BOOKS

...This concrete Sitz im Leben may have lent its own distinctive coloration to the initial project and final product, as I shall indicate below...

...Chapter three repeats and extends a number of considerations already broached in chapter one concerning thematic similarities between Isaiah 53 and the Johannine writings in order to argue for "the greatness of Christ's sacrifice and priesthood" (the chapter's title...

...It comes as no surprise, after this programmatic statement, that such, indeed, is the conclusion reached at the end of the chapter and of the study...

...Nor is confidence engendered by such strange assertions as the following: "if Jesus humbly submitted to the Precursor's ritual act of conversion, the reason could only be that he regarded himself as the messiah" (italics mine...

...He simply takes both the above positions for granted...

...Thus Feuillet declares at the beginning of his fourth chapter: "once Christ had willed the Church to be a lasting society, the Apostles had to provide for successors to themselves who would share, as they did, in the priestly consecration of Jesus in a way that would distinguish them from the rest of the Christian community" (p...

...Finally, there arises at several points in the discussion a distressing sense of the intrusion of later theological categories and concerns upon the exegesis...

...The Presthood of Christ and His Ministers ANDRE FEUILLET Doubleday, $8.95 ROBERT IMBELLI The eminent French priest-exegete, Andre" Feuillet, has given us a work which is timely, immensely erudite, and ultimately disappointing...

...and thus, though it may inform, it fails to convince and to meet our critical and most personal needs.d most personal needs...

...Feuillet's original contribution and distinctive focus lie in approaching his subject, not primarily from a considr eratlon of the Letter to the Hebrews (the only New Testament writing to use explicit priestly terminology with reference to Jesus), but from a detailed study of chapter seventeen of the Gospel of John (the so-called "Priestly Prayer" of Jesus...

...Feuillet's whole thrust, on the contrary, seems directed toward a harmony which melds without sufficient differentiation the Synoptic accounts of the Last Supper and the Johannine discourses, the Gospel of John and the Apocalypse, the epistles of Paul and 1 Peter...

...There remains, then, the imposing and pressing need for a critical hermeneutical investigation of the crucial topic of priesthood in the new covenant...

...though, stylistically, the process often becomes somewhat rambling and repetitious/Thus in chapter one he relates John 17 to the Servant Song of Isaiah 53, seeking to show that "Christ is here acting as both priest and victim, a priest who, like the Servant of Yahweh, is himself the victim of his sacrifice" (p...

...Feuillet maintains that in this latter we find Christ exercising the priestly functions of sacrifice and intercession and consecrating his Apostles for like service in the community (though always in strict dependence upon the one High Priest of the New Covenant: Jesus...

...Did he constitute the Apostles priests...

...Chapter four, by far the longest of the book, treats the question of the priesthood of Christ's ministers and, in particular, the "priestly consecration of the Apostles...

...Secondly, Feuillet does not struggle with the different contexts and traditions which gave birth to the various New Testament writings and in terms of which those writings must be interpreted...

...Feullet consciously presents four questions to himself and his reader at the outset of his inquiry: Was Christ a priest...

...25) or "the permanence of the priestly character" (p...

...126) and to relate these without qualification to John 17 is at best anachronistic and at worst distortive of the New Testament experience and witness...

...Thirdly, Feuillet's presentation, though often informative and instructive in its individual parts, becomes unpersuasive when those parts are linked...

...I am not sug-gesting by this remark that there is a double-standard of truth, or that "spiritual reflections" (even when written in French) need not be grounded in good exegeais...

...Then is no doubt that in The Priesthood of Christ and Bis Ministers, Father Feuillet presents many informed and insightful reflections...

...Did he think of himself as a priest...

...119...

...Father Feuillet's study of the priesthood, I fear, still reflects a "first naivete...

...For the necessity of inferences made and conclusions drawn does not impose itself...

...Paul Ricoeur, whose studies on hermeneutic are extremely perceptive and influential, has suggested that the present challenge to believers is to attain a "second nalvete," one that has passed through the purifying fires of critical questioning, reflection, and interpretation (See Ricoeur's remarks in the concluding chapter of his book, The Symbolism of Evil...

...REVIEWERS DENNIS O'BRIEN is Dean of Middlebury College in Vermont...

...FATHER ROPERT IMBELLI teaches at St...

...Father Feuillet argues his thesis by drawing upon a wealth of biblical knowledge and correlating basic ideas of the Old and New Testaments...

...Later to this chapter Feuillet of fers some illumlnating reflection upon the teaching of the Letter to the Hebrews concerning the priesthood of Christ...

...If their priesthood distinct from that, of God's people as a whole...

...First, the author does not really grapple with questions of dispute among biblical scholars which could seriously affect his main thesis: such as the postulated self-understanding of Jesus in terms of the Servant of Yahweh or the historical reliability of the Johannine Last Supper discourses...

...However, as the review has already suggested, their value is compromised by rather grave weaknesses...

...35 ). In chapter two he studies at length the literary and logical structure of the "Priestly Prayer" and .finds "hidden but substantial relations between John 17 and the Jewish liturgy for the Day of Atonement" (p...

...In my opinion his work would have been more satisfying had it been limited to this essay,' whose genre is more that of a spiritual reflection upon biblical themes of priesthood and sacrifice than that of a scientific study which entails distinctive critical exigencies...

...116) or whether he was referring to "the oral tradition" (p...

...Father Feuillet concludes his study with a final chapter which summarizes his basic view of the priesthood of Christ and his ministers...

...and hence they appear arbitrary and idiosyncratic...

...but rather that one can often profit from what is probable or possible if presented as such, whereas one cannot give critical assent to what has not been established according to critical canons...

...Here insightful reflections upon specific exegetical questions, such as the identity of the "angels of the churches" in the Apocalypse, are offset by what seem to be predetermined theological positions governing the presentation, derived, perhaps, from the special nature of that Commission mentioned in the opening paragraph...

...Joseph's Seminary, Dunwoodie, New York...

...Thus to speak of "die unity of the divine persons in the Trinity" (p...

...It is this contextual sensitivity which underlies the exegetical method known as Redaction Criticism and prevents a facile and unhistorical harmonization of the New Testament data...

...but the closing of the chapter is marred by some unsophisticated speculations about what the author of Hebrews- was "undoubtedly thinking" (p...

...p. 14...

...123...

...I stress the word "hermeneutical," for such a study must be sophisticated in its exploration of the concrete context and conditions of the diverse New Testament witnesses and nuanced in its interpretation of these into the present ecclesial situation...

...The immediate background of the book is the author's collaboration as a member of the International Theological Commission team charged with the study of priestly ministry...

...As Feuillet poses them, the questions take on a deceptively simple and straightforward allure, and his final categorical "yes" to each further belies the thorny exegetical and theological problems they conceal...