Holy Orders — Division of Orders; The Episcopate

Chapter 2: Division of Orders

There are eight different orders: bishop, priest, deacon, subdeacon, acolyte, exorcist, lector, and porter or door-keeper (ostiarius). All these are expressly mentioned by the Fourth Council of Carthage (398). The five lowest are of ecclesiastical institution and therefore not Sacraments.

The higher three, called hierarchical orders, were instituted by our Lord Himself, and therefore at least one of them must be a true Sacrament because ordination is a true Sacrament. Which one, is a question that remains to be examined.

The dogmatic teaching of the Tridentine Council on Holy Orders is as follows:

(1) “Besides the priesthood, there are in the Catholic Church other orders, both greater and smaller, by which, as by certain steps, entry is made into the priesthood.”¹

(2) “In the Catholic Church there is a hierarchy, instituted by divine ordination, consisting of bishops, priests, and ministers.”²

(3) “Order, or sacred ordination, is truly and properly a Sacrament instituted by Christ.”³

(4) Bishops are superior to, and have greater power than, priests.⁴

We shall, therefore, treat first of the Episcopate (Sect. 1), second, of the Priesthood (Sect. 2), third, of the Diaconate (Sect. 3), and fourth, of the Subdiaconate and the Four Minor Orders (Sect. 4).

Section 1: The Episcopate

The Tridentine Council defines (1) that “bishops are superior to priests,” and (2) that “they have the power of confirming and ordaining.” That episcopal consecration is a true Sacrament follows as a theological conclusion.

Thesis I: The episcopate is, by divine institution, an order distinct from, and superior to, the priesthood. This proposition embodies an article of faith.

Proof. The divine institution of the episcopate and its superiority to the priesthood were denied by Aërius in the fourth century, by Marsilius of Padua in the fourteenth,⁵ and by the followers of Wiclif and Hus in the fifteenth.⁶ Against these later heretics the Council of Trent defined: “If anyone saith that in the Catholic Church there is not a hierarchy instituted by divine ordination, consisting of bishops, priests, and ministers, let him be anathema.”⁷ And: “If anyone saith that bishops are not superior to priests, … let him be anathema.”⁸

The Council does not expressly say that the superiority of the episcopate over the priesthood is divinely instituted, but this proposition is deducible from the nature of the episcopal faculties, especially that of giving confirmation and ordination.⁹

a) The hierarchic distinction of the episcopate and its superiority as compared to the priesthood cannot be proved from the name episcopus, because the terms episcopos, presbyteros, and diakonos are used loosely and oftentimes synonymously in the New Testament. A convincing argument for the dogmatic teaching of the Church can, however, be drawn from the functions attributed to the episcopal office.

Franzelin attempts to show¹⁰ that while the bishops were sometimes called presbyteroi, simple priests were never called episkopoi. But the argument is not entirely conclusive, as usage varied in the primitive Church.¹¹ The functions attributed to bishops are a much better criterion.

The pastoral letters of St. Paul show that some of the disciples ordained by the Apostles exercised precisely those prerogatives by which the episcopate is distinguished from the priesthood, i.e., the power of ordaining priests and ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Thus Barnabas ordained priests;¹² Titus was left for the same purpose in Crete;¹³ Timothy was admonished not to impose hands lightly,¹⁴ and so forth.

It was the will of Christ that the power which He had given to His Apostles should be transferred by them to their successors; consequently the episcopate is divinely instituted.

b) The episcopate is clearly marked in ancient Tradition as an independent, superior, and divinely instituted, monarchical office.

Nothing can be deduced in favor of our thesis from the Didache, the Shepherd of Hermas, or the letters of Clement of Rome, because in these sub-Apostolic writings the term episkopos, which we found in the New Testament, has not yet narrowed down to its more specific meaning. But we have an important witness in St. Ignatius of Antioch (d. 117), who clearly distinguishes three orders in the hierarchy. He says in his Epistle to the Magnesians: “I exhort you: be zealous to do all things in harmony with God, with the bishop presiding in the place of God, and the presbyters in the place of the council of the Apostles, and the deacons, who are most dear to me, entrusted with the service of Jesus Christ.”¹⁵ He attributes the superiority of the episcopal order to the fact that there is but one bishop in each diocese. “Be careful, therefore,” he says, “to use one Eucharist, for there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup for union with His blood, one altar, as there is one bishop with the presbytery and the deacons.”¹⁶ That the episcopate exists by divine ordination is taught in the same writer’s Epistle to the Ephesians. “The bishops,” he avers, “who have been appointed throughout the world, are by the will of Jesus Christ… . For every one whom the Master of the house sends to do his business, we ought to receive as Him who sent him. Therefore it is clear that we must regard the bishop as the Lord himself.”¹⁷

The testimony of St. Ignatius sufficiently refutes the assertion that the episcopate was but just springing into existence at the beginning of the second century. Bardenhewer sums up the argument from early Tradition as follows: “Hegesippus,¹⁸ and soon after him Irenaeus,¹⁹ draw up a list of Roman bishops, beginning with the Apostles. The existence of the episcopate about the middle of the second century is proved by overwhelming and explicit testimony. For the beginning of the second century we have the authority of St. Ignatius, the very text of whose letters precludes the possibility of a forgery. We nowhere hear of hindrances or difficulties in the way of the episcopate, or of quarrels or combats between bishops and priests. The episcopate is invariably introduced as a traditional institution of acknowledged legitimacy, which needs no proof.”²⁰

Among the many later Patristic testimonies we will mention only the famous dictum of St. Cyprian that “the bishop is in the Church, and the Church is in the bishop, and if any one is not with the bishop, he is not in the Church.”²¹

Thesis II: The superiority of the episcopate over the priesthood is based mainly upon the power to confirm and ordain. This proposition may be qualified as “sententia certa.”

Proof. The Tridentine Council enumerates the following as specifically episcopal functions: “Bishops … administer the Sacrament of Confirmation, ordain the ministers of the Church, and can perform very many other things, over which functions others of an inferior order have no power.”²² The same holy Synod pronounces anathema against “anyone who saith that bishops are not superior to priests, or that they have not the power of confirming and ordaining, or that the power which they possess is common to them and priests.”²³ Consequently, the superiority of the episcopal over the sacerdotal office is based principally upon the power of confirming and ordaining.

Since, however, the power of confirming can be granted to simple priests by papal dispensation,²⁴ the really distinctive and unique prerogative of the bishop, so far as the potestas ordinis is concerned, is his power to ordain priests. From this power spring all other episcopal prerogatives: the bishop’s position as the divinely appointed head of his diocese²⁵ and the center of unity both in faith and discipline; his character as a successor of the Apostles; his capacity of father of his priests and the faithful entrusted to their care; his right to represent his diocese at provincial, plenary, and ecumenical councils, etc.²⁶

a) That bishops alone have the power to ordain priests is amply confirmed by Tradition.

Aërius of Sebaste, an Arian priest, whose former friend and rival Eustathius had been raised to the episcopal dignity, maintained that bishops and priests were absolutely equal in all things. St. Epiphanius (d. 403), in his “Medicine Chest,” commonly called “Haereses,” refuted this contention as follows: “What sense is there in that? The order of bishops has for its chief purpose to produce new fathers, for its business is to propagate fathers in the Church. The other [i.e., the priesthood], unable to engender fathers, in the laver of regeneration brings forth sons of the Church, but not fathers and teachers. How would it be possible for [priests] to make other priests, as they have not the right to lay on hands?”²⁷

St. John Chrysostom (d. 407) says: “Between bishops and priests there is hardly any difference, … by the power of ordination alone are the former superior [to the latter], and only this they seem to have more than the presbyters.”²⁸

Ecclesiastical practice agreed with this teaching. History knows of no case in which the Church acknowledged the validity of higher orders when conferred by a simple priest. When St. Athanasius (d. 373) was accused of sacrilege for having permitted the consecrated chalice to be broken during a mass celebrated by a certain Ischyras, he proved that Ischyras had been invalidly ordained by the pseudo-bishop Colluthos, whereupon his enemies reluctantly dropped the charge, because “the hands of Colluthos were without authority.”²⁹ “Whence is this presbyter Ischyras?” the Saint asks. “Who ordained him? Colluthos, perhaps? … But it is known to all, and doubted by none, that Colluthos died as a presbyter, and his hands were without authority, and all ordained by him during the schism were sent back to the lay state.”³⁰

b) A difficulty arises from certain utterances of St. Jerome (d. 420), who exalts the priesthood at the expense of the episcopate in such exaggerated terms that the Scotch Presbyterians boldly cite him as a witness to their non-prelatical form of church government. St. Jerome’s attitude must be judged in the light of his personal relations with Bishop John of Jerusalem and of the current practice of exalting the archdeacons at the expense of priests in the administration of Church affairs.³¹

The strangest passage in the Saint’s writings runs as follows: “The presbyter is therefore the same as the bishop, and before, at the devil’s instigation, there arose parties in religion, and it was said among the people: ‘I am of Paul, I of Apollo, and I of Cephas,’ the churches were governed by the common counsel of the presbyters… . As, therefore, the presbyters know that it is by the custom of the Church that they are subject to him who is placed over them, so let the bishops know that they are above presbyters more by custom than by the truth of a divine ordinance, and that they ought to rule the Church jointly, following the example of Moses, who, when he alone had the power of ruling the people of Israel, chose seventy, with whom he might judge the people.”³² St. Jerome here has in view the potestas iurisdictionis rather than the potestas ordinis of bishops. He demands a more democratic administration of church affairs and greater power for the priesthood. But his chief complaint is directed against the usurpations of the deacons: “I hear that a certain one has broken out into such folly as to give deacons the precedence over presbyters, that is to say, over bishops. The Apostle plainly teaches that presbyters are the same as bishops… . But that afterward one was elected to preside over the rest was done as a remedy for schism.”³³ St. Jerome was undoubtedly justified in protesting against the arrogance of these deacons; but he was wrong in belittling the episcopal office in favor of the priesthood. In spite of these utterances, however, Catholics have never suspected him of being a follower of Aërius. For he unequivocally admits that the bishops alone have the power to ordain,³⁴ and his very assertion that the bishops are superior to priests “more through custom than by divine institution” shows that at heart he believed in the divine institution of the episcopate.³⁵

Thesis III: The rite of episcopal consecration is a true Sacrament. This proposition embodies a theological conclusion.

Proof. Scholastic writers disagree with regard to the sacramental character of episcopal consecration. Peter Lombard, Alexander of Hales, Blessed Albertus Magnus, St. Bonaventure, St. Thomas,³⁶ Duns Scotus, and others deny, while William of Auxerre, Durandus, Paludanus, Navarrus, Cardinal Cajetan, and Gabriel Biel affirm it. The later Schoolmen, with the sole exception of Dominicus Soto, defended the affirmative view so vigorously that Peter Soto did not hesitate to say that it was “certa fide tenenda,”³⁷ and Cardinal Bellarmine characterized it as “certissima.”³⁸ To-day our thesis is universally accepted by Catholic divines as a conclusio theologica. The arguments in its favor are, indeed, quite convincing.

a) That there is a Sacrament of Order was demonstrated above³⁹ from St. Paul’s Epistles to Timothy. Now, according to the unanimous interpretation of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, the Apostle speaks in that Epistle of the ordination of bishops.⁴⁰ Consequently, the ordination of bishops, or episcopal consecration, is a true Sacrament.

St. John Chrysostom says: “[St. Paul] here speaks not of presbyters, but of bishops; for the presbyters did not ordain the bishop.”⁴¹ St. Thomas takes the same view. He says in his commentary on the second Epistle to Timothy: “‘Which is in thee by the imposition of my hands,’ that is to say, by whom he was ordained a bishop, in which imposition of hands the grace of the Holy Ghost was given him.”⁴²

This argument cannot be shattered by the assertion that St. Paul, in imposing hands on Timothy, merely ordained him to the priesthood, and that the episcopal dignity was added later and is an entirely non-sacramental complement. Timothy had the power of ordaining bishops, and this power could not have come to him by a mere Apostolic command, but must have been based on the episcopal character, which is inseparably bound up with the Sacrament of Orders.⁴³

If episcopal consecration were not a true Sacrament and if it did not imprint a character on the soul of the recipient, the hierarchic distinction between the episcopate and the priesthood could not be of divine institution. The Church can take away what she herself has given (e.g. the dignity of an abbot, ecclesiastical jurisdiction); but she cannot take away the power of conferring Holy Orders. An excommunicated bishop can ordain validly even against her will, whereas no ordinary priest can ordain even with papal permission. It follows that episcopal consecration imprints on the soul a sacramental character and is, therefore, a true Sacrament.

b) The Fathers, whenever they treat of the Sacrament of Holy Orders, have in mind principally episcopal consecration, because they regard the bishop as the priest par excellence.

Cardinal Bellarmine says⁴⁴ that to deny the sacramentality of episcopal consecration would endanger the Patristic argument for the existence of the Sacrament of Holy Orders, because the Fathers as a rule base their discussion of the subject on this rite. Nor is there any lack of express testimony in support of our thesis.

St. Augustine, for instance, says concerning the readmission of the Donatistic bishops: “The Baptism they give is not theirs, but Christ’s. The invocation made upon their heads when they were consecrated bishops is the invocation of God, not of Donatus. I do not receive him as a bishop upon whose head, at ordination, Donatus was invoked. In an erring and deserting soldier the crime is his own, whereas the character is that of the emperor.”⁴⁵

c) The Tridentine Council proves the existence of the Sacrament of Holy Orders from the consecration of Timothy at the hands of St. Paul.

The Council says: “Whereas, by the testimony of Scripture, … it is clear that grace is conferred by sacred ordination, … no one ought to doubt that Order is truly and properly one of the seven Sacraments of holy Church; for the Apostle says: ‘I admonish thee that thou stir up the grace of God, which is in thee by the imposition of my hands.’”⁴⁶ Immediately afterward the holy Synod declares that “bishops … principally belong to this hierarchical order,” and that “they are superior to priests.”⁴⁷ Whence we may argue: as ordination to the priesthood is a Sacrament,⁴⁸ consecration to the episcopate must be a Sacrament a fortiori. This argument derives force from the fact that the Council pronounces anathema against those who maintain that “vainly do the bishops say [at ordination]: ‘Receive ye the Holy Ghost.’”⁴⁹

d) The objections of certain Scholastics can be easily refuted, nay, to some extent turned against their own position.

Their principal argument may be stated thus: all orders are directed towards the Holy Eucharist as their goal and exist for its sake. Now, since the bishop’s power over the Body of Christ does not exceed that of the priest, he receives no new character with regard to the Eucharist, and therefore episcopal consecration is not a Sacrament.⁵⁰

Answer. The premise upon which this argument rests is open to dispute. But even if it were sound, we could retort that the bishop actually has greater power with regard to the Eucharist than the priest, because he can communicate the power of consecration to others.

Another objection of the early Schoolmen was this: no order can be truly sacramental that is so dependent upon another that the omission of one renders the other invalid. If episcopal consecration imprinted the sacramental character, a deacon could be raised to the episcopate without having first been ordained to the priesthood. But such proceeding would be invalid. Hence the episcopal consecration is not a Sacrament.

Answer. Whether a deacon could be validly consecrated without being first ordained, is a point in dispute. Setting this aside, let us regard the logic of the argument. Would it not be equally consistent to argue thus: if Confirmation imprints a character, an unbaptized person, who lacks the baptismal character, could be validly confirmed; this, however, is impossible; consequently Confirmation is not a Sacrament. There is confusion here between an indispensable prerequisite and the essence of the thing. The baptismal character is an indispensable prerequisite for Confirmation. In the same way the character of the priesthood is an indispensable prerequisite for episcopal consecration. Neither postulate affects the essence of the respective Sacrament.

Again, it is inconsistent to admit the sacramental character of the diaconate, nay to ascribe a character to the four minor orders, and to deny it to episcopal consecration. Does not the administration of Confirmation and Holy Orders, which is reserved to bishops, require greater power than the administration of Baptism, preaching, and serving Mass, which belong to the lower orders?

It is objected, finally: the Church knows but seven orders, and seven sacramental ordinations corresponding to them, viz.: the four minor orders, the subdiaconate, the diaconate, and the priesthood. If the episcopate were a separate sacramental order, the title “De Septem Ordinibus,” over Session XXIII, cap. 2, of the Decrees of Trent would be wrong.

Answer. That there are seven orders is by no means so certain as that there are seven Sacraments. Many canonists and theologians do not hesitate to speak of eight orders. The title “De Septem Ordinibus” was not composed by the Fathers of the Tridentine Council, but added later. Nor would it decide the question at issue even if it were authentic. The chapter thus inscribed treats the episcopate as a separate and distinct order. This fact does not necessarily render the title “De Septem Ordinibus” false. For the priesthood can be conceived as a genus with two species, viz.: the sacerdotium maius or primi ordinis, i.e., the episcopate, and the sacerdotium minus or secundi ordinis, i.e., the priesthood proper. The bishop is essentially a priest, but he is at the same time the highest priest (summus sacerdos) in the diocese. Nevertheless there are, theologically speaking, not seven or eight Sacraments of Holy Orders, but only one.⁵¹ The lower orders are simply so many stages leading up to the priesthood, which, in turn, culminates in the episcopate.⁵²

Other questions pertaining to the episcopate, especially as regards the power of jurisdiction, belong to Fundamental Theology and Canon Law.