through the Spirit of Christ. No doubt it was
the awakening of the consciousness of the individual
that led him into the body, and that awakening was
outside the body. But its end was to lead him into the
body. I feel that the more you go into St. Paul, the
more convincingly anti-individualistic he becomes.
38. MR. ARNOLD THOMAS. It may be that a man is asso-
ciated with the Church, although he has no relation
to the internal body.
39. DR. FAIRBAIRN. May I now repeat the question which
was before asked of Canon Moberly : If it be true that
the Spirit of Christ constitutes the Church, is it also true
that where the Spirit of Christ is, there is the Church ?
40. MR. HEADLAM. That expression occurs in Irenaeus. It
means that wherever the Church of Christ is, there
also is His Spirit.
41. DR. FAIRBAIRN. I have nothing to do with Irenaeus. I
am dealing with Dr. Moberly (laughter).
42. DR. SALMOND. It will be remembered, at any rate, that
l68 THIRD DISCUSSION ^ [III. 43, 44
in Irenaeus we have both terms, not only 'where the
Church is, there is the Spirit of God/ but also 'where
the Spirit of God is, there also the Church and every
grace exist.'
43. DR. MOBERLY. I am quite ready to answer Dr. Fair-
bairn to the best of my power. I must answer by
declining to accept the simple conversion of my pro-
position. I do not think it would be right to say
simpliciter, or in the way of definition, upon earth, that
where the Spirit of Christ is, there is the Church. In
other words, I believe that, while the whole meaning
of the Church is Spirit, there is, none the less, such a
thing as a true and proper outward organization of the
(Church; and that in the orderly continuity of that
organization is the due historical expression of the
Spirit on earth. In respect of the status of those who
are separated from it, and otherwise organized, I do not
pronounce anything. I do not define that their position
is exactly this, or is exactly that. But so far as they
are sundered from the true historical order, I should
certainly not be willing to make the assertion that they
were, or were a portion of, the Church. At the same
time, I freely recognize the working of the Spirit amongst
them ; I do not dream of denying spiritual reality in
their ministries, and have, indeed, no basis for delimiting
the methods or possibilities of the working of the Spirit
amongst those whom I must still consider to be, in
respect of their refusal of the true organization of the
body, irregular.
44. DR. FAIRBAIRN. May I call Canon Moberly's attention
to this fact, that in all the reformed confessions from
Augsburg down to the XXXIX Articles, the definition
of the Church is one and the same: 'A congregation
of saints in which the Gospel is purely preached and
the sacraments rightly administered.' There is nothing
III. 45-47] THIRD DISCUSSION 169
said as to any special organization or forms of ceremony
being necessary to the existence of the Church ; but
they are most explicit on these three points, the saint-
liness of its members, the true preaching of the pure
word, and the due or right administration of the
sacraments. Am I correct in inferring that Canon
Moberly does not accept this definition, and that he
holds that, apart from a special kind of organization, the
Church cannot be, nor as a consequence can there be due
administration of the sacraments?
45. DR. MOBERLY. I conceive that due administration is
not really separate from the conception of due organiza-
tion of the body, or from that coherent history of the
Church, which runs back to the very beginning.
46. CANON GORE. May I ask Dr. Fairbairn whether the
salvation of the individual is not necessary just in
order that he may become a part of a living and active
body?
47. DR. FAIRBAIRN. No doubt I believe that the 'saved
man ' is ipso facto a member of Christ's mystical body,
or conversely, that that body is a body composed only
of saved men. But the question before us is, what do
we mean when we speak of its priesthood and the priest-
hood of its ministerial organs ? We have been hindered
from reaching this point by the attempt to discover what
the Church, the mystical body, is in order that we may
find out what we understand its priesthood to be. Now
if we go back to St. Paul, to whom we owe the phrase,
we find that he never predicates priesthood of the body,
and that though he enumerates its organs he never
attributes to them the priestly office, least of all the
great priestly functions of expiation and absolution.
Now what I wish to have explained is this : Whether,
and in what sense, priesthood was incorporated into the
mystical body of Christ as Paul conceived it? And
170 THIRD DISCUSSION [III. 48-51
whether he conceived its ministerial organs to be priestly,
when he attributes to them neither the priestly name nor
any special priestly functions ?
48. DR. MOBERLY. The question should be not as to the
priestly character of the ministerial organs, apart from
the body ; but whether the body itself has a priestly
character. The ministerial organs are not priestly in
detachment from, or antithesis against, the body, but
because the body is priestly, they are the organs of its
priestliness.
49. DR. FAIRBAIRN. I do not wish to put the question of
the ministerial organs apart from the mystical body;
they were not held apart by St. Paul. But if we can
interpret the organs through the body, we can also
interpret the body through the organs, and these
St. Paul describes as ' Apostles, prophets, teachers,
miracles, gifts of healing, helps, governments, divers kinds
of tongues.'
The point that needs to be elucidated is this : Since
the Apostle does not predicate either of the body or of
its ministerial organs, priestly functions, on what grounds
do we attribute to them a character which they had not
in his mind ?
50. DR. MOBERLY. I am expressing no view as to the precise
condition in which those ministries stand, which are not
organized in the way which I hold to be right. All that
I positively insist upon is the character and privilege and
secure validity of the Church and her ministries, as
they are organized (as I should say) apostolically and
historically aright. As to any definition of the precise
status of those Christian ministries which are organized
otherwise, I should, if pressed, decline, and decline on
principle, to pronounce one.
51. DR. FAIRBAIRN. That is not my point at all ; nor does
it in the least concern me. We have not met to discuss
III. 52-57] THIRD DISCUSSION 171
or revise our judgements of each other's commissions,
though it is a matter of cordial and common con-
gratulation that we have so much community in the
possession of fundamental truth. But what I am
concerned about is Canon Moberly's interpretation of
St. Paul. He is the apostolical authority as to what the
phrase means.
52. CANON GORE. We know that on this point we shall not
wholly agree. Our purpose in being here is not to
emphasize differences, but rather to remove them.
53. DR. FAIRBAIRN. Allow me to restate the reason for
this emphasis on St. Paul. The term and the idea are
his, through him they come into the Church, and there-
fore his usage is determinative of the apostolical idea.
54. CANON GORE. I cannot isolate St. Paul in that way
from St. Peter and St. John. I think, as I have said,
that St. Paul held in substance what they held about the
priestly community or body.
55. DR. FORSYTH. How would it affect the organization or
the definition of the Church if it were made out that the
Church of the New Testament was congregational in
its form of organization in opposition to the historical?
56. CANON GORE. It would make the vastest difference.
I think that all New Testament considerations lead not
to the congregational but to the other view.
57. ARCHDEACON WILSON. I now think that something
should be decided with reference to the nature of the
report which is to be published, because some of our
members will not be able to remain till after the lunch.
Business arrangements will be discussed this afternoon,
and it will be necessary to share the expenses of the
printing, &c., and I have no doubt that those who are
absent will agree with the majority in carrying out what-
172 THIRD DISCUSSION [III. 58
ever may be now decided upon (hear, hear). But at this
moment it only remains for us to express our gratitude to
Dr. Sanday and I must associate with him Dr. Moberly
and Dr. Fairbairn for the great hospitality they have
shown to us, and particularly to Dr. Sanday for the
courtesy with which he has arranged our meetings, and
also for the manner in which he has occupied the chair.
We owe him, and I am sure I speak for all who are
present, the very deepest gratitude for having given us
this unique opportunity of meeting one another and
getting to the bottom of some of our differences. To
myself, it has been a most instructive and profitable
Conference, for it has shown me how much there is in
common between us all. I have therefore much pleasure
in proposing a very hearty vote of thanks to Dr. Sanday.
58. DR. SALMOND. I suppose I have travelled the longest
distance in order to attend this Conference, and I take it
upon myself very much for that reason to second the
motion which has been made by Archdeacon Wilson.
I cannot express for myself how great is my sense of
obligation to Dr. Sanday, Dr. Moberly, and Dr. Fairbairn
for having given me an opportunity of being present.
I should have been well satisfied to have travelled three
times the distance in order to attend this Conference
(laughter), not only because it has given us an opportunity
of becoming acquainted with each other, which I feel
indeed to be itself a great pleasure and a great boon,
but also because we have gained not a little by our
discussion. I think it is something to look back upon
with satisfaction and thankfulness that we have had on
all sides so frank a recognition of the all-sufficiency and
alone-sufficiency of Christ's work. It is quite possible
that some who are associated with us on this side may
have felt at times a little dread lest the particular doctrine
of the Church with which others are associated might not
III. 58] THIRD DISCUSSION 173
be quite consistent with that. Now I am here to say
that if any such fear has been entertained it has been
a groundless fear, so far as this Conference is concerned.
I will go further and say that there is absolutely no
difference between us on what is the fundamental
matter, viz. the absolute completeness and uniqueness
of Christ's work and our entire dependence on it.
I am sure I am right also in saying that we on this
side heartily and thankfully welcome the full recognition
which those in this Conference who do not see eye to eye
with us in all things have made of the great truth of the
priesthood of the Christian people, and for myself I wish
1 to say further how grateful is the statement made by
Canon Gore that he is prepared to place that in the
forefront. Another thing that has impressed me greatly
is this, that there has been such agreement as to what
makes the real essence of the unity of the Church,
whatever else may be associated with it. I mean the
fact that the Spirit of Christ is in the Church. Now
when we come to confess together these three great
fundamental truths, I think we may say that we have
not travelled here and talked with each other in vain.
We have exchanged opinions and looked into each other's
views of New Testament truth to some good purpose.
I thank God for it. I thank Dr. Sanday for all that he
has done, and I venture to throw out the suggestion that
he might add to the debt under which he has laid us
by arranging another series of Conferences in which we
might deal with the whole theory of the Church, its
ministry, and its sacraments at some future time. I
.
desire in the strongest possible manner to express my
own sense of obligation and my thankfulness, and I finish
by praying that we may all be filled with the grace
that is given to all them that love the Lord Jesus Christ
in sincerity.
174 THIRD DISCUSSION [ELL 59-61
59. CANON SCOTT HOLLAND. I rise to add my tribute to
that which has already been said. The gentlemen with
whom I am associated know a good deal about the
subjects with which we have been dealing, but I know
nothing whatever. Therefore I have particular reason
for thanking Dr. Sanday for inviting me here, and I do
thank him from the bottom of my heart. I should like
to say, with reference to the points which have been
raised at this Conference, that the idea of a priest coming
between me and Christ is so inconceivable that the
moment of the priestly offering at the altar is the special
moment of most direct contact with the personal Christ
I have always felt that everybody who is in Christ has
that in him which constitutes him a Churchman.
60. DR. DAVISON. I should just like to express my sense
of obligation to Dr. Sanday. I have travelled a con-
siderable distance during the last two days in order to
be present, and I have greatly profited by what I have
heard ; and although perhaps I have not altered my
opinions very much in consequence, I am deeply indebted
to Dr. Sanday, Dr. Moberly, and Dr. Fairbaira for their
kindness and hospitality.
61. DR. SANDAY. I thank you from my heart for what has
been said. The Conference has been of great interest to
me, and it has also caused me some anxiety, but the
result has far exceeded my expectations. I have been
more than repaid for anything that I may have done to
bring the conference about.
The sitting then terminated.
OXFORD HORACE HART
PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY