The Priesthood of the Plebs: A Theology of Baptism
Overview
In this seminal treatise, Peter J. Leithart argues that the coming of the New Creation in Jesus Christ has profound and revolutionary implications for social order—implications symbolized and effected in the ritual of baptism. In Christ and Christian baptism, the ancient distinctions between priest and non-priest, between patrician and plebian, are dissolved, giving rise to a new humanity in which there is no Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female. Yet, Leithart argues, beginning in the medieval period, the church has blunted the revolutionary force of baptism, reintroducing antique distinctions whose destruction was announced by the gospel. In this volume he calls the church to renew her commitment to the gospel that offers “priesthood to the plebs.”
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Looking for more by Peter Leithart? Check out the Peter J. Leithart Collection (6 vols.).
- Offers an exegetical defense of the typological connections between Old Testament priestly ordination and Christian baptism
- Provides a theology of baptism
- Examines the sociological significance of baptismal induction to priesthood
- The Beginning of the Gospel
- Attendants in Yahweh’s House: Priesthood in the Old Testament
- Baptism to Priesthood: Apostolic Conjugations of the Ordination Rite
- Baptismal Ordination as Ritual Poesis
- The Priesthood of the Plebs
- O Foolish Galatians! Who Has Bewitched You?
- Epilogue: Summary and Areas of Future Research
Top Highlights
“I argue instead for the more rigorous thesis that baptism fulfills and replaces the ordination rite and therefore has the same role in the church as ordination had in Israel, namely, consecrating priests for ministry in God’s house.” (Page xx)
“Influenced by Odo Casel’s ‘mystery’ view of Christian worship, liturgists have interpreted the Eucharistic anamnesis (‘Do this in remembrance of me’) ‘dynamically’ as ‘the making effective in the present of an event in the past.’27 For Casel, this means not only that ‘Christ himself is present and acts through the church,’ but also that the God who exists outside time permits the church in the liturgy to ‘enter into the divine present and everlasting Today’ so that at worship ‘there is neither past nor future, only present’ (Casel 1962: 141–142).” (Pages 18–19)
“By placing these events at the climax of the book, the author shows that the political failures of the early theocracy were the fruit of the failure of Levitical priests to guard Israel from Canaanite idolatry (Jordan 1985: 279–334). Absence of priests is a thematic device that underscores their practical absence from the life of Israel.” (Pages 49–50)
“By ‘semi-Marcionite,’ I mean a structuring theological narrative that, while remaining within orthodox parameters, betrays reservations about Old Testament materialism or legalism, or minimizes the grace offered to Israel. I shall call the intertwining of these themes ‘Marcionite sacramental theology’ or some variation of that label.” (Page 5)
“Baptism is efficacious because Jesus assigned this rite value as the entry token for the feast, as the induction ceremony into His Spirit-filled house, as ordination into priesthood. Baptism works because, like the tabernacle and ordination, it conforms to the verbal תבנית revealed on another mountain (Matt. 28:18; Exod. 25:40).” (Page 181)
In this book . . . neglected parts of the Old Testament are made to yield striking insights into the nature of the Christian community. The author reveals himself to be a true scribe of the kingdom, revealing a vision of the Church in relation to the world that is radical in the fundamental sense of the word: digging down into the roots of the Christian tradition, and bringing out of his treasure things new and old.
—Andrew Louth, emeritus professor of patristic and Byzantine studies, University of Durham
This erudite book constitutes a bold and wide-ranging attempt to argue for a typological relationship between Old Testament ideas of priestly ordination and Christian conceptions of baptism. In the process the author raises a number of fascinating historical and theological questions, many of which have potentially intriguing implications for Christian understandings of community and church order. A book which should stimulate and challenge people working in a variety of theological disciplines, whether biblical studies, church history, or Christian doctrine.
—James Carleton Paget, senior lecturer of New Testament studies, University of Cambridge
Leithart argues that Christian baptism, rightly understood, is the inception point of a new kind of social order, one that has yet to find full expression in Christendom and in the wider world. Anyone interested in Christian sacraments, in ecclesiology narrowly conceived, or in social order, needs to study this work with care.
—James B. Jordan, director, Biblical Horizons
- Title: The Priesthood of the Plebs: A Theology of Baptism
- Author: Peter Leithart
- Publisher: Wipf and Stock
- Print Publication Date: 2003
- Logos Release Date: 2016
- Pages: 336
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Baptism; Priesthood, Universal; Baptism › Biblical teaching
- ISBNs: 9781592444045, 1592444040
- Resource ID: LLS:PRIESTHOODPLEBS
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-30T02:23:31Z