Most English translations of the New Testament observe the distinction between "priests" and "elders" made in the Greek New Testament where ἱερεύς ("priest") is used for Jewish priests, pagan priests, Melchizedek, Christ and for the priesthood of all Christian believers but never for individuals within the Christian church. For figures of authority within the Christian church πρεσβύτερος ("older man, elder") is used, the same term which in the Gospels designates certain authority figures within Judaism.
In producing the Latin translation of the Bible which would shape the Western church for centuries, Jerome preserved this distinction. He used the loanword
presbyter in Acts 14:22; 15:2; 1 Timothy 4:14; 5:17, 19; Titus 1:5; James 5:14 and
sacerdos for ἱερεύς (numerous times). But he did more than that. Jerome bifurcated πρεσβύτερος. The Jewish elders were
seniores. The Latinized
presbyter was used for elders within the church only. The Latin speaking church consequently used
presbyter for their clergy; in vulgar Latin this became
prester.
Along with similar terms these Latin words were assimilated into Anglo-Saxon:
prester became "préost" and then "preest";
sacerdos became "sácerd". (This is the most likely explanation. An alternative theory, noted in the Online Etymology Dictionary
entry for priest, allows that the Old English préost might have derived from a vulgar Latin word designating someone who is put over others, cf. "provost" and see below.)
This history gives superficial plausibility to the claim
sometimes heard that the Roman Catholic Church hijacked the English term "priest," using a word that simply meant "elder" to refer to a performer of sacred (sacrificial) rites. But when "préost" entered the English language via Latin it did so as a specific term for Christian clergy with the connotations the term would have had within the Latin speaking church. The English word "priest" never meant "elder" (presbyter, senior figure) in a general sense. Put differently, "préost" is not a loanword from Greek πρεσβύτερος but from Latin
presbyter via
prester and the Latin
presbyter never corresponded exactly to the Greek πρεσβύτερος from which it derived.
The role of Christian clergy had long been understood within the church as in some ways analogous to the Levitical priesthood. (The priesthood of all believers in 1 Peter 2:9 was not seen as an hindrance to such a narrower usage, just as traditionally the priesthood of all Israel in Exodus 19:6 was not seen as a hindrance to the establishment of the Levitical priesthood.) So it is maybe not surprising that the Latin
sacerdos and the Anglo-Saxon "sacerd" also came to be employed for ordained Christian clergy. See the relevant entry in
An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary: Based on the Manuscript Collections of the Late Joseph Bosworth (ed. Thomas Northcote Toller; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1898) which makes the point in reverse by stating that "the term is not confined to the Christian priesthood" (
p. 807).
K.J. Elford, in her 2009 MPhil Thesis "
The Terms Used for the Priests and Other Clergy in the Anglo-Saxon Period" observes about eighth century usage:
Bede seems to have used sacerdos for ‘priest’, for all those men in the Church who were ordained and able to administer the rites, when he did not feel it necessary to state their individual rank. He used the term presbyter for the specific rank of priest, as distinct from that of bishop, with monachus for monk, and clericus and clerus for the clergy in general, sometimes for men of any order and sometimes specifically for those in minor orders. (p. 100)
She notes this about Bede's (late ninth century) translator:
The translator
consistently used mæssepreost when translating Bede’s presbyter, with preost mainly
being used for the lesser clergy whom we refer to today as minor clerics. For the term
sacerdos, the translator apparently considered the context carefully before choosing to
use either biscop, sacerd or mæssepreost, instead of automatically translating every
instance as sacerd, which appears to be the direct equivalent. Sometimes the translator
seems to be making a much clearer distinction in the orders than Bede does, which
may reflect the changes that had taken place in the Church since Bede’s day. The
translator uses various terms such as gefer, geferscipe, preost and þeow for the Latin
clericus/clerus, which suggests that where there was a choice in the terms available to him, he used them all. (pp. 102-103)
This is important for two reasons. First, the use of "préost" mainly for lesser clergy makes the alternative derivation noted above unlikely. Secondly, the consistent use of "mæssepreost" for presbyter shows that there was no sharp distinction between "presbyter" (having authority within the church) and "priest" (authorized to preside at masses) even at this early stage of the language. Elford adds, "In the royal law-codes contemporary with the OE version of the Ecclesiastical History
preost is sometimes used instead of mæssepreost for priest." (p. 103)
How common the use of "sacerd" for Christian priests is unclear; Elford notes occurrences in two Old English pastoral letters of Ælfric from the late tenth and early eleventh centuries, used synonymously for priests alongside "mæssepreost" and "preost" (pp. 104-105). By the twelfth century "mæssepreost" seems to have fallen out of usage, with "preost" being used more for "priests" as well as clerics in minor orders.
Indeed, it is not certain that "sacerd" ever got much of a foothold in West Saxon even as a designation for Jewish and pagan priests. If it did, it fell into disuse (cf. P. Goodwin,
Translating the English Bible: From Relevance to Deconstruction [Cambridge: James Clarke, 2013], p. 134). By the time the Wycliff Bible appeared in the late fourteenth century "preest/prestis" was used not only to translate
presbyter in Acts 14:22; 15:2; 1 Timothy 4:14; 5:17, 19; Titus 1:5; James 5:14 but also to render ἱερεύς in the Gospels and Acts and, e.g., throughout Hebrews 7 (in cases where Jerome had used
sacerdos). But Jerome's practice of using a different term for the Jewish "elders" was imitated (
seniores becomes “eldere men” in Matthew 15:2 and other places). See the
Wycliffe NT here.
The use of "preest/prestis" for both ἱερεύς and πρεσβύτερος was abandoned in Tyndale's translation. In keeping with etymology, Tyndale could have reserved "prest" for a (Christian) πρεσβύτερος /
presbyter and re-introduced "sacerd" to render ἱερεύς but this is obviously not what he did, presumably because (a) "prest" had connotations which he rejected for ordained Christian clergy and (b) it was not feasible to re-introduce "sacerd". So πρεσβύτερος becomes "elder" (cf. "ealder" in tenth century Anglo-Saxon for Jewish elders).
The
English word "presbyter" is apparently attested from the 1590s (
Online Etymology Dictionary entry), presumably to revive the distinction between Jewish "elders" and Christian "presbyters" which Jerome had introduced. Thus it does not seem to have been available for the early versions of the Book of Common Prayer. Given the reservations of some Reformers about the use of the term "priest" for church leaders, it is remarkable that the ordination service in the Book of Common Prayer does not adopt an alternative term but retains it. (The 1662 Epistle is from Eph. 4 and could have given "pastor" as an alternative; earlier versions of the BCP used Acts 20 which could have suggested "elder".)
In the view of some, the decision of the Reformed Church of England to retain "priest" for its clergy ensured that the term remain sufficiently broad to prevent any necessary association with a particular understanding of Christian "priesthood". For others, the use of the term for Jewish and pagan priests as well as Christian (Anglican, Roman Catholic and Orthodox) clergy means that "priest" carries connotations which make it unacceptable to them as a term to designate pastors or elders or presbyters within their own churches.
See also the follow-up post on
Presbyter in the Latin BCP and the entry on the Catholicity and Covenant blog on
The sacramental vision of the 1662 Ordering of Priests.
