From Community To

Clergy-Laity

RE-READING OUR
HISTORY AS A CHURCH

One Community
in the early church

a highlighting of
what Christians
share in common
The sense of being
one community of
faith is uppermost in
the testimonies of
the first Christians

One Community
in the early church

The whole church is

called and
missioned.
The church was a
genuine samahan
where there is
sharing, partnership
and communion

Power threatens unity

Jesus scolded them when they are

like the king of the Gentiles who
lord it over others (cf. Lk. 22:2427).
Paul also alludes to this threat of
one-upmanship and reminded them
that no one part of the body should
claim to be better than others.
Banta sa magandang samahan ang
paghahariharian.

The development of a
clergy and a laity in the
church

The theological
distinction

From a situation of being a

despised and outlawed religion, it
became honored and privileged.
Membership in the church somehow
grew as a consequence but living
the Way of Jesus weakened.
The dissatisfied preferred a more
disciplined manner of living the
Gospel and began to be called
ascetics (Greek, askesis meaning
exercise, training, discipline).

The theological
distinction

Rise of monastic life as holier than

the lives lived outside the spiritual
Influenced by dualism a
philosophical thought which
presented the spiritual as good and
the material as evil
The church was considered a
spiritual reality, while the world
was consigned to the realm of the
material.

The theological
distinction

Change of understanding of laikos

and kleros led to a princely
perception of the clergy and a lowly
status for the laity.
A difference not found in the New
Testament started to exist within the
church. For the first time the church
began to have a spiritual clergy
that was superior in holiness and a
materially immersed laity that was
inferior in following the Gospel.

The social
distinction

With the state discriminating in favor of

the clerics, the distinction and
separation between them and the laity
increased
Social privileges were accorded to
clerics because they were believed to be
holier
Preferential treatment and consideration
are more often than not accorded to the
clergy in contrast to how ordinary people
would be treated.

The educational
distinction

Monastic institutions established by

St. Benedict and others, with their
libraries and scriptoria, preserved
learning in general and the Western
cultural heritage in particular.
As a result the church historically
started to have an educated clergy
and an ignorant laity even though
this situation was never intended.

A pyramidal
church

a church that over-emphasized

the significance of the clergy at
the expense of the laity.
As an institution it had become
rigid, combative and defensive.
further exaggeration of the
clergys importance in theology
was evident (incarnate angel
and alter Christus)

A pyramidal church

Priests carried out their

ordained responsibilities of
teaching, sanctifying and
governing the laity.
The net effect of this long
theological development is
the actual psychological (not
just theological) sense of
superiority by the clergy and
of inferiority by the laity.

Was Jesus a priest?

Jesus was a lay person when

considered in his cultural and
historical context
the use of priest and
priesthood in the letter to the
Hebrews is metaphorical rather
than literal
Jesus as priest was one such
title given to Jesus in a cultural
and historical context where
Temple priesthood was
intelligible and meaningful.