Priestly Sentence Examples

Women are admitted to priestly offices as well as men.

The determination of a fixed date must therefore have been much earlier than Deuteronomy or the alleged period of the Priestly Code.

And it is instructive to observe that when the plebeians extorted their full share of political power they also demanded and obtained admission to every priestly college of political importance, to those, namely, of the pontiffs, the augurs, and the XV viri sacrorum.

There the foundations of the second great Persian Empire were laid, and Istakhr acquired special importance as the centre of priestly wisdom and orthodoxy.

Tobiah and his son Johanan were related by marriage to Judaean secular and priestly families, and active intrigues resulted, in which nobles and prophets took their part.

In many nations divination and priesthood have always gone hand in hand; at Rome, for example, the augurs and the XV viri sacrorum, who interpreted the Sibylline books, were priestly colleges.

The great oracles, however, were of Panhellenic celebrity and did not serve each a particular state, and so in this direction also the risk of an independent priestly power within the state was avoided.'

At this period the priestly caste gained its unbounded power over the minds of men " (Professor Rapson).

For further details as to the development of the priestly caste and wisdom in India the reader must refer to Brahminism; here it is enough to observe that among a religious people a priesthood which forms a close and still more an hereditary corporation, and the assistance of which is indispensable in all religious acts, must rise to practical supremacy in society except under the strongest form of despotism, where the sovereign is head of the Church as well as of the state.

Priestly acts - that is, acts done by one and accepted by the gods on behalf of many - are common to all antique religions, and cannot be lacking where the primary subject of religion is not the individual but the natural community.

But the origin of a separate priestly class, distinct from the natural heads of the community, cannot be explained by any such broad general principle; in some cases, as in Greece, it is little more than a matter of convenience that part of the religious duties of the state should be confided to special ministers charged with the care of particular temples, while in others the intervention of a special priesthood is indispensable to the validity of every religious act, so that the priest ultimately becomes a mediator and the vehicle of all divine grace.

But the highest developments of priestly influence are hardly separable from something of magical superstition, the opus operatum of the priest has the power of a sorcerer's spell.

The strength of the priesthood in Chaldaea and in Egypt stands plainly in the closest connexion with the survival of a magical element in the state religion, and Rome, in like manner, is more priestly than Greece, because it is more superstitious.

In most cases, however, where an ancient civilization shows us a strong priestly system we are unable to make out in any detail the steps by which that system was elaborated; the clearest case perhaps is the priesthood of the Jews, which is not less interesting from its origin and growth 1 Cf.

These acts required no priestly aid; each man slew his own victim and divided the sacrifice in his own circle; the share of the god was the blood which was smeared upon or poured out beside stone (nosb, ghabghab) set up as an altar or perhaps as a symbol of the deity.

Thus the firstlings, first-fruits and vows are still the free gift of the individual which no human authority exacts, and which every householder presents and consumes with his circle in a sacrificial feast without priestly aid.

The priestly position of the family survived the fall of Shiloh and the capture of the ark, and it was members of this house who consulted Jehovah for the early kings until Solomon deposed Abiathar.

It is plain that the various priestly colleges regarded themselves as one order, that they had common traditions of law and ritual which were traced back to Moses, and common interests which had not been vindicated without a struggle (Deut., ut supra).

Private sacrifices, too, could hardly be offered without some priestly aid now that ritual was more complex; the provision of Deut.

Further details respecting priestly offices and hereditary priesthoods and the relation of Aaronids to Zadokids will be found briefly discussed in Ency.

What the priestly Torah was at the time of the exile can be seen from the collection of laws in Lev.

The bases of priestly power under this system are the unity of the altar, its inaccessibility to laymen and to the inferior ministers of the sanctuary, and the specific atoning functions of the blood of priestly sacrifices.

So fundamental a change as lies between Hosea and the Priestly Code was only possible in the general dissolution of the old life of Israel produced by the Assyrians and by the prophets; and indeed the new order did not take shape as a system till the exile had made a great change in old institutions.

Nevertheless, the concentration of all ritual at a single point, and the practical exclusion of laymen from active participation in it - for the old sacrificial feast had now shrunk into entire insignificance in comparison with the stated priestly holocausts and atoning rites2 - lent powerful assistance to the growth of a new and higher type of personal religion, the religion which found its social expression not in material acts of oblation, but in the language of the Psalms. In the best times of the old kingdom the priests had shared the place of the prophets as the religious leaders of the nation; under the second Temple they represented the unprogressive traditional side of religion, and the leaders of thought were the psalmists and the scribes, who spoke much more directly to the piety of the nation.

The High Priest at such a moment seemed to embody all the glory of the nation, as the kings had done of old, and when the time came to strike a successful blow for freedom it was a priestly house that led the nation to the victory which united in one person the functions of High Priest and prince.

From the foundation of the Hasmonean state to the time of Herod the history of the high-priesthood merges in the political history of the nation; from Herod onward the priestly aristocracy of the Sadducees lost its chief hold over the nation and expired in vain controversy with the Pharisees.

Two points in this theory were laid hold of - the doctrine of priestly mediation and the system of priestly hierarchy.

The idea that presbyters and bishops are priests and the successors of the Old Testament priesthood first appears in full force in the writings of Cyprian, and here it is not the notion of priestly mediation but that of priestly power which is insisted on.

Other examples of priestly princes are given by Strabo in speaking of Pessinus (p. 567) and Olbe (p. 672).

It is sufficient to remark here that the presentation of the sacrifice of the mass came to be viewed as the essential priestly office, so that the Christian presbyter really was a sacerdos in the antique sense.

The idea of priestly asceticism expressed in the celibacy of the clergy belongs also to certain types of heathen and especially Semitic priesthood, to those above all in which the priestly service is held to have a magical or theurgic quality.

In spite of his political reforms, he opposed the admission of the plebeians to the consulship and priestly offices; and, although these reforms might appear to be democratic in character and calculated to give preponderance to the lowest class of the people, his probable aim was to strengthen the power of the magistrates (and lessen that of the senate) by founding it on the popular will, which would find its expression in the urban inhabitants and could be most easily influenced by the magistrate.

As distinguished from the Priestly Narrative (to be mentioned presently), it has a distinctly prophetical character; it treats the history from the standpoint of the prophets, and the religious ideas characteristic of the prophets often find expression in it.

The Priestly sections of the Hexateuch (known as " P ") remain still to be considered.

In " P's " picture of the Mosaic age there are many ideal elements; it represents the priestly ideal of the past rather than the past as it actually was.

On the other hand, if 1 were disproved, 4 would immediately fall through, and the strength of 5 would be weakened (as it would also by the disproof of 2), because the argument for the date of many Psalms is derived from religious ideas and the significance of these varies greatly according as the Priestly Code is held to be early or late.

This is not the place to notice the course of Jewish literary activity in Palestine or Alexandria, whether along the more rigid lines of Pharisaic legalism (the development of the canonical " priestly " law), or the popular and less scholastic phases, which recall the earlier apocalyptical tendencies of the Old Testament and were cultivated alike by early Jewish and Christian writers.

The rise of this function of the prophets is plainly parallel with the change which took place under the kings in the position of the priestly oracle; the Torah of the priests now dealt rather with permanent sacred ordinances than with the giving of new divine counsel for special occasions.

Yahweh's ever-present kingship in Israel, which was the chief religious idea brought into prominence by the national revival, demanded a more continuous manifestation of His revealing spirit than was given either by the priestly lot or by the rise of occasional seers; and where could this be sought except among the prophets?

The revelation thus looked for may be found in natural omens, in the priestly lot or some similar sacral oracle, or, finally, in the words of a seer who is held to be in closer contact with the deity than common men.

It is in the exercise of his priestly functions that the resemblance is most clearly shown.

He thus views the consecration of the elements as akin to other consecrations; and, like priestly ordination, as involving " a metamorphosis for the better," a phrase which later on became classical.

But the dominant priestly caste of the Magians, on whose support the king was dependent, were naturally hostile to him, and after some successes Mani was made a prisoner, and had then to flee.

When his father died in 78, he was by his mother forthwith appointed high priest, and on her death in 69 he claimed the succession to the supreme civil authority also; but, after a brief and troubled reign of three months, he was compelled to abdicate both kingly and priestly dignities in favour of his more energetic and ambitious younger brother Aristobulus II.

In 41 B.C. he was practically superseded by Antony's appointment of Herod and Phasael to be tetrarchs of Judaea; and in the following year he was taken prisoner by the Parthians, deprived of his ears that he might be permanently disqualified for priestly office, and carried to Babylon.

A priestly kin owned perhaps the spot haunted by the god, and so became holy.

The presiding priest seems always to have been the chief to whom the temple belonged, for there is no evidence for the existence of a special priestly class in the North.

The priestly families, we learn, hearing that the God preached by Gregory needed not sacrifice, sent to the king a deputation and asked how they were to live, if they became Christians; for until then the priests and their families had lived off the portions of the animal victims and other offerings reserved to them by pagan custom.

The priestly families then went over en masse.

None but a scion of a priestly family could become a deacon, elder or bishop. Accordingly the primacy remained in the family of Gregory until about 374, when the king Pap or Bab murdered Nerses, who had been ordained by Eusebius of Caesarea (362-370) and was over-zealous in implanting in Armenia the canons about celibacy, marriage, fasting, hospices and monastic life which Basil had established in Cappadocia.

On the death of Nerses the right of saying grace at the royal meals, which was the essence of the catholicate, was transferred by the king, in despite of the Greeks, to the priestly family of Albianus, and thenceforth no Armenian catholicus went to Caesarea for ordination.

The old cult of sacred stones and trees by an easy transition became cross-worship, but a cross was not sacred until the Christ had been, by priestly prayer and invocation, transferred into it.

When ill, he was terrified by priestly advisers, who were partisans of his brother Don Carlos.

This non-Semitic system, which is found, in many instances, on alternate lines with a regular Semitic translation, in other cases in opposite columns to a Semitic rendering, and again without any Semitic equivalent at all, has been held by one school, founded and still vigorously defended by the distinguished French Assyriologist, Joseph Halevy, to be nothing more than a priestly system of cryptography based, of course, on the then current Semitic speech.

Deliberate inversion certainly occurs in the Sumerian documents, and it is highly probable that this was a priestly mode of writing, but never of speaking; at any rate, not when the language was in common use.

Cyprian bestows the highest sacerdotal terms upon the bishops of course, but his references to the priestly character of the office of presbyter are also most definite.

Arguments for a preMaccabean date may be derived (a) from the fact that the book contains apparently no reference to the Maccabean struggles, (b) from the eulogy of the priestly house of Zadok which fell into disrepute during these wars for independence.

Even after the rise of Nineveh as the capital of the kingdom and the seat of the civil power, Assur continued to be the religious centre of the country, where the king was called on to reside when performing his priestly functions.

Some time before 164 B.C. Pessinus fell into the power of the Gauls, and the membership of the priestly college was then equally divided between the Gauls and the old priestly families.

The priestly board of decemvirs (sacris faciundis) was an outcome of the claim of the plebs to a share in the administration of the state religion.

C. we see that the priestly aristocracy of Jerusalem had, like the well-to-do classes everywhere in Syria, been carried away by the Hellenistic current, its strength being evidenced no less by the intensity of the conservative opposition embodied in the party of the " Pious " (Assideans, Hasidim).

Neither the influx of new deities nor the diligence of the priestly authors and commentators availed to break down the cast-iron traditions with which the compilers of the Pyramid texts were already familiar.

Women could also hold priestly rank, though apparently in early times only in the service of goddesses; priestess of Hathor is a frequent title of well-born ladies in the Old Kingdom.

Having afterwards sided with a faction against John VIII., he was excommunicated, and compelled to take an oath never to return to Rome or again to assume his priestly functions.

However intelligible may be the notion of a tribe reserved for priestly service, the fact that it does not apply to early biblical history is apparent from the heterogeneous details of the Levitical divisions.

The exact meaning of these features is not clear, but if it be remembered (a) that the Levites of post-exilic literature represent only the result of a long and intricate development, (b) that the name "Levite," in the later stages at least, was extended to include all priestly servants, and (c) that the priesthoods, in tending to become hereditary, included priests who were Levites by adoption and not by descent, it will be recognized that the examination of the evidence for the earlier stages cannot confine itself to those narratives where the specific term alone occurs.

To a certain extent it would seem that even as Chronicles (q.v.) has passed through the hands of one who was keenly interested in the Temple service, so the other historical books have been shaped not only by the late priestly writers (symbolized in literary criticism by P), but also by rather earlier writers, also of priestly sympathies, but of " southern " or half-Edomite affinity.

Even members of the priestly families had intermarried with Tobiah and Sanballat; the former had his own chamber in the precincts of the Temple, the daughter of the latter was the wife of a son of Joiada the son of the high priest Eliashib.

The post-exilic priestly spirit represents a tendency which is absent from the Judaean Deuteronomic book of Kings but is fully mature in the later, and to some extent parallel, book of Chronicles (q.v.).

The " priestly " traditions of the creation and of the patriarchs mark a very distinct advance upon the earlier narratives, and appear in a further developed form in the still later book of Jubilees, or " Little Genesis," where they are used to demonstrate the pre-Mosaic antiquity of the priestly or Levitical institutions.

Upon the characteristics of the post-exilic priestly writings we need not dwell.'

This again simply means that the Mosaism of Ezra or Nehemiah must have differed essentially from the priestly teaching prior to their arrival.

To this age we may ascribe the literature of the Priestly writers (symbolized by P), which differs markedly from the other sources.

Yet it is clear from the book of Genesis alone that in the age of Priestly writers and compilers there were other phases of thought.

They could be, and indeed had been made more edifying; but the very noteworthy conservatism of even the last compiler or editor, in contrast to the re-shaping and re-writing of the material in the book of Jubilees, indicates that the Priestly spirit was not that of the whole community.

But through the Priestly hands the Old Testament history passed, and their standpoint colours its records.

It is clear that the rulers, as so P p commonly in ancient states, fulfilled priestly as well as royal functions.

But he was no merely destructive critic. He was determined to find a solid foundation for both morality and law, and to raise upon it an edifice, no stone of which should be laid except in accordance with the deductions of the severest logic. This foundation is "the greatest happiness of the greatest number," a formula adopted from Priestly or perhaps first from Beccaria.

The priestly dress, which is all white, consists of drawers, an upper garment, and a girdle with the so-called taga (" crown");.

His wife Melite, who was associated with him in the priestly office, was a kinswoman of Eunapius the biographer.

In other words, the Druids constituted the learned and the priestly class, and they were in addition the chief expounders and guardians of the law.

This was fixed in the Priestly Code at the 15th of the seventh month, and an eighth day of solemn assembly -added after the return from the exile.

The imams do not form a priestly sect; they generally have other occupations, such as teaching in a school or keeping a shop, and may at any time be dismissed by the warden, in which case they lose the title of imam.

But the identification becomes undeniable, as further characteristics of this priestly dynasty come to light.

But the jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1887 and the pope's priestly jubilee a few months later were the occasion of friendly intercourse between Rome and Windsor, Mgr.

Already in the later Avesta he has become a half-mythical figure, the last in the series of heroes of east Iranian legend, in the arrangement of which series priestly influence is unmistakably evident.

Thus in the Elohist and in Deuteronomy the date of the festival is only vaguely stated to be in the month of Abib, while in the Holiness Code and in the Priestly History the exact date is given.

In the Yahwist and Deuteronomist a solemn assembly is to be held on the seventh day, but in the Holiness Code and in the secondary sources of the Priestly Code both the first and the seventh day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread are to be solemn assemblies.

In the Deuteronomist the Passover sacrifice can be from either flock or herd, whereas in the Holiness Code only lamb is mentioned, and in the Priestly Code either kid or lamb.

In the Deuteronomist the lamb is to be sodden or boiled, whereas in the Priestly Code this is expressly forbidden.

A still more vital contrast occurs concerning the place of sacrificing the Passover; as enjoined in Deuteronomy this is to be by the males of the family at Jerusalem, whereas both in the presumably earlier Yahwist and in the later Priestly Code the whole household joins in the festival which can be celebrated wherever the Israelites are settled.

Later, in the age of the priestly schools, the ark received much attention, although it must obviously be very doubtful how far a true recollection of its history has survived.

Proselytes are still not allowed, in Orthodox circles, to become the wives of reputed descendants of the priestly families, but otherwise marriage with proselytes is altogether equal to marriage between born Jews.

The nation has only a municipal organization with a priestly aristocracy, precisely the state of things that prevailed under the Persian empire.

His father belonged to one of the noblest priestly families, and through his mother he claimed descent from the Asmonaean high priest Jonathan.

The Synecdemi and Notarii dressed like other people; the Thonraki also scorned priestly vestments.

Perhaps they merely rejected the idea that the numen or divine grace can be confined by priestly consecration in water and by mere washing be imparted to persons baptized.

Of all priestly costumes 5 the most interesting is undoubtedly that of the Jewish Levitical high-priest.

This breast ornament finds analogies in the royal and high priestly dress of Egypt, and in the six jewels of the Babylonian king. ?

The kings of Assyria united in themselves the royal and priestly offices, and on the monuments they erected they are generally represented as offering incense and pouring out wine to the Tree of Life.

In course of time many of the high-priests assumed the functions and title of king; while retaining their priestly office they claimed at the same time to be supreme in the state in all secular concerns.

He never took priestly orders.

His father Zacharias was a priest "of the course of Abijah," and his mother Elizabeth, who was also of priestly descent, was related to Mary, the mother of Jesus, whose senior John was by six months.

As his explanations were not considered satisfactory, the council deposed him from his priestly office and excommunicated him; but in 449, at a council held in Ephesus convened by Dioscurus of Alexandria and overawed by the presence of a large number of Egyptian monks, not only was Eutyches reinstated in his office, but Eusebius, Domnus and Flavian, his chief opponents, were deposed, and the Alexandrine dcctrine of the "one nature" received the sanction of the church.

The high priest Joshua is accused before Yahweh by Satan, but is acquitted and given rule in Yahweh's house and courts, with the right of access to Yahweh in priestly intercession.

In many cases these heroes were purely fictitious; such were the supposed ancestors of the noble and priestly families of Attica and elsewhere (Butadae at Athens, Branchidae at Miletus Ceryces at Eleusis), of the eponymi of the tribes and demes.

The Priestly Writer in the Pentateuch also a p pears to be acquainted with this doctrine; it is the first of four ages which begins with the Creation and ends with the Deluge.

For the Iranian parallel, see § 8, and on the Hebrew Priestly Writer, Gunkel, Genesis 2, pp. 2 33 ff.

The student should, however, notice that the dragon-element is not entirely unrepresented even in the priestly Hebrew cosmogony.

In his principal work, Die geschichtlichen Bucher des Allen Testaments (1866), he sought to show that the priestly legislation of Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers is of later origin than the book of Deuteronomy.

Their origin, lost in the dimness of remote antiquity, was invested by priestly legends with a sacred character.

In 1408, however, the clergy of the city and archiepiscopal diocese of Prague laid before the archbishop a formal complaint against Huss, arising out of strong expressions with regard to clerical abuses of which he had made use in his public discourses; and the result was that, having been first deprived of his appointment as synodal preacher, he was, after a vain attempt to defend himself in writing, publicly forbidden the exercise of any priestly function throughout the diocese.

He resigned office on the proclamation of the republic after the flight of the pope to Gaeta in 1849, resumed it for a while when Pius returned to Rome with the protection of French arms, but when a reactionary and priestly policy was instituted, he went into exile and took up his residence at Turin.

The Priestly Code 3 has a different story to Balaam, in which he advises the Midianites how they may bring disaster on Israel by seducing the people Quoted Neh.

The date of the Priestly Code is ca.

If we might accept the various theories mentioned above, Balaam would appear in one source of J as an Edomite, in another as an Ammonite; in E as a native of the south of Judah or' possibly as an Aramaean; in the tradition followed by the Priestly Code probably as a Midianite.

Apparently the Priestly Code ignored this feature of the story.

This led to the further step of setting up personal merit rather than ecclesiastical ordination as the ground of the priestly office.

The Levites, who were exempted from military duties, were separately enumerated from the age of thirty upwards, and a similar process was ordained subsequently by Solomon, in order to distribute amongst them the functions assigned to the priestly body in connexion with the temple.

Some inscriptions name, besides the king, an eponymus, whose office seems to have been priestly, his titles being dhu harif, eponymus and rashuw, " sacrificer."

Of a priestly stole we hear for the first time in the Theoria mystica (8th century).

Along with the exceptional interest taken in Levitical and priestly lists should be noticed the characteristic preference for genealogies.

Certainly the priestly writer who produced the latter could not have said that God modelled the first man out of moistened clay, or have adopted the singular account of the formation of Eve in ii.

And though the priestly writer, to whom the first Creation-story in its present form is due, says nothing about a sacred mountain as the dwelling-place of the first-created man, yet this mountain belongs to the type of tradition which the passage, Gen.

Several doctrines extracted from his works were condemned at Rome, and he was suspended from his priestly functions, spending the rest of his life in literary work.

The Priestly Code (Leviticus and allied passages) seems to confine the efficacy 2 Rutherford, Radioactivity.

The laws of the Day of Atonement belong to the Priestly Code.4 There is no trace of this function before the exile; the earliest reference to any such special time of atonement being the proposal of Ezek.

Almost immediately the entire assembly with one voice cried out anathema on the impious Nestorius and his impious doctrines, and after various extracts from the writings of church fathers had been read the decree of his exclusion from the episcopate and from all priestly communion was solemnly read and signed by all present, whose numbers had by this time swelled to one hundred and ninety-eight.

Here we find magic and soothsaying closely intertwined with priestly functions as, we shall see, was the case in early Hebrew pre-exilian days with the Kohen.

Thus we find that the Egyptian monarch was empowered to exercise priestly functions before all the gods.

In point of fact, in Greece and Rome the priest never attained to any considerable independent importance; we cannot speak of priestly power and hardly even of a distinct priestly class.

Above all, where, as at Athens, the decision of questions of sacred law fell not to the priests but to the college of i r ynrai, one great source of priestly power was wholly lacking.

In the priestly narrative (P) the plagues assume the form of a trial of skill between Aaron, who acts at Moses' command, and the Egyptian magicians, and thus connect with vii.

The king had to do with preachers who practically held the doctrines of Becket as to priestly pretensions.

It had been supposed on the authority of late priestly texts, where boasts of persecution are put forth, that the cause of the decline of Buddhism in India had been Brahmin persecution.

He saw that he stood for the spiritual priesthood of all believers and that medievalism in religion meant that man cannot approach God without a priestly mediator.

There is indeed a development, but it is none the less noteworthy that the post-exilic priestly ritual preserves in the worship of the universal and only God Yahweh, Develop- rites, practices and ideas which can be understood only in the light of other nature-religions, especially that of Babylonia, with which there are striking parallels.'

The priestly system, as represented in the Pentateuch, is not fitted for the desert, where its initiation is ascribed, but on independent internal critical grounds belongs to the post-exilic age, where it stands at the head of further developments.

It is the adaptation of the prophets' conceptions of Yahweh to old religious ideas, the building up of new conceptions upon an old basis, a fusion " between old heathen notions and prophetic ideas," and " this fusion is characteristic of the entire priestly law."

It left room for rival schools and sects, both within and without the priestly circles, and for continued development of the older and non-priestly thought.

The former is exceptionally intricate, being in its various aspects distinctly earlier, and in parts even later than the " priestly."

Old priestly rivalries between Cutha and Babylon may explain why the mixed Samaritans became known as Cuthaeans; according to the prevailing theory their predecessors, the " ten tribes " had been exiled in the 8th century.

To secure his position (for he was not even of the priestly tribe) Menelaus persuaded the deputy of Antiochus, who was dealing with a revolt at Tarsus, to put Onias to death.

At last a priestly family at a village called Modein committed themselves to active resistance; and, when they suspended the Sabbath law for purposes of self defence, they were joined by the Hasidaeans (Assidaeans), who seem to have been the spiritual ancestors of the Pharisees.

This indeed comes from the late Priestly Code; but we are also told in the earlier story that "Noah found favour in the eyes of the Lord," vi.

The Yahwistic writer (J), on the other hand, prefers to call the mountain Sinai, and so do the priestly writers (P).

The text bears a general resemblance to the two well-known Assyrian versions on tablets in the British Museum, but it has been claimed that its phraseology presents a closer parallel to the biblical version of the Deluge story in the "Priestly Code."

For it strikingly illustrates the fact that the temple of En-lil, like that of the Sun-god at Sippar and the other great temples in Babylonia, possessed a body of mythological and religious texts, which formed subjects for study and comment among the priestly scribes.

Thus the resemblances which have been claimed between the Nippur Deluge fragment and the version of the "Priestly Code" in Genesis, in themselves furnish no significant evidence as to the latter's date.

This is a cord, woven by women of the priestly class, composed of seventy-two threads, representing the seventy-two chapters of the Yasna, a portion of the Zend-Avesta, in the sacredness of which the young.

The priestly office is hereditary, and no one can become a priest who was not born such; but the son of a priest may become a layman.

The qualifications for entering into the priestly order are good conduct and a fair measure of learning - such conduct at least as is good according to Buddhist tenets, and such learning as is esteemed among their votaries.

Hence man should deny the world for the sake of the other world, and the title " religious " belongs distinctly to the monastic and priestly life.

Agamemnon performs sacrifice himself, not because a priestly character was attached to the kingly office, but simply because he was " master in his own house."

Each was an independent establishment controlled entirely by its own abbot and apparently divided into two sections, one priestly and the other lay and even marriedAt St Andrews about the year lioo there were thirteen Culdeesholding office by hereditary tenure and paying more regard tQ their own prosperity and aggrandizement than to the services of the church or the needs of the populace.

The more orthodox Sudras carry their veneration for the priestly class to such a degree that they will not cross the shadow of a Brahman, and it is not unusual for them to be under a vow not to eat any food in the morning, before drinking Bipracharanamrita, i.e.

Indeed, even prior to the definite establishment of the caste-system, the mingling of the lower race with the upper classes, especially with the aristocratic landowners and still more so with the yeomanry, had probably been going on to such an extent as to have resulted in two fairly well-defined intermediate types of colour between the priestly order and the servile race and to have facilitated the ultimate division into four" colours "(varna).

In course of time the process of intermingling, as we have seen, assumed such proportions that the priestly class, in their pride of blood, felt naturally tempted to recognize, as of old, only two" colours,"the Aryan Brahman and the non-Aryan Sudra.

Thereby their money and influence would be lost to the Church, and their souls robbed of the priceless benefit of priestly absolution.

He was specially admitted as an extraordinary member of the great priestly colleges; his name was included by the Arval Brethren in their prayers for the safety of the emperor and his house; at the games in the circus his appearance in triumphal dress contrasted significantly with the simple toga praetexta worn by Britannicus.

Especially in ancient Egypt the fibre occupied a most important place, linen having been there not only generally worn by all classes, but it was the only material the priestly order was permitted to wear, while it was most extensively used as wrappings for embalmed bodies and for general purposes.

From age to age groups of laws were codified and expanded - the Priestly law of the Old Testament, the Mishnah, the complete Talmud, the subsequent codifications of Alfazi, Maimonides, and finally Joseph Caro.

Its constitution resembled that of an ancient priestly college, and Laetus was styled pontifex maximus.

All his training too, university, priestly and in foreign parts, tended to make him logical overmuch.

The consequences of this development were that orthodoxy and literal obedience to all priestly injunctions now assumed an impor.

Hence the dominant interest is a priestly one, while the contents are almost entirely legislative as opposed to historical.

The nature of the subjects with which they deal is one that naturally appealed to the priestly schools, and owing to this fact the laws were especially liable to modification and expansion at the hands of later legislators who wished to bring them into conformity with later usage.

Characteristic of the priestly calendar are (1) the enumeration of " holy convocations," (2) the prohibition of all work, (3) the careful determination of the date by the day and month, (4) the mention of " the offerings made by fire to Yahweh," and (5) the stereotyped form of the regulations.

Then, as the Chaldaeans soon became the dominant people, the priestly caste of that region developed into a Chaldaean institution.

This name in later times, owing to the racial amalgamation of the Chaldaeans and Babylonians, lost its former national force, and became, as it occurs in Daniel, a distinctive appellation of the Babylonian priestly class.

The Vendidad, the priestly code of the Parsees, contains in 22 chapters (fargard) a kind of dualistic account of the creation (chap. 1), the legend of Yima and the golden age (chap. 2), and in the bulk of the remaining chapters the precepts of religion with regard to the cultivation of the earth, the care of useful animals, the protection of the sacred elements, such as earth, fire and water, the keeping of a man's body from defilement, together with the requisite measures of precaution, elaborate ceremonies of purification, atonements, ecclesiastical expiations, and so forth.

In its present form, however, the Avesta is only a fragmentary remnant of the old priestly literature of Zoroastrianism, a fact confessed by the learned tradition of the Parsees themselves, according to which the number of Yashts was originally thirty.

Anne was particularly amenable to the influence of priestly and female favourites, and it must be considered a proof of the strong interest made for Swift that she was eventually persuaded to appoint him to the deanery of St Patrick's, Dublin, vacant by the removal of Bishop Sterne to Dromore.

He was at the same time a man of impressive power, of rare and wide culture, and of lofty aim, - far above priestly conception and Philistine narrowness.

The priestly regulations affecting altars are of a very elaborate nature, and are framed with a single eye to the essential theory of later Hebrew worship - the centralization of all worship at one shrine.

Among the Calvinistic bodies in the British Isles and abroad kirk-discipline has been a stern reality; but in none of them is there private confession or priestly absolution.

In both Sanskrit and Zend it means something like "comrade" or "bosom friend," but in Zend is used of the priestly or highest class.

No competent scholars now question the existence, hardly any one the relative dates, of J, E, and P. In Numbers one can tell almost at a glance which parts belong to P, the Priestly Code, and which to JE, the narrative resulting from the combination of the Judaic work of the Yahwist with the Ephraimitic work of the Elohist.

The third narrative is P 2, which relates how Korah at the head of 250 Levites protested against the priestly privileges of Aaron, claiming that all the Levites had as much right to sacrifice and offer incense to Yahweh as Aaron and his sons had.

The art was practised in Rome chiefly by Etruscans, occasionally by native-born Romans who had studied in the priestly schools of Etruria.

For an exhaustive detailed study has revealed many signs of diversity of authorship which combine to show that the book is due to the incorporation of older material in two main redactions; one deeply imbued with the language and thought of Deuteronomy itself (D), the other of the post-exilic priestly circle (P) which gave the Pentateuch its present form.

Thus the association of the Urim and Thummim with the ephod, which appears in the oldest narratives, is retained in the Priestly Code (P).

The priestly writer gives no directions as to how they were to be made.

If this invention is a late priestly one, the person who introduced it into the Satapatha-Brahmana must have reverted to the intellectual condition of Bushmen.

According to this, Genesis is a post-exilic work composed of a post-exilic priestly source (P) and non-priestly earlier sources which differ markedly from P in language, style and religious standpoint, but much less markedly from one and another.6 These sources can be traced elsewhere in the Pentateuch and Joshua, and P itself is related to the post-exilic works Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah.

Although the priestly source shows how the lore could be reshaped, and Jubilees represents later efforts along similar lines, it is evident that for ordinary readers the patriarchal traditions could not be presented in an entirely new form, and that to achieve their aims the writers could not be at direct variance with current thought.

The present J and E reflect a reshaping and readjustment of earlier tradition which is found elsewhere, and the suggestion that they are not far removed from the age of the priestly writers and redactors does not conflict with what is known of language, forms of religious thought, or tendencies of tradition.

Moreover, he astutely contrived to extend his priestly prestige to his whole family; his royalty was no longer merely a military command or a civil office, but became a Christian priesthood.

It shows no sympathy with the priestly class.

On the left returning wall is a train of priestly attendants headed by the chief priest and priestess (the latter carrying a lituus), clad in the dress of the deities they serve and facing an altar, behind which is an image of a bull on a pedestal (representing the god); then comes an attendant leading a goat and three rams for sacrifice, followed by more priests with litui or musical instruments, after whom comes a bull bearing on his back the sacred cista (?).

The Eleusinian mysteries were generally considered to have been founded by Eumolpus, the first priest of Demeter, but, according to some, by Eumolpus the son of Musaeus, Eumolpus the Thracian being the father of Keryx, the ancestor of the priestly family of the Kerykes.

The division of the buildings into numerous small rooms is understood to signify that they were used as communal habitations, possibly of priestly orders.

As for priestly absolution, if even-handed justice were meted out to all, the Vagrant Act would suffice to deal with it.

Their priestly caste were the best placed to use these archives to write a sacred history with a political purpose in mind.

But I can say what value priestly celibacy has for me and my family.

So he made an ephod, which is a priestly garment, and he consecrated his own son to be a priest.

The figure of a monk wearing priestly garments appears at the feet of Christ.

The spiritual help offered by the Priestly Society is directed toward promoting holiness in its members through the fulfillment of their priestly duties.

And we've been saying that the Son by His high priestly intercession assures it and the Spirit by His intercession assures it.

Magian Adjective from Magi (sing. Magus) referring to a member of the Zoroastrian priestly caste in Ancient Persia.

Let us practice the fine art of making every work a priestly ministration.

This function is an integral part of the priestly ministry, setting them apart from the common people.

All too often, the time spent as a deacon is seen simply as the prelude to priestly ordination.

Holy Orders consecrates a whole person to God, and brings with it an obligation to live the counsels in a particularly priestly way.

All this was high priestly knowledge originating in the first temple.

What are the nakedness and the vesture, the shining raiment, the priestly insignia, the girdles?

His face was extraordinary in that it was delicate, vulpine, priestly, usually very somber.

Excruciating detail of priestly vestment, description of temple architecture, chapters on ritual - forget it.

But it is Christ's resurrection, the divine vindication of his total obedience to his priestly vocation, which carries liberating power.

Fischer said, My priestly vocation, the source of my happiness, I owe to almighty God.

Certain priests of idolatrous Judean shrines (distinguished by him as " Levites ") he deprives of priestly functions, degrading them to the rank of temple menials; and he takes from the civil ruler all authority over public religion, permitting him merely to furnish material for sacrifices.

All are "Levites" by descent, and are thus correlated in the genealogical and other lists, but the true priesthood is confined to the sons of Aaron, while the mass of the Levites are subordinate servants who are not entitled to approach the altar or to perform any strictly priestly function.

However, they are permitted to congregate at "the place which Yahweh shall choose," where they may perform the usual priestly duties together with their brethren who "stand there before Yahweh," and they are ' For the derivation of "Levi" see below § 4 end.

Baxter, Sanctuary and Sacrifice (2895)' it existed in the post-exilic age was really the work of Moses, it is inexplicable that all trace of it was so completely lost that the degradation of the non-Zadokites in Ezekiel was a new feature and a punishment, whereas in the Mosaic law the ordinary Levites, on the traditional view, was already forbidden priestly rights under penalty of death.

On the other hand, the sanctuaries obviously had always their local ministers, all of whom in time could be called Levitical, and it is only in this sense, not in that of the late priestly legislation, that a place like Shechem could ever have been included.

He promised, indeed, a consultative council of state, and granted an amnesty from which no less than 25,000 persons were excluded; but on his return to Rome (12th April 1850), after he was quite certain that France had given up all idea of imposing constitutional limitations on him, he re-established his government on the old lines of priestly absolutism, and, devoting himself to religious practices, left political affairs mostly to the astute cardinal Antonelli, who repressed with great severity the political agitation which still continued.

By a natural extension of the original meaning, the term brahma, in the sense of sacred utterance, was subsequently likewise applied to the whole body of sacred writ, the tri-vidya or "triple lo re" of the Veda; whilst it also came to be commonly used as the abstract designation of the priestly function and the Brahmanical order generally, in the same way as the term kshatra, " sway, rule," came to denote the aggregate of functions and individuals of the Kshatriyas or Rajanyas, the nobility or military class.

That later tradition should give the pre-eminence to the priestly reforms of Ezra is in every way natural, but it has been found extremely difficult to combine the two in any reconstruction of the period.

Again, there were priestly and other families - some originally of " southern " origin - already settled around Jerusalem, and questions inevitably arise concerning their relation to the new-comers and the literary vicissitudes which gave us the Old Testament in its present form.

Berthelot that the workers in these processes, which were a monopoly of the priestly caste and were kept strictly secret, though fully aware that their products were not truly gold, were in time led by their success in deceiving the public to deceive themselves also, and to come to believe that they actually had the power of making gold from substances which were not gold.

From the evidence of the stele of the second (the Coronation Stele) and that of the fifth it has been inferred that the sovereignty early in this period became elective, a deputation of the various orders in the realm being (as Diodorus states), when a vacancy occurred, sent to Napata, where the chief god Amen selected out of the members of the royal family the person who was to succeed, and who became officially the god's son; and it seems certain that the priestly caste was more influential in Ethiopia than in Egypt both before and after this period.

Its emphasis on the observance of ri lual finds fullest development in the Priestly Code, subsequently promulgated; its protest against foreign marriages is made effective through the reforms of Ezra and Nehemiah;' the influence of its closing words on later expectation is familiar to every reader of the new Testament.'

In the Priestly Code, c. 409 B.C., there is no reference to angels apart from the possible suggestion in the ambiguous plural in Genesis i.

The early history is therefore contracted into a series of tribal and priestly genealogies, which were doubtless by no means„ the least interesting part of the work at a time when every contained also matter not derived from these works, for it is pretty clear from 2 Kings xxi.

In Greece, on the other hand, divination was not generally a priestly function, but it did belong to the priests of the Oracles (see Oracle).

The best example, however, of a full-blown priestly system with a monastic hierarchy grafted in this way on a religion originally not priestly is found in Tibetan Buddhism (see LAMAisM), and similar causes undoubtedly had their share in the development of sacerdotalism in the Christian Church.

The priestly apparatus of the post-exilic age retains several traces of old mythological symbolism and earlier cult, the meaning of which had not altogether been forgotten.

Thus the Cathar ritual, like that of the Armenian dissenters (see Paulicians), reflects an age when priestly ordination was not yet differentiated from confirmation.

Thus so far from simplifying or really elucidating the religion, these priestly labors tended rather to confuse one legend with another and to efface the personality of individual gods.

Here, too, the strongly marked characteristics of P, or the Priestly Document, as opposed to JE, enable us to determine the extent of that document with comparative ease; but the absence, in some cases, of conclusive criteria prevents any final judgment as to the exact limits of the two strands which have been united in the composite JE.

If we are to regard the Egyptian myths about the gods in animal shape, and about the non-natural superhuman heroes, and their wars and loves, as esoteric allegories devised by civilized priests, perhaps we should also explain Pund-jel, Qat, Quawteaht, the Mantis god, the Spider creator, the Coyote and Raven gods as priestly inventions, put forth in a civilized age, and retained by Australians, Bushmen, Hottentots, Ahts, Thlinkeets, Papuans, who preserve no other vestiges of high civilization.

It contains diverse interests and changing standpoints by which it is possible to explain the presence of purely southern tradition, the southern treatment of national history, and the antipathy to northern claims. As has already been mentioned, the specifically southern writings have everywhere been modified or adjusted to other standpoints, or have been almost entirely subordinated, and it is noteworthy, therefore, that in narratives elsewhere which reflect rivalries and conflicts among the priestly families, there is sometimes an animus against those whose names and traditions point to a southern origin (see Levites).

This is analogous to the Judaean adaptation of the prophetical treatment of Saul's life, and it also reflects certain priestly rivalries (see Levites).

The right and duty to solemnize marriages was not assigned to the priestly family of Aaron or the Levite temple servants at all.

But it is Christ 's resurrection, the divine vindication of his total obedience to his priestly vocation, which carries liberating power.

Perhaps it was a resurgence of his forgotten priestly training but for the first time, Howie was more lucid than I.

Such a remnant, amongst whom might be members of the priestly and royal families, would gather strength and boldness as the troubles of Babylon See the note on Ps.

In the last stage (c) the exclusion of the ordinary Levites from all share in the priesthood of the sons of Aaron is looked upon as a matter of course, dating from the institution of priestly worship by Moses.

According to Agathangelus, Tiridates went to Rome with Gregory, Aristaces, son of Gregory, and Albianos, head of the other priestly family, to make a pact with Constantine, newly converted to the faith, and receive a pallium from Silvester.

The Socialists and the Freemasons were largely responsible for the agitation, and they filled the country with stories of other priestly and coriventual immoralities, nearly all of which, except the original case at Greco, proved to be without foundation.

One could hardly expect that a colourless deity of this description, so completely the product of priestly speculation, could ever have found a place in the hearts of the people generally.

In the Roman communion, on the other hand, both where the Church is established and where it is not, the tendency is to reduce the status of cure to that of desservant, and to deal with all members of the priestly or lower orders by administrative methods.

There can be no reasonable doubt that the Levite here was member of a priestly tribe or order, and this view is confirmed by the discovery of what is really the same word in south Arabian inscriptions.

We note (a) that though the book of Deuteronomy bears the prophetic impress, the priestly impress is perhaps more marked.

The development of the priestly code of legislation (Priestercodex) was a gradual process, and probably occupied a considerable part of the 5th century B.C. The Hebrew race now definitely entered upon the new path of organized Jewish legalism which had been originally marked out for it by Ezekiel in the preceding century.

The Torah of Jesus was essentially prophetic and in no sense priestly or legal.

This involves the view that the historical traditions are mainly due to two characteristic though very complicated recensions, one under the influence of the teaching of Deuteronomy (Joshua to Kings, see § 20), the other, of a more priestly character (akin to Leviticus), of somewhat later date (Genesis to Joshua, with traces in Judges to Kings, see § 23).

Although Judah was always closely connected with the south, these " southern " features (once clearly more extensive and complete) are found in the Deuteronomic and priestly compilations, and their presence in the historical records can hardly be severed from the prominence of " southern " families in the vicinity of Jerusalem, some time after the fall of Jerusalem.

There is also an unmistakable development in the laws; and the priestly legislation, though ahead of both Ezekiel and Deuteronomy, not to mention still earlier usage, not only continues to undergo continual internal modification, but finds a further distinct development, in the way of definition and interpretation, outside the Old Testament - in the Talmud.