Shots in the Dark

3 Responses

• Harry Lewis
  9/18/2012 3:35 pm

  An absolutely riveting story. Of course King is very very careful to say this is not a contemporary document. It feels very fresh, but remember that even if it is a 4th c. translation of a 2nd c. text, that means it would be kind of like somebody’s translation today of something somebody supposedly wrote in 1800 about someone who lived in 1600. It would be nice to think that the RC church will take this hint to rethink their celibacy and male-only priesthood stances (which anyway do not have as clear a historical foundation as you might think), but I am not holding my breath.

  But what I love about the story is that it shows the astonishing quickness with which the dustiest, mustiest of academic disciplines can become “relevant.” Where would be in a market-model university (the would-be UVa, perhaps), in which the study of Coptic and epigraphy had been allowed to die because of their low ROI?

• Anonymous
  9/18/2012 4:46 pm

  What’s the theological connection between Jesus being unmarried and priestly celibacy?

• Harry Lewis
  9/18/2012 6:02 pm

  Theologically, the Church teaches that priesthood is a ministry conformed to the life and work of Jesus Christ. Priests as sacramental ministers act in persona Christi, that is in the person of Christ. Thus the life of the priest conforms, the Church believes, to the chastity of Christ himself. The sacrifice of married life is for the “sake of the Kingdom” (Luke 18:28–30, Matthew 19:27–30; Mark 10:20–21), and to follow the example of Jesus Christ in being “married” to the Church, viewed by Catholicism and many Christian traditions as the “Bride of Christ”.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerical_celibacy_(Catholic_Church)

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