The duties of the Levites of the Priests' Coda and their relations to priests and people are so vaguely defined as to give rise to tlie impression that these ' Levites,' as servants of the priests, are simply an innovation of the legislator, not corre- sponding at all to the actually exist! ig relations. Ill other words, the legislator appears to havo written at a time when, in addition to a special priestly family, namely the Aaronites ot the
I
PRIESTS AXD LEVITES
PRIESTS AXD LEVITES
89
Priests' Code, there was not a class, who from their descent might be called Levites, servin" as lower othcials at the sanctuary ; and the emmoy- nient of Lerites for this ollice appears to oe a matter of pure theory on the jiart of the le^'islator, whose system elsewhere also is based in large measure upon ideal construction. He appears to substitute the name ' Levites ' for the lower grade of sanctuary servants, singers, and doorkeepers. In the priestly system of the Priests' Code, so far as this has a real basis, the only parties in view would, in this way, be the personnel of the old Jerusalem temi)le — a circumstance most easily capable of explanation if this system took its rise at a time when one had no motive for taking into consideration the nou-Jerusalemite priests or their descendants.
The Priest-s' Code is acquainted, on the other hand, with a class amongst the personnel of the sanctuary with wliich we meet nowhere in the post-e.\ilic period, namely the serving women (see above, § 8 e). These may be connected with tlie consecrated women, the kUdishoth of the ancient Can.'ianite sanctuaries, who in certain pre-exilic periods were found even in the Jerusalem temple (Gesfh. pp. 36 f., IT'Jf. ; cf. Ismar J. Peritz, 'Woman in the ancient Hebrew Cult,' in JBL, 1898, pt. ii. p. 14511'.), although a le'rislator of the Janweh religion could not think of women at the sanctuary serving the purpose of the Canaanite hieroclouloi, but only as employed in cleaning and such like. A later age did away with these serving women entirclj', as tending to recall the hieroclouloi, and as furnishing occ.ision for moral abuses.
The designation chosen for priests in the Priests' Code, namely ' Aaronites,' appears to the present writer to point to the time before Josiah's reform, or at least before Ezekiel. Its result was that a priestly family returned with Ezra, which traced Its descent, not, like the Zadokites, to the family of Phinelias or Kleazar, but to that of Ithamar (Ezr 8* M), and thus did not belong to the old Jerusalem priesthood. The real existence of such non-Zadokite 'Aaronites' is also probable from other indications. As we found occasion to con- clude (.see above, § 3, cf. § 2) from the history of Eli's de.scenflant Ebi.athar, who was b.anished to Anathoth, and of the priests at Anathoth in Jeremiah's time, who probably traced back their de.scent to Ebiathar, the priesthood of Anathoth, in distinction from the house of Zadok, held itself to be derived from the ancient priestly family at the time of the Exodus, and perhaps from Aaron. Consequently, the enactment of the Priests' Code, that the sons of Aaron are all entitled to exercise the priestly office, was not, when the new com- munity was set up, litted to serve the special interest of the Zadokites, for it required these to treat even those priests who did not belong to their family as equally entitled to sacred functions with themselves. I^ow there can be no doubt that the author of the jiriestly legislation of the Priests' Code (P-) belonged to the priesthood of Jerusalem, for otherwise he could not be so familiar as he is with the ritu.al of the one legal place of worship, the tabernacle, i.e. the antedated single temple. liut it ia extremely improbable that a Zaxlokite of the period after Ezekiel should, in divergence from this prophet, have conceded to non-Zadokite priests equal rights with the Zadok- ites. The substitution of the ancient Aaron for the relatively modern Zadok cannot be a mere play with names on the part of an exilic or post- exilic legisl.ator, for, as Ezr 8' shows, there were actually non • Zadokite ' Aaronites.' While the aiUurciits of the Graf hypothesis liml hitherto for the most part seen in the term ' Aaronites' simply an archaism for 'Zadokites,' Kuenen (ThT, IS'.M),