The centre of his reformist agenda is a discrediting analysis of Hebrews. Wills argues that the letter is not Pauline (a view so widely held by Scripture scholars as to be pretty much orthodox), is the last and very late inclusion in the New Testament canon, contains views on the priesthood of Christ found nowhere else in the New Testament, and advances a view of Christ’s redemption as a blood sacrifice that is inconsistent with other strands in Scripture and independently objectionable on moral and theological grounds. These features are, Wills argues, related to the purpose of the letter, which is to draw wavering Jewish adherents of the new faith back to Christ by portraying his mission as continuous with but far surpassing God’s Old Pact with a New Pact. Hence, the stress on a continuing priestly function and a replacement of animal sacrifice with the son’s own human sacrifice.

The account of Christ’s priesthood in the Letter, with its famous (and historically inaccurate) reference to Melchizedech (‘a priest forever according to the [non-existent] order of Melchizedech’), has been, he argues, the model for the development of the Catholic priesthood which has in turn introduced a damaging gulf within Catholic Christianity between a clerical caste (including bishops, popes, etc.) and ordinary Christians, the so-called laity, who are expected to obey and reverence the priestly caste as the authoritative interpreters of Revelation.

Wills claims that the gulf is supported by quasi-magical theological theories of the Eucharist that have priests performing astonishing miracles on a daily basis by turning bread and wine into the actual body and blood of Christ. This contributes significantly to making the priest a figure to be reverenced and set apart. Wills criticises philosophical attempts to bolster the real transformation story about the bread and wine, notably the Thomistic theory of transubstantiation, and argues that the early Church had a quite different understanding of the Eucharist, an understanding that finds expression in Saint Augustine, and a continuing though suppressed tradition, which sees ‘my body and blood’ as referring to Christ’s presence in the community of believers (the Mystical Body), which is what is daily affirmed in the breaking of bread. Wills cites as a modern spokesman for this view the Jesuit theologian Henri de Lubac who was basically blacklisted for years by the Vatican after his book, Corpus Mysticum (1944), was banned by Pius XII, though de Lubac later figured as a key influence at Vatican II and was made a cardinal in his old age by John Paul II.

Henri de Lubac's Corpus Mysticum (1944)

The idea that the Eucharist re-enacts Christ’s sacrifice on the cross is connected to the doctrine of the atonement and its various interpretations. Wills attacks the ‘ransom’ and ‘satisfaction’ theories of atonement advanced by various theologians over the ages. The ransom theory that was common in the first millennium of Christianity weirdly took Christ’s painful passion and death as required to ransom humanity from the devil as a sort of payment to the arch-fiend; Saint Anselm, in the eleventh century, pioneered a less bizarre interpretation, one that has since become widely accepted, whereby atonement involves the requirement of paying a debt to God who had suffered a sort of loss in Adam and Eve’s rebellion. But there is surely something incongruous (to say the least) in the idea that God the Father can only be appeased for his ‘loss’ by having his son tortured and murdered. Wills argues instead for what he describes as the view of many of the early Fathers and Saint Augustine, elaborated later by Abélard, that the atonement is a bringing of Humanity and God together through the moral example, teachings and martyrdom of Christ.

Wills links his critique of the Real Presence to a general objection to the sacraments, which he plausibly regards as having had the effect of bolstering the objectionable special significance of the priesthood. He argues that the early Church knew baptism and the eucharistic meal, but had no idea of sacraments such as confession, confirmation, ordination, marriage, and the last rites.

Wills mounts a powerful case for the prosecution, especially on the matter of atonement, and I am persuaded by much that he says; he certainly makes an effective case against the clericalism (and papalism) that has distorted Catholic Christianity for centuries. But clericalism has been criticised by others and has been eroded considerably by the ghastly revelations of clerical sex abuse of children. Furthermore, a total abolition of the priesthood is not only practically unlikely, as Wills admits, but arguably unnecessary. There were forms of ministry in the early church, as Wills allows, and ministry can surely be continued without the ignoble deference and ridiculous feudalistic hierarchy that Wills rightly deplores.

Wills is a scourge of fundamentalism, but his own attitude to the practice of the early church is at times itself somewhat fundamentalist. There are two points here. The first is that an institutional model suitable to a small community surrounded by hostility or indifference is unlikely to fit a world-wide community composed of very different cultures and intellectual traditions. Such a religion is bound to be institutionalised, and its communal life will need distinct functional roles and some custody and interpretation of tradition. This need not involve a remote clerical caste and would require much more interaction between laity and clergy, some of which has already occurred. New forms of priesthood must be open to women and compulsory celibacy be abandoned. One promising sign is that once Catholic theologians were almost exclusively clerics, but now there are many lay theologians, including feisty women.

‘I am no scripture scholar, but Wills’s treatment of Hebrews is likely to be controversial on several grounds.’

The second related point is that to oppose the priesthood or the sacraments in part because they are absent from early Christianity is to ignore the value of evolving understandings of the Christian message, something rightly stressed by John Henry Newman in his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (1845). Undoubtedly, genuine development and legitimate change should be distinguished from betrayal and distortion. The rigidity, paternalism, and rationalism that has too often marred the history of Catholicism (and indeed other forms of Christianity) should give way, as it is slowly doing, to a more participatory, tolerant, and democratic mode of authority. A transformed priesthood and sacraments might then play a valuable though less aloof role.

I am no scripture scholar, but Wills’s treatment of Hebrews is likely to be controversial on several grounds. To mention just one: his discussion of other scriptural sources for the Real Presence and Sacrifice doctrines dismisses some difficulties fairly swiftly, particularly such passages as John 6:48–60, where Jesus shocks his Jewish audience by claiming that he is the bread of life and that the eating of his body and drinking his blood are redemptive. Wills’s revisionary account of Christ’s words at the Last Supper in the Synoptic gospels is more plausible but less than decisive in shifting focus entirely from the status of the Host to the community.

As for Hebrews’ canonical standing, perhaps much less turns on this than appears. Its being part of the scriptural canon does not mean that it is beyond interpretation and criticism. After all, the books that are paradigmatically in the canon need sifting for what is literal and what allegorical as well as what is factually mistaken or merely relative to context and cultural understanding. Paul’s injunctions in 1 Corinthians for women to be silent in church and cover their heads are now disregarded (even by the most rigid Catholic authorities) as influenced by ephemeral cultural circumstances rather than as divinely inspired. We may view Hebrews as canonical, but with its own quota of mistakes and need for interpretation.

Many will wonder how Wills can reject so much and remain a Catholic. He responds to this with a vigorous defence of his adherence to the essentials of the Creed, but his sceptical position on so much customary orthodoxy really illustrates the fascinating fluidity and diversity of contemporary Catholic thought.