Scotus Academicus, Tomus septimus: De Incarnatione Verbi Divini

A great controversy arose among the semi-Arian Heretics and the Catholics concerning the priesthood of Christ: for those heretics, who judged the nature of the Son of God and of the Word to be different from the nature of the Father, and far inferior to it, ascribed whatever was in Christ, or was done by him — his lowliness, his condition of greater weakness, as it were his suffering, his affection for praying and invoking, and other proper duties of a Priesthood — to that humanity itself, so that they might assert him to be inferior to the Father according to the divinity attributed to himself. But Nestorius, who held that the man was in reality separated from God and joined to him only by a union of affection and grace, assigned the priesthood to the humanity of Christ in such a way that he by no means suffered the dignity of Priest to be attributed to the Son of God, or to God: wherefore, that he might bring the Catholics into hatred, as if they said that the divinity itself was the pontiff, he thus interpreted their profession before Cyril, book 3 against him: Fictitiously, he says, they fashion the Divinity, they fashion for themselves a Pontiff, with a certain admirable species of insanity: then he subjoined very many arguments by which he might construct this dogma, namely: if the Divinity is Pontiff, who will be he who is worshipped by the pontifical office? If God offers sacrifice, there is no one to whom it may be offered, or he will offer to himself, which is plainly ridiculous. But Cyril removes this calumny from the Catholics, showing that the Catholics indeed affirm that God was made supreme Priest when he clothed himself with human flesh, yet not fulfilling the office of Priest according to the Divinity, but in respect of the humanity joined to the Divinity in unity of person.

Note 2. From the Council of Trent, session 22, chapter 1, Sacrifice and Priesthood are so joined together by the ordination of God that both existed in the old law. Hence the Priesthood necessarily imports a respect and relation to sacrifice, so that however much a Priest perform and celebrate other sacred things and other divine mysteries, nevertheless he is held to exercise the office and duty of a Priest only incompletely, but not adequately, unless he celebrates sacrifice, or obtains the power and authority of celebrating it. Hence St. Augustine, epistle 19, which is to Dardanus in thanks, recalls these three: temple, sacrifice, and Priest, as necessarily connected with one another. Moreover, sacrifice can generally be considered twofold: one indeed improperly so called for every action, whether internal or external, which is exercised to the praise and glory of God: to which sacrifice corresponds some Priesthood less properly so called, by which reason all the faithful, devoting themselves by their good works to the glory of God and their own salvation, are called Priests by St. Peter, epistle 1, chapter 2: You are, he says, a chosen generation, a royal Priesthood, a holy nation. And all the saints triumphing with Christ in the heavens render thanks to him in return because he made them Priests and Kings: You have made us to our God a kingdom, and Priests. But the other sacrifice properly so called signifies an external and sacramental oblation, which is offered to God in worship owed to his majesty, either in beseeching that supreme dominion, or in thanksgiving for a benefit received, or in satisfaction for sins and their expiation. Hence sacrifice is especially distinguished threefold, namely of veneration, of gratitude, and of expiation, although many other kinds could be recalled, as we abundantly said in the treatise On Laws, treating of the Mosaic Law.

Note 3. That just as sacrifice can be offered with a twofold rite, namely private and public, so a twofold office of the Priest is distinguished: that indeed private, which the Priest can sometimes act secretly and privately, with every fellowship of men set aside; but another public, which is celebrated before the multitude of the people and in the sight of many. Hence that passage to Heb. 5: Every high priest taken from among men is constituted for men in those things that appertain to God, that he may offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. Which lastly certainly signifies the true and properly so called office of Priesthood.

These things thus premised, two things especially are to be determined in this Question: First, whether Christ is truly and properly called a Priest; Second, whether the dignity and ministry of a Priest befit him as God, or as man.

First Conclusion. — CHRIST WAS TRULY AND PROPERLY A PRIEST.

This is of faith: which St. the Apostle admirably proves, chapter 5 to Heb. and the following; and the truth of this Conclusion is evident from the fact that Christ, as public Priest, offered a true and properly so called sacrifice, not only according to the order of Melchisedech, when on the day of the supper, receiving bread and chalice, he immolated his body and his blood with an unbloody rite and sacrifice to the eternal Father: but also when, coming as a High Priest of the good things to come, as the Apostle says to Heb. 9, by greater and more perfect tabernacles not made with hands, that is, not of this creation, neither by the blood of goats or of calves, but by his own blood, he entered once into the Holies, having found eternal redemption. Namely, when on the altar of the cross he offered himself as victim to the eternal Father.

This the Council of Trent, session 22, chapter 1, admirably explains in these words:

Therefore, since our God and Lord, though he was about to offer himself once on the altar of the cross to God the Father, death intervening, that he might accomplish that eternal redemption: nevertheless, because by death his priesthood was not to be extinguished, at the Last Supper, on the night in which he was betrayed, that he might leave to his beloved spouse the Church a visible sacrifice, as the nature of man requires, by which that bloody one, to be accomplished once on the cross, would be represented, and its memory would remain unto the end of the world, and its salutary virtue would be applied for the remission of those sins which we daily commit, declaring himself constituted a Priest forever according to the order of Melchisedech, he offered to God the Father his body and blood under the species of bread and wine, and under the symbols of the same things he gave to the Apostles, whom > then he was constituting Priests of the New Testament, that they might take them, and commanded them and their successors in the priesthood that they should offer them by these words: Do this for a commemoration of me, as the Catholic Church has always understood and taught.

The holy Fathers, both Greek and Latin, explain this truth most lucidly by their oracles and their doctrine: that Christ the Lord is Priest and Pontiff of the new law chiefly according to the order of Melchisedech, because he who once immolated his body and blood by a bloody oblation on the cross, offers them to the eternal Father daily in sacrifice in the continual and perpetual sacrifice of the Mass through the ministry of Priests; all which most holy Authors attesting this truth we shall cite in the Tractate De divina Eucharistia: that no escape may be left to the Calvinists, and other heretics of this age, who deny that there is any other sacrifice of the new law besides that which was offered by Christ on the cross. — Meanwhile it helps to praise and recite certain of the holy Fathers, who that they may demonstrate the priesthood of Christ as perfect and illustrious with every title, pronounce him not only Priest but victim and oblation. Thus first of all Epiphanius Heresy 55. which is of the Melchisedechians, where speaking of the priesthood of Christ he says: First indeed he offered himself, that he might dissolve the sacrifice of the old sacrament with a more perfect one, and about a host slain for the whole world: that he himself might be the victim, himself the sacrifice, himself the Priest, himself the altar, himself God, himself man, himself King, himself Pontiff, himself heaven sic, himself lamb, made all in all for us. St. Augustine elegantly explains this same thing in Psal. 131. Who is the Priest, he says, except the one Priest who entered into the Holy of Holies? Who is the Priest, unless he who was victim and priest? Unless he who when he found nothing in the world to offer, offered himself? Fulgentius also admirably commends the priesthood of Christ, book 1. Ad Tras., chapter 12. in these words: One therefore, and the same Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, himself shepherd and sheep, himself bridegroom and bride, himself priest and victim: one, and the same, both offerer of the gift, and made gift of the offerer: so that neither did the offerer depart from the quality of the gift, nor ought the gift to disagree with the merit of the oblation.

You will say: Every true and perfect Priest must physically act upon the victim itself, either by slaying, or consuming by fire, or otherwise changing it: but it is impious to say Christ killed himself: therefore it is false that he was at once Priest and victim.

— I deny the major: for it suffices for a true sacrifice that the Priest take up the victim and offer it to God by a moral and spontaneous oblation: but Christ the Lord performed this: since he voluntarily underwent the death inflicted upon him, as a sacred thing, and offered it to God in sacrifice.

You will urge: If these things be so, it follows that Martyrs similarly are truly and properly Priests, and render a true sacrifice to God when they pour out blood and willingly undergo a bloody death for his glory: but no Catholic has said this: therefore neither is it to be asserted concerning Christ.

— I deny the major: for although the Martyrs immolate life with blood for the glory and honor of God, nevertheless since they are not constituted by God that they undergo death after the manner of sacrifice, nor that they offer themselves as victims to God to make satisfaction for the sins of others; hence their death cannot be reputed a true sacrifice, as St. Leo admirably teaches, epistle 83. chapter 1. Let them say, he says, by what blood they were redeemed? Let them say, by what sacrifice were they reconciled? Who is he who delivered himself for us in oblation, and host for an odor of sweetness? Or what sacrifice ever was more sacred than that which the true Pontiff placed upon the altar of the cross by the immolation of his flesh? For although the death of many Saints was precious in the sight of the Lord, yet the propitiation was never in the world in the slaying of any innocent.

Second Conclusion. — CHRIST IS PRIEST AND PONTIFF NOT ACCORDING TO THE DIVINE NATURE BUT ACCORDING TO THE HUMAN SUBSISTING IN THE PERSON OF THE WORD.

This is common among Catholics, and the holy Fathers prove it, above all Epiphanius heresy 55. from that passage of the Apostle to Heb. 6. Every high priest taken from among men is constituted for men, that he may offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. By which words, says St. Epiphanius, the Apostle signifies that pontifical dignity was attributed to the Son of God after the nature of man had been assumed. Similarly St. Augustine in Psal. 109. According to that, he says, that he was born of the Father God coeternal with God with the one begetting, not Priest; but Priest on account of the flesh assumed, on account of the victim, which he would offer for us, taken from us. So likewise Theodoretus, dialogue 1. proves against the Apollinarists from this, that Christ offered his own body in sacrifice, and that he truly was endowed with a body: Wherefore, he says, if this is proper to Priests, to offer gifts, and Christ was called Priest according to human nature, and offered no further victim than his own body, it follows that Christ had a body. I pass over other holy Fathers affirming the same, whom we shall praise in a more fitting place and order in the Tractate De Eucharistia.