9. Being thus appointed in his office, a succession also therein was designed,—namely, by the first-born male of the eldest family or branch of the posterity or house of Aaron. But the tracing of this succession in particular is greatly perplexed, for it is nowhere directly given us in the Scripture for that space of time wherein the story of the church is recorded therein. Different names are also in several places given unto the same persons, as seems most probable. Besides, Josephus, who is the only approved writer of the Jews in things of this nature, is either corrupted in some passages on this subject, or doth palpably contradict himself. The post-Talmudical masters are so far from yielding any relief in this matter, that by their jarrings and wranglings they render it more perplexed. Neither have those amongst our writers who of old or of late have laboured to trace this succession been able to agree in their computations, Four or five differing catalogues I could give in that are contended for with some earnestness. I shall not therefore hope, in this brief account of things which I am confined unto, to give light unto a matter of such intricacy and perplexity.
526 THE HIGH PRIEST AND HIS OFFICE. [EXERC. XXIII.
I shall therefore content myself to give the most passant account among the Jews of this succession in general, with some few observa- tions upon it, and.so close this discourse.
10. It is generally agreed, after. Josephus, that the whole number of high priests, from Aaron inclusively to the destruction of the second temple, was eighty and three; for though in the Babylonian Tal- mud some of them reckon up above eighty high priests under the second temple alone, yet the more learned of the later Jews, as the author of Tzemach David ad Millen. iv. anno 829, expressly prefer the authority of Josephus above them all.
Of these eighty-three, thirteen administered before the Lord under the tabernacle, or whilst the tabernacle built by Moses in the wilder- ness was the sacred seat of divine worship and ordinances. Of these the first was Aaron, the last Abiathar, who was put past the priest- hood by Solomon a little before the building of the temple. And in this succession there was but one interruption,—namely, when Eli of the house of Ithamar, the younger son of Aaron, was preferred to the priesthood. It is probable that he had been second priest in the days of his predecessor, and was doubtless admitted unto the office upon the reputation of his holiness and wisdom; and, it may be, that he whose right it was to succeed of the house of Phinehas was either incapable or judged unworthy.
11. In the first, or Solomon’s temple, there administered eighteen high priests, whose names are recounted by Josephus, lib. x. cap. viil., lib, xx. cap. x. Of these the first was Zadok, the last Jehozadak, who was carried into captivity by Nebuchadnezzar, 1 Chron. vi. 14; though I question whether ever he administered as high priest, only he was left at the destruction of the city and temple, after the death of his father, Seraiah. Nor was there any known interruption in this series of succession, being carried down in a right line from the house of Phinehas by Zadok.
12. The remainder of the number before mentioned.served under the second temple, being multiplied by the tumults and disorders which the people then fell into. The first of them was Joshua the son of Josedech; the last one Phinehas, or Phananias, made high priest by the seditious villains a little before the last siege and de- struction of the city.
And this succession, or that during this season, had interruptions many and great. The first mentioned by Josephus was after the death of Onias, the fourteenth high priest from the building of the temple, when Antiochus first put in Joshua, who was called Jason, the brother of Onias, and afterwards displacing him, thrust Mene- laus into his room. After a while he puts out this Menelaus, and placeth one Alcimus, of another family, in his stead.
After this Alcimus, the family of the Maccabees, or Asmonzans,
SECT. 10-12. ] SACRIFICES OF THE OLD LAW. 527
took on them the office of the high priesthood. Their race being extirpated by Herod, Ananus, a private priest, was by force and power put into the place. And from this time forward to the de- struction of the temple there was no order observed in the succes- sion of the high priest, but persons were put in and out at the plea- sure of the rulers, either the Romans or the Herodians; for Hyrcanus being taken prisoner by the Parthians, and Antigonus, the son of Aristobulus his brother, being taken by Herod and Sosia, and cruci- fied at Antioch by Mark Antony, in whom the race of the Asmo- nzans ended, vile persons were put in and out at pleasure, some for a year, some for a month, one for a day, some for a longer season, until the whole nation, church and state, rushing into its final and fatal ruin, in their rebellion at Jerusalem, they thrust out Matthias, put in by Agrippa, and chose one by lot to succeed him; when God, to manifest his disapprobation of them, caused the lot to fall upon one Phananias, a mere idiot, who knew nothing of the place or office which they called him unto, with whom ended the church and priest- hood of the Jews.