And when, among the Remans, the care of sacred things had been devolved on their kings, upon their removal the people created priests by suffrage among themselves, and one under the name of “rex sacrorum,” that by the continuance of the name therein the office might not in any thing be missed, the civil power being fully trans- ferred unto the consuls.» See Dion. Halicarnass. lib. v. So Livy: “Rerum deinde divinarum habita cura: et quia, queedam publica sacra per ipsos reges factitata erant, ne ubiubi regum desiderium esset, regem sacrificulum creant,” lib. ii. cap. ii. And the king of the “sacra” at Athens had the same original, as is manifest in De- mosthenes. The Dacians so far improved this power as that, having at first made priests unto their gods, they at length made one of their priests to be their god.
And this I take to be one of the principal ways whereby, in the first coalescences of human society, the order of priesthood came to be erected among them. Possibly in their elections they might sup-
SECT. 11.] AND SACRIFICE OF CHRIST. 247
pose themselves to have received guidance by some supernatural indication, of which afterwards; but it was consent and choice that gave them their authority and office.
11. Secondly, Those who had by any means obtained the rule of the community, knowing that with their power over it they had an obligation on them to seek its good, did take upon themselves the care of sacrificing for it, and performed it in their own persons. And there seems to be a natural traduction of the power and right of this kind of priesthood from the fathers of families unto the heads of political societies, which have a resemblance unto them. And thence the heathen writers do generally grant that the care of the administration of sacred things accompanied the supreme power, so that the kingdom and the priesthood amongst them for a season went together, So Aristotle informs us of the kings in the heroical times,—that is, such as they had tradition but no history of: Kupior Hoy ris 0: nar& TbAEwov Hyemoving, nad ray Ivory boar wh leporinoet-— “ They were rulers of things belonging unto the conduct of war, and had- the ordering of sacrifices that were not in an especial manner reserved to the priesthood;” of the reason of which exception I shall afterwards give an account. And again: Srparnyis jv nal dimaorig 6 Baoireds nel wpds rods Seod¢ xbpros, Aristot. Polit. lib. iii.;—“ The king _ was general, judge, and lord of things sacred.” And Cicero: “Apud veteres, qui rerum potiebantur iidem auguria tenebant; ut enim sapere, sic divinare regale ducebant:” De Divin. lib. i.cap.x]. The truth is, the use of sacrificing among the Gentiles, by the time we meet with any probable records of things among them, was much restrained, and principally attended unto in and with respect unto war, or an appre- hension of the approach of public calamities. Hence it came to pass that they who had the chief command in war had power of sacrificing also. But if it was so that not only a right of sacrificing for the community occasionally, in the times of danger, belonged unto him who presided therein, but that the supreme power and priesthood went together in any greater societies, as traduced from thé practice of families, it is evident that they were very quickly separated again, and vested in diverse persons, yet so as still to reserve unto kings and generals the privilege of sacrificing expiatory oblations in war; which they did sometimes by the death of beasts, sometimes of per- sons, and sometimes of themselves: for the first mention we have of priests in the world is distinct from kings in the same place. This was in Egypt, where we find the “ cohanim,” or priests, an order of men by themselves, under the power and care of their kings. How they came by that office originally, if we shall suppose that the right of sacrificing for the community went along with regal power and rule, I know not. It may be said that kings grew weary of that
248 PREFIGURATIONS OF THE PRIESTHOOD [EXERC. XXXIV.
employment, as their greatness, wealth, and empire increased, and so suffered others to be chosen unto it, or designed them thereunto by their own power; or, that ambition and luxury rendering them unfit for the discharge of that office and negligent in it, the people pro- vided for themselves as they could. Or it may be thought that some such things fell out in those early days of the world as did in later ages among the caliphs of the Saracens; for the world in all its varieties varieth not from itself. These caliphs, being originally the successors of Mohammed, had all power civil and sacred in their hands; but through the sloth of some of them, military men, who had the power and charge of armies in their hands and disposal, took the civil power from them, and, making themselves emperors, left only the pontificate unto the caliphs, the principal dignity re- maining unto them being an allowance to wear those garments and colours which they did as successors to Mohammed, when they had all the pewer. See Elmacin. Histor. Saracen. lib. iii cap. ii, It might have so fallen out with those priests of Egypt. Being origi- nally both princes and priests, they were confined to the sacerdotal function by some of more heroic spirits, who deprived them of rule and government; which alteration might constitute one of those changes in their dynasties which are so much spoken of. And thence, it may be (which Athenzeus observes), the priests of Egypt did always wear kingly garments. But these things are only con- jectures, and that about matters wrapped up in the greatest obscurity. I rather judge that there was never an ordinary concurrence of both these offices in the same persons, though it sometimes so fell out on extraordinary occasions; as,—