Here is another of those radical-theology desacralizing books from the continent, this time translated from the French (Structures of Christian Priesthood by Jean Paul-Audet, Sheed & Ward, London 1967, pp. 200, 14s.). The author is a French-Canadian Dominican, a distinguished biblical scholar still at the Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem. The general theme is broadly similar to that of Fr Robert Adolfs’ The Grave of God, but less challengingly expressed: namely, that the pastoral ‘structures’ (blessed word!) of the Church unfortunately took a wrong turning in Constantine’s time or even earlier and now need de-institutionalizing back to something more like the apostolic age. Interwoven is an argument against obligatory celibacy for the priesthood, which it will be easier to leave to the end of this article for separate consideration.

The first two-thirds of the book take the form of historical evidence about Christian ecclesial organization in the first century or so. The evidence is marshalled from the New Testament and the early Fathers. What it shows (according to the author) is that our Lord’s own ministry’ was that of a travelling prophet, heralding a message (a kerygma) to the general public and imparting instruction (a didache) to his close followers. The twelve apostles were chosen and trained to imitate this mobile ministry of the word. Thus was set the pattern for the early Church, which at first was quite flexible; small local communities of a few dozen people meeting in somebody’s private house. Thus the ‘base-community’ (local Christians) was identical with the ‘liturgical assembly,’ and our author reckons that there were no ‘sacral persons’, nothing like the Jewish priesthood, at first.