Plato and Paul on Ordination

In a work titled Laws, Plato discusses the officials (archontōn) needed for a colony or city-state.  The officials selected should be ‘keepers’ in three areas: city stewards, market stewards, and the priesthood (Laws 6.759; cf. Aristotle, Politics 6.1322b).  As to the priesthood, Plato describes three groups: the priests and priestesses, a group of interpreters of religious laws, and treasurers.  In the imaginary colony Plato is describing, he has in mind four classes of citizens defined by economic status.  People in religious service are to be drawn from the highest class.

We should note that Plato’s famous student, Aristotle, wrote a work that identifies the various supervisors of institutions in a city-state in greater detail.  One such group is the priesthood.  Like Aristotle, he insists that they should be drawn from citizens and not ‘tillers of the soil’ (slaves) or artisans.  Aristotle also says, like Plato, that priests should be older.  Specifically, they should be retired citizens from the military class and the councillor class (Politics 7.1329a).

The priesthood consists of hereditary priests and priestesses in temples on the one hand and of temple-keepers for the gods, whose term of service is one year.  We might roughly compare Paul’s distinction between two religious groups: overseers (1 Timothy 3), otherwise called ‘elders’ (Titus 1), and deacons (male and female, apparently).  For Plato, whenever a selection (ordination) is needed for priests and priestesses of either category, they are first selected by lot but then tested with further criteria.  They should be ‘sound and true-born’, from pure houses, clean from religious offences (like murder), and come from parents ‘that have lived by the same rule’ of moral uprightness.  We might assume that Plato’s concerns here would be recognized already but also challenging if priests and priestesses were not always properly tested for service.  Paul’s list of criteria for overseers/elders and deacons/deaconesses are mostly to do with moral criteria.  Not a house’s reputation, class superiority, hereditary appointment, or representation of groups (such as with a quota system) but assessment of the character of those wishing to serve stands above all other considerations for Paul.  While the Jerusalem apostles used the lot to choose between two nominees to replace Judas among the Twelve (Acts 1), this process, also in Plato, is not used in the churches for overseers/elders and deacons.

Plato further remarks how keeper-priests and priestesses should be elected, how long they should serve (1 year), and the minimum age for service (60 years old).  Paul’s criteria do not include women as priests, and he provides no limitation to the length of service.  In fact, the criteria suggest that the ‘ordination’ is more of a recognition of functions in which the overseers and deacons have already proved themselves and the character that has been tested over time.  This is no job application or selection process right after seminary but a recognition conferred on someone the church already knows well. 

Paul seems in three respects to have been guided not by his culture but by Leviticus 21.  First, ministers serve indefinitely, as already noted.  Priests in the Old Testament did so because they were in priestly families, but for Paul there is no such thing for overseers and deacons.  Second, overseers and deacons should be the husband of one wife (1 Timothy 2.2, 12).  There was no polygamy in Paul’s day, so the possible meanings are: (1) the minister should be faithful to his wife and not a philanderer; (2) the minister should not remarry after the death of his wife; (3) the minister should not be divorced and remarried.  I suggest the third possibility is what Paul meant.  As to the first option, widows placed on the order of widows were to have been, among other things, wives of one husband (5.9).  Men in Greek and Roman society might be sexually active with women not their wives, but this was not generally acceptable for women.  As to the second option, Paul actually encourages younger widows to remarry (1 Timothy 5) or at least acknowledges widows may remarry (Romans 7.1-4). 

Option three has support from what is said about priests in the Old Testament.  Priests and chief priests were not to marry divorced women (Leviticus 21.7, 14; Ezekiel 44.22).  Ezekiel 44.22 says that ‘they shall not marry a widow or a divorced woman, but only virgins of the offspring of the house of Israel, or a widow who is the widow of a priest.’  Tacitus commends the character of Germanicus, saying that he was ‘gracious to his friends, temperate in his pleasures, the husband of one wife (uno matrimonio), with only legitimate children’ (Annals 2.73).

In the 5^th century AD, the Church’s Apostolic Canon states:

He who married a widow, or a divorced woman, or an harlot, or a servant-maid, or an actress, cannot be a bishop, presbyter, or deacon, or any other of the sacerdotal list (Canon 18).

If any layman put away his wife and marry another, or one who has been divorced by another man, let him be excommunicated (Canon 48).

The concern here seems to have been Paul’s concern: divorce and remarriage.

The second connection between Paul and Leviticus 21 has to do with the minister and his household.  There is also an overlap with Plato, though his concern is that the priest comes from a good household.  Paul says that the overseer ‘Must manage his own household well’ (1 Timothy 3.4).  Leviticus 21.9 says, ‘And the daughter of any priest, if she profanes herself by whoring, profanes her father; she shall be burned with fire.’ 

Paul’s thought is also close to what Plutarch says about politically responsible persons: ‘A man therefore ought to have his household well harmonized who is going to harmonize State, Forum, and friends’ (Plutarch, Conjungalia Praecepta 43).  Plutarch’s concern elsewhere is that ‘men who neglect their households are the very ones to live by injustice’ (Plutarch, Comparison of Aristides with Marcus Cato 3.4).

Like Plato, however, overseers/elders were probably older persons.  What are called ‘overseers’ (episkopoi) in 1 Timothy 3 are likely the ‘elders’ (presbyteroi) of 1 Timothy 5.17, 19, and Titus 1.5.  Paul only mentions two groups, not three, in Philippians: overseers and deacons (1.1).  The overseer or elder belongs to a group in the church (cf. James 5.14; 1 Peter 5.1).  This is different from a single, ordained minister in a church and one who is brought in from outside the church to serve as a minister.  In Judaism, overseers consisted of priests and elders (we see the two groups repeatedly in the Gospels and Acts).  Priests and Levites were drawn from hereditary groups, but elders were associated in the Old Testament with households, clans, and tribes.  They were senior members of civic society.  Age alone, however, did not qualify one to be an overseer or elder.  In fact, Timothy and Titus are entrusted with appointing overseers/elders, and Timothy is himself a young enough person that Paul says, ‘Let no one despise you for your youth’ (1 Timothy 4.12).  Character was primary for those in oversight.  Timothy is to ‘set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity’ (4.12).  Generally, however, elders were persons whose character and function had been demonstrated over time.

For Plato, the nomination process should be by election with full representation in both urban and rural areas and be as unanimous as possible.  A further selection from those nominated involves casting lots, allowing for ‘divine chance’.  Those selected are further refined with a final confirmation from Delphi, the religious headquarters for Greece.

We cannot be certain whether the females mentioned in 1 Timothy 3.11 are female deacons (deaconesses) or are the wives of deacons (as the ESV translates ‘gynaikas’).  As the next verse resumes qualifications for (male) deacons, the latter seems to be the case, and that further because the gynaikos in v. 12 clearly refers to a wife: the deacon must be the husband of one wife (meaning not divorced and remarried, I believe). 

Even so, the churches seem to have had deaconesses, women recognized for their work and service in the church.  Protestant denominations that have developed concepts of ordination for pastors or priests have not also developed a healthy ecclesiology in which many ministries are recognized, as in 1 Corinthians 12, Romans 12, and Ephesians 4.  Some of these ministries, such as prophecy, included women.  The discussion should not be reduced to saying that women should not be ordained but should be that ordination covers a much wider field of ministries than pastoral ministry/priesthood, or even than pastors/priests and deacons.

I suggest that Paul understands the need for females to serve (which is what deacons do) the church in various capacities as well as men.  Indeed, so did Jesus and the first disciples, who were ‘served’ (diakonoun) by several women following them through the cities and villages as they travelled (Luke 16.1-3). First Timothy 5 offers criteria for widows to be enrolled for church support.  Qualifications for enrollment include a history of service.  She must have a ‘reputation for good works’, ‘shown hospitality’, ‘washed the feet of the saints’, ‘cared for the afflicted’, and ‘devoted herself to every good work’ (v. 10).  Thus, if they served in their lives in ways that seem to capture the meaning of being a ‘deaconess’, they may receive church support.  Paul elsewhere refers to a female deacon (Romans 16.1; the ESV translates diakonos as ‘servant’) and female workers for the church (16.3, 6).  Interestingly, Plato admits those serving as priests or priestesses only if they are sixty years of age, while Paul says that the widows enrolled on the order of widows to receive church support must be at least sixty years of age and not able to receive family support first.

Another ordination along the same lines, Plato says, should be held for three ‘interpreters’, who shall remain interpreters for life.  The interpreters are selected from each of the twelve tribes for full representation.  The tribes vote in triads of four, and they vote on three persons.  Three of the nine persons are then selected at Delphi as interpreters (Laws 6.759).  Plato shows concern for a democratic process for nomination of the interpreters as well as the priests and priestesses, but this is balanced first by throwing lots, then with a further selection according to the criteria he mentions, and finally with a selection by the religious establishment or magisterium at Delphi.  The religious laws to be interpreted are those established at Delphi.  Thus, interpretation is understood in a judicial sense.  For Paul, elders are to be able to teach.

The third group Plato considers are treasurers, who must be elected similarly and cover finances for the temples, sacred glebes, and their produce and rents.  They should be from the highest property classes: 3 from the largest temples, 2 for the smaller, and 1 for the least extensive (Laws 6.759-760).  Paul, too, seems to understand that overseers will handle finances.  He is concerned that overseers should not be lovers of money.

I find no reason to suspect that Paul’s criteria for selecting overseers in the churches are based on Plato’s criteria to select priests and priestesses.  Yet Plato’s criteria likely reflect the cultural practices fairly well, and some Greek converts in Paul’s churches may have been familiar with Plato’s Laws. What Paul says, as well as what he does not say, in comparison with Plato is significant.  In conclusion, the following table offers a summary of Plato and Paul on ordination.

 Plato does not very much elaborate on moral criteria for testing persons for religious service.  He does, e.g., say that those selected for service should not have committed murder.  Paul, on the other hand, lists a number of moral criteria beyond those noted in this essay.

We can see, then, that there are areas of overlap between priests and priestesses in the Greek religious context and the Church, but there are also differences.  Paul seems to have directly drawn from Leviticus 21 for some of his criteria for overseers/elders and deacons.  Yet the comparison with Plato helps us to understand how ministerial roles in the churches might have been perceived by Gentile converts in the first century.  This was before the Church developed a role for a bishop by the early second century, as we see in Ignatius, and well before the Roman bishop was given preeminence over other bishops in the West.

See my essay, ‘The Character of Ministers in the Pastoral Epistles,’ Bible and Mission Blog (13 May, 2024); https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2024/05/the-character-of-ministers-in-pastoral.html.