If li'uH actually stood origirtally for the retinue of the sacred ark, only individuals from this body would have been priests proper. Ajiart from this, it is in any ca.se not incredible that Moses shouhl have destined his own fiimily in ibe narrower sense to be priests, but that he should have chosen precisely the family of his brother Aaron is less likely. Aaron, it is true, is not only represented in 1' as the father of the priests, but even in JE OS 'the Levite' kot' iiox-/)' (Ex 4"). Yet he does not ajipcar to be known to all the strata of this last book ; and in all tlie pa.ssnges where mention is made of him he is a less individualized figure,
to which features from the later historj' are trans- ferred in a prefigurative waj- (Gesch. p. 199). It is not imjiossible tiiat in his case we have to do with a personification, although no satisfactory explana- tion of his name 'AhAron has yet been discovered. With '(tr6n the designation of the sacred ark (a combination proposed, following the lead of others, by Kenan, I.e. p. 179), this name can hardlj-, in view of the different way in which it is written, have anything to do.
In an ancient gloss to the narrative in the Bk. of Judges about the LeWte who first on Mt. Ephraim and afterwards at Dan officiated as priest, this Levite, to whom the priesthood at Dan traced its descent down to ' the carrying captive of the land ' (i.e. down to the overthrow of Ephraim in the Assyrian period), is described as a ' son of Gershom the son of Moses' (in Jg IS*" Menash-ihch is an alteration of the original Mosheh). Here, then, Moses himself may be viewed as father of the priests in general. But all the same it is difficult to understand the person of Aaron as a purely fictitious one, because there is no apparent reason whj' the priesthood should have exchanged the more glorious descent from the lawgiver for descent from a brother of his. Moses has been supposed to be referred to in Dt 33* as the repre- sentative, and then, presumably, as the father, of the priesthood ; but the context of this passage favours rather a reference to Aaron in this capacity (Gesch. p. 7G), in harmony with which is the cir- cumstance that Dt 33 probably had its origin in Ephraim, and we find traces that it was in Ephraim that Aaron first came to be looked upon as father 01 the priests (see below, § 3, on the bull-worship of Aaron).
If really from the time of Moses one special body was regarded as called to the luiesthood, yet it is by no means the case that from that time it alone exercised priestly functions. Long after Moses, it is not contested that men of non-Levitical descent discharged the j)ricst's ollice occasionally or even permanently. In the latter case they probably passed as adopted into the tribe of Levi, which accordingly we arc not to think of as having originated in a purely genealogical w.ay. Only, one can hardly, with W ellhau.scn, ajipeal in favour of this to what is said in Dt 33" about Levi's having renounced his kinship. Seeing that in this pas- sage the denying of his sons is also spoken of, the relerence must be understood not of the loosenini; of connexion with a family, but of impartial officiiu action, without regard to family interests, in allu- sion to the narrative of Ex 32-''- -■" (Gesch. p. 77; Sellin, p. 11011'.; Van Hoonacker, Saccrdoce, etc. p. 133). As in Dt 33 the whole tribe of Levi appears as in possession of the priesthood, so elsewhere down to a late period no trace is to be found of a distinction between Levites and priests proper.
No special weight is to be laid on the circum- stance that, according to the statement of one source of tlie Jehovistic book, Mo.ses em]i|oycd 'young men of the children of Israel' to oiler sacrifice (Ex 24'; it is impossible that either liere or in I S 2'^- '" na'ar,\n its sense of 'servant,' can be a designation of the jiriest as the servant [' »ntnis<rc '], namely, of the cultus or of the people 'in the celebration of Divine worship' [so Van Hoonacker, Scicerdore, etc. p. 140 f.J), for this happened prior to the appointment (recorded, in- deed, as it seems, by a dillcrent narrator) of the Levites to the priestly service (Ex .TJ-'""'). As early as the arrival at Sinai we read in Ex 19'^- ** (a narrative in any ca.se from another hand than 3.j.7itr.) Qf priests [Gesch. p. .IS 11.) without being tohl whether these are to be thought of as Levite* or not. It is mentioned in the Jehovistic book, a.t
70
PRIESTS AND LEVITES
PRIESTS AND LEVITES
an arrangement in force all through the lifetime of Moses, that his attendant, Josliua, who is repre- sented as of non-Levitical descent (Nu 13', P), did not depart out of the holy tent (Ex 33")- The Ephraimite Micah, in the period of the judges, appoints as priest in his private sanctuary, first of all one of hxs sons (Jg 17"). Gideon, of the tribe of Manasseh (Jg 6""-}, and Manoah of the tribe of Dan (13"), offer sacrifice with their own hands. Under Saul the Israelites pour out the blood of the capt\ired animals at the altar stone without any priestly interposition (1 S 14"). At a still later period the non-priestly prophet Elijah sacrifices with his own hand (1 K 18*"^). While the sacred ark, in the course of its wanderings, tarried in the house of Abinadab, who was plainly no priest, it was served by his sons (1 S 7', 2 S 6"-; the emen- dation of Van Hoonacker, Sacerdoce, etc. p. 171, is unwarranted). Of the ancient priestly prerogative of the fatlier of the house, a relic was preserved down to the latest times of the Jewisn cultus, in the slaughtering of the Paschal lamb by the fatlier of the house without any priest taking part in the ceremony (Ex 12«ff-[P] w."'- [JE]), although it is true, at the same time, that the sacrificial character of the Paschal lamb had been obliterated.