plain altar of earth or unhewn stone in every place where he discovers traces of God's presence, and there to offer his sacrifices. The exclusive right could hardly have been established where this law was distinctly in mind. But it is clear that at the more conspicuous sanctuaries the ritual would, as it became more complicated, fall more and more into the hands of the official ministers. (c) The Blessing of Moses was written some time after the division of Israel into two kingdoms. It shows that at that time the Levites were regarded as an organism, and that to them belonged preferential rights to minister at the altar as well as to manipulate the sacred oracle. The next document of importance is the book of Deuteronomy, To understand its position we shall have to recall the sharp polemic of the prophets against the popular worship. These preachers of righteousness believed that the cultus was useless because Jahweh required something very different, viz. righteousness between man and man; or else they believed it to be an abomination to Him because it was really offered to another divinity. In the condemnation which the prophets so emphatically utter the priests have their full share. The sanctuaries are represented as centres of moral corruption, and the priests are active fomenters of what by their calling they ought to oppose. The people perish for lack of knowledge, because the priests, whose business it is to teach the will of God, neglect their duty. This state of things is not confined to the northern kingdom. In Judah also we hear of priests who are drunken, ignorant, profane, violent, and addicted to lying. Hosea, Isaiah, and Jeremiah are the witnesses to these charges.

The author of the book of Deuteronomy was a practical man. He was in sympathy with the prophetic ideas, but he saw that the cultus could not be dispensed with. Vested interests were on its side, and the craving of the heart for religion needed the traditional ordinances. His book therefore represents a compromise between prophets and priests. We learn from him that all priests belong to the class of Levites and that all are entitled to the same rights and privileges. In fact he usually speaks of them as 'Levite-priests.'2 Although in some cases he uses the simple term 'Levite,' he nowhere intimates that there was any difference of function between a Levite and a Levite-priest. The Levites are called carriers of the Ark (the carrying of the Ark is elsewhere assigned to the priests); the Levite-priests have charge of the curious expiatory rite over the body of a man found slain; disputes are to be brought to the central sanctuary, there to be decided by the Levite-priests, such decision being, as we have seen, a distinctively priestly function. In a passage in Jeremiah, which is in the tone of Deuteronomy, we learn that the Levite-priests shall have the privilege of offering burnt-offerings and of performing sacrifice for ever; and in the same connexion we find the Levites described as the priests who minister to Jahweh.3

The thing that comes prominently into view in reading this author is the poverty of the class as a a class. While we may suppose that the great sanctuaries, especially those which had kings for their patrons, gave an adequate support to their officials, the mass of the Levites connected with the village high places were dependent on the charity of their neighbours. They are mentioned along with the widow and the fatherless, and commended to the benevolence of the people. The 1 Hos 41-12 69. Zeph 3+, Is 287, Jer 28 613 810.

2 Dt 179. 18 248; cf. Jos 833, Jer 3318.

3 Cf. Dt 3125, where the Levites are called carriers of the Ark, with Jos 33, 1 S 615, 2 S 1524; further, Dt 215, Jer 3317-22, and Dt 185.

Levite is to be invited to the family feast, for 'he has no portion or lot with thee.' Tithes and freewill offerings are to be shared with the Levite, and every third year the tithe is to be wholly distributed among the needy, the Levite being expressly mentioned. This care for the Levite extends to the time when, as the author intends, the country sanctuaries shall be done away in favour of the exclusive right of the Jerusalem Temple. The privation that will thus be inflicted on the priests of these shrines is in the author's mind, and he directs in so many words that the deprived Levites shall be admitted to the service at Jerusalem on the same terms as the priests already in possession. This provision was never carried out, but the enactment shows what now interests us-that the author knew no difference between priests of one sanctuary and those of another.1

(d) As Deuteronomy exerted a great influence by its union of priestly and prophetic ideals, so the next step was taken by a man who united the two offices in his own person-Ezekiel, a priest by birth and a prophet by calling. He was fully possessed by the idea of the earlier prophets that the calamity which had overtaken Israel was the punishment for sin. But his priestly training made him look upon sin as a trespass upon ritual requirements. Ritual and ethical transgressions were alike violations of the holiness of Jahweh. The problem of the future was to prevent the intrusion of either on the isolation in which the Deity lives. The problem was solved in the programme drawn up by the prophet, the foundation principle of which is that only consecrated persons and consecrated things shall approach the place of worship.

The distinctness with which this matter is formulated shows that Ezekiel was conscious of introducing something new. In fact, the kings of Judah had been accustomed to have the inferior offices of the sanctuary performed by slaves of foreign origin, whom they presented to the Temple or to the priests. Ezekiel's statement and his correction of the abuse are combined in the following passage:

Enough of all your abominations, house of Israel, that you have brought foreigners uncircumcised of flesh and uncircumcised of heart into my sanctuary to pollute it when you offered my bread, the fat and the blood, and broke my covenant by all your abominations! You did not keep guard over my sacred things, but set them as guards over my sacred things in your stead. Therefore thus says Jahweh: No foreigner uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh shall enter my sanctuary.... But the Levites who departed from me when Israel wandered away after their idols-they shall bear their guilt; they shall be in my sanctuary, serving in the place of sentinels at the doors of the House and serving the House. They shall slay the burnt-offerings and the sacrifices and shall stand to serve them. . . . They shall not approach me to act as my priests to approach the most sacred things. But the Levite priests, the sons of Zadok, who kept watch over my

...

sanctuary when the sons of Israel wandered from me, they shall come near to serve me, and they shall stand before me to present fat and blood, says the Lord Jahweh. They shall come into my sanctuary, and they shall approach my table to serve me' (Ezk 446-16).

The innovations which are thus made part of the new law are two. (1) The entrance of any but consecrated persons into the Temple is strictly prohibited; even the worshipping Israelite is debarred, as we learn elsewhere. (2) The consecrated persons are divided into two classes. For the first time the family of Zadok receives special Below them stand the duties and privileges. Levites, who are to have the menial offices once in the hands of the Temple-slaves. With regard to the promotion of the sons of Zadok, we may say that Ezekiel only sanctioned a status quo. This family was in hereditary possession of the Jerusalem priesthood. The book of Deuteronomy had

1 Dt 186-8 1212. 18f. 1427. 29 1611. 14 2611.

demanded that the Levites from the country sanctuaries be admitted on an equality with those already in possession. But the most that the immigrants had been able to secure was admission to the lower offices. Ezekiel gave the stamp of his authority to this arrangement and thus introduced a new period of ecclesiastical history.

(e) What took place in Jerusalem in the time of Darius at the rebuilding of the Temple is not very well known to us, but one thing stands out distinctly: the chief priest at once assumed a prominent position in the community. This was inevitable, because the unity of the Jews was no longer political but ecclesiastical. There are, indeed, indications that Joshua, the chief priest, was the object of enmity on the part of some-whether rival claimants to the office or defenders of the rights of the secular authority cannot distinctly be made out. While Zerubbabel, a scion of the house of David, was civil governor, the community seems to have cherished the hope that the civil and ecclesiastical powers would work harmoniously for the introduction of the Messianic kingdom. Perhaps for this very reason the Persians thought it unwise to retain Zerubbabel in office. His removal left the chief priest the highest Jewish dignitary in the country, and there was no check to the growth of his influence. This prominence of the chief priest was quite apart from Ezekiel's thought, for he makes no mention of such an officer.

(f) Nevertheless the ideas of Ezekiel did work. The evidence is found in the two documents which are dominated by the priestly ideal-the Priest Code, now embedded in the Pentateuch, and the books of Chronicles. They differ from Ezekiel in that he located his ideal commonwealth in the future, while they place theirs in the past. The divergence of their picture from the one drawn by earlier historical writers did not trouble them. They were not writing history, even when they seemed to themselves to be doing so; they were embodying an idea. That idea was Israel, not as a political community, but as a Church whose only business was to carry on the worship of God.

The central object in the wilderness wandering is therefore the Tabernacle, and the Tabernacle as nearly like the historic Temple as a movable building could be like one of stone. Its plan was exactly the same as that of the Temple, the dimensions being reduced one half. In ornamentation it was not inferior, for the imagination of the author was able to furnish gold and gems and the finest stuffs even in the desert of Sinai. This dwelling of Jahweh in the midst of His people is exactly the ideal of Ezekiel, though Ezekiel did not suppose it had been actual in the past. What immediately concerns us is that the staff of attendants assigned to this sanctuary also realizes Ezekiel's idea.

The Tabernacle has the whole tribe of Levi assigned to it to care for it, and the tribe is divided into the two classes of priests and Levites. In the representation made by the author the historic process is exactly reversed; i.e., instead of the whole tribe being taken and then the family of Aaron being separated to their special duty, the family of Aaron is first consecrated to the priesthood and then the rest of the tribe is assigned to this family as helpers. The enormous number of Levites finds an ostensible justification in the necessity of taking down the Dwelling and transporting it. Yet the discrepancy between the three priests and the 22,000 Levites remains surprising and even grotesque.

Ezekiel ordains that the Levites shall camp about the Temple; so our author makes them camp around the Dwelling in the desert. The

1 Zec 3 and 4; cf. 611f..

importance of having consecrated persons in this position to guard the sanctuary from the danger of pollution is seen in the consecration of the Levites. They are purified by the triple rite of sprinkling with holy water, washing of clothes, and a purificatory sacrifice. Thus prepared, they are waved' by Aaron in imitation of the presentation of a sacrifice. The significance of the whole is to indicate that the Levites are given to Jahweh by the Israelites, and by Him in turn given to Aaron and his sons to assist in the service. The priesthood is the prerogative of Aaron and his sons. How Aaron came to take the place of Zadok, to whom Ezekiel gave the office, is still a mystery. Earlier indications are that Aaron was connected with the calf-worship of Bethel. Between Ezekiel and the time of the Priestly writer some influence of the northern kingdom must have made itself felt in Jerusalem. The fact stands out quite clearly that in the Priest Code Aaron and his sons are fully established in the priesthood. The whole responsibility for the service is theirs; they bring the blood of the sacrifice to the altar, burn the fat, offer the unbloody gifts. It is their duty to light the lamp in the sanctuary, to eat the bread of the presence,' and to burn incense within the Dwelling. For them the ritual of the great festivals and of the daily offerings is laid down. For them also the author includes in his book the so-called Holiness Code 2-a body of regulations drawn up in the Exile for the government of the priests in their daily life.

It will be seen that the office of the priest has now become mainly sacrificial. But the old theory of his duty as interpreter of the will of God stifl remains in such cases, e.g., as the inspection of leprosy. Here the priest appears as examiner and judge of the kind of infection, and director of what is to be done for the ritual restoration of the afflicted person to the community. The difference between the present system and the earlier administration of the oracle is that now everything is laid down in a book by which the official must be guided. The result of thus formulating the cultus is to deprive it of its old character as an expression of joy and gratitude on the part of the worshipper, and to emphasize it as an opus operatum by which alone the relation between Jahweh and His people is kept intact.

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The prominence of the chief priest in the postExilic community has already been spoken of. In the Priestly document his position is made sure by divine appointment. In him, in fact, the culmination of the sacerdotal system is found. It is he who represents the people before God, and whose ministration secures them the divine grace. is who once a year goes alone into the Most Holy place to restore the purity of the dwelling and of the people. No part of the OT is more familiar to Christian and Jewish students than the ritual of the great Day of Atonement. Its solemnity indicates the intercessory value of the high-priest. But the sacerdotal head of the community is also in this writer's mind the political head. His vestments are regal, and they are meant to be so. He wears a tiara which cannot be distinguished from a kingly crown, a robe of royal purple, gold and gems of untold value. In the theory of the code there is no one above him in rank. Moses, indeed, may be said to be his superior, in the sense in which the king-maker is above the king. But this is because Moses was the necessary inaugurator of the new state of things-a special organ of divine grace, who is to have no successor. The civil ruler in his relation to the high-priest is represented by

1 Lv 1 and 2; Nu 28 and 29.

2 Lv 17-26, based no doubt on earlier tradition.

mythic Pṛthi Vainya, and, still later, tradition ascribes several hymns to royal authorship, but none of these traditions has any support in the actual text of the Samhita. On the other hand, the collection is full of references to the activity of the priests under the generic title of brahman, and to several different kinds of priests, and the hereditary character of the priesthood is attested by the word brahmana, descendant of a brahman.' Moreover, there is abundant proof in the Samhita itself that, as in the immediately following period, the brahmans worked in the service of kings or wealthy nobles, whose generosity in sacrificial gifts is celebrated in the danastutis appended to several hymns; the amounts of the gifts recorded are too great to be accepted as genuine records, but they at least prove that the priests already set upon their services the highest value. Side by side with these praises of the generosity of patrons and with broad hints to others to follow their example in the form of encomia on generosity, there are many proofs of the extremely good opinion of themselves entertained by the brahmans, though it is not clear in any passage that they had yet arrogated to themselves the description of gods on earth which they claimed shortly afterwards. They seem to have adhered as strictly as possible to their own occupation; if priests like Vasistha and Viśvāmitra appear as assisting their princes in battle, doubtless it was by their priestly power, not by their prowess in arms. But the priestly sphere included in all probability medicine, for one poet declares (IX. cxii.) that his father is a physicianan occupation in which, to judge from all analogy, the use of spells would be of the highest importance. Naturally enough, the Rigveda contains very little of this side of priestly activity, but in its tenth and latest book there are found certain spells which touch on the medical art, one against the disease Yakṣma (x. clxiii.) and two to preserve the life of a man lying at the door of death (x. lviii., lx. 7 ff.). These hymns, with a few others, containing spells to procure offspring, to destroy enemies, and to oust a rival wife from a husband's affections, constitute, in conjunction with the funeral and wedding hymns, practically the only sign in the Rigveda that the activities of the priests extended to the ordinary affairs of human life, the domestic ritual which is of so great im- | portance in modern India. It is probable that, as in the next period, the activity of the priests was confined in the main to the greater sacrifices and to such only of the domestic rites as had begun to assume special importance; the wedding hymn (x. lxxxv.) bears clear marks of comparatively late origin and is not primitive in character, and the funeral hymns exhibit a decidedly complicated and refined religious belief.

It has proved impossible to trace to the Rigveda the full sacrificial liturgy of the following period, but the hymns abundantly prove that there already existed much complication of ritual and subdivision of function among the priests. The main subjectmatter of the Rigveda is clearly the soma-sacrifice, and it was precisely in this sacrifice that the greatest number of priests was required. In one passage (II. i. 2) to the god Agni are assigned the offices of hotr, potr, nestr, agnidh, prasastr, adhvaryu, and brahman, as well as that of the lord of the house for whom the sacrifice is being performed. We hear also of an upavaktṛ, who is doubtless to be identified with the prasastṛ, as his business is to give directions to the hoty, of an udagrābha, and a grāvagrābha, and of two samitrs. The latter are doubtless the slayers of the victim, who in the later literature rank merely as attendant priests, their function of killing probably having tended to lower them in rank compared with the ordinary priests,

while the two former, whose functions, to judge from their names, must have been the drawing of the water and the taking of the pressing stones required for the sacrifice, disappear as special priests from the later ritual. There are also mentioned saman-singers in general and the prastotr and udgatṛ in particular. These various priests fall clearly into three divisions, according as their main business was the recitation of hymns to accompany the offering, or the actual manual acts of sacrifice, or the singing of songs. It is probable enough that the original ritual was of simpler character, and that the actual sacrifice and the uttering of prayer were entrusted to one priest; this conclusion, based on a priori grounds, is strongly supported by the fact that the name for the reciter of hymns is hotr, a term which denotes the 'offerer' of the oblation, but the evidence of the Avesta agrees with that of the Rigveda in showing a multiplicity of priests, so that it is fair to conclude that the specialization of the ritual is prior to the separation of the Iranians and the Vedic Indians. At any rate in the Rigveda the hotṛ is the reciter of hymns celebrating the feats of the gods who are to partake of the offerings, and to him also we must assign the verses to accompany the actual offering, series of which occur in the Samhita. Closely associated with the hotr was the prasustr, at whose instigation the hoty recited his litanies; doubtless it is he who is meant when in the apri litanies of the animal sacrifice the two hotṛs are referred to. The brahman of the Rigveda is probably the name of the priest later called brāhmaṇāchchhamsin, an assistant of the hotr. Of the second group of priests the adhvaryu is in the later ritual, and probably enough in the Rigveda, already the chief of the officiants at the actual sacrifice; the potr, or cleanser, is paralleled by the Avestan asnatere, the agnidh by the atarevakhsha, who, like him, is charged with the care of the sacred fire, while the neştr, or leader, may already have had the function from which he, later at least, derives his importance as the leader up of the wife of the sacrificer to play her part in a fertility ritual in the course of the soma-sacrifice. The saman-singers had even in the Rigveda a double duty on the one hand, they had to recite the addresses to Soma Pavamāna which are collected in the ninth book of the Samhita, and, on the other, they had to sing songs addressed to the deities to which the hoty recited the hymns. The singing of samans was doubtless, in the form in which it occurs in the Rigveda, a much elaborated form of the ritual, and it is worthy of note that the list of priests given in II. i. 2 does not include any singer.

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In addition to those priests who were engaged in the performance of special sacrifices for which they were selected by the sacrificer as occasion required, the Rigveda mentions the purohita, the domestic priest of the king or of some wealthy noble. It may be assumed that he himself performed the domestic ritual of the king, but at the great sacrifices he probably merely superintended the whole rite. There is, however, clear evidence that he might act as the chief of the priests, the hotṛ. Agni is both the hotṛ par excellence and the purohita; the two divine hotrs of the apri litanies are also called (x. lxx. 7) the two priests-the purohitas. Unlike the other priests, the purohita was not merely in the constant and intimate service of the king, but he was closely concerned with the king in his more worldly functions. Viśvāmitra, Vasistha, and others appear to have taken part in their priestly capacity in the wars of their kings, and the hymn X. xcvjii. records the activity of Deväpi for his master Santanu and its success. was rather from the purohitas than from the

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