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PRIESTS AND LEVITES
PRIESTS AND LEVITES
for the requirements of the altar of burnt-offering were imposed upon the priests, the Levites, and the people— a prescription whipli is not contained in the Pentateuch, although tliis passa^'e in Nchemiah api)cals to the Torah (but c{. Lv 6").
The Clironider or liis predecessor in tlie redac- tion of the Memoirs of Neheniinh had no longer a clear understanding of the whole of the regula- tions respecting dues. It is impossible to gain a distinct view from the confused picture he draws {Ge.-<ch. p. 169 ff.). Only in Chronicles is there any allusion to a tenth of honey (2 Ch 31') ; the tenth of dedicated gifts which is likewise mentioned (v."), rests upon a confusion of the tenth with the teritmdh. The various kinds of dues are most concisely enumerated in Neli 12*', a passage re- garding which it is doubtful whether it belongs to the Memoirs of Nehemiah. Three species are named in it : tSrumuth, re'shith, and tenth. On this is based the Talmudic distinction of three kinds of dues, which finds no direct support in the Torah.
10. The Priesthood after OT Times.— Several further developments in the relations of the per- sonnel of the sanctuary still show themselves in the period subsequent to the OT.
a. Priestt! and Levites. — The consequence of the inclusion of the singers and doorkeepers among the Levites was that these two classes, which at the time of Ezra and Nehemiah were much more numerous than the Levites so-called in the narrower sense, dispossessed these of their unique character. At least the tendency to this result is already dis- coverable in the OT in Chronicles, where singers and doorkeepers play a more important part than the Levites so-called in the narrower sense, so that one might be tempted to suggest that the latter had even for the Chronicler merely a theoretical existence (Vogelstein, pp. 30, 102 if.). It is doubt- ful whether in 1 Ch O""" other ' Levites' (w."- *«•) besides the doorkeepers (vv."- ^^) and the singers (v.^) are assumed to exist [Gesch. p. 157 f.). The Talmud at all events knows only two kinds of Levitical service, that of song and that of w^atching in the temple (cf. Maimonides, ap. Vogelstein, 1>. 85; and, further, Blichler, Priester, p. 118 ti'., esp. 136 ff. ). This is a result that is not surprising in view of the origin of the Levites in the narrower sense. The ancient, i.e., as would appear, pre- e.\ilic (see above, § 3 end), classes of sanctuary servants included, besides the priests, only the singers and doorkeepers. The class known to Ezekiel and in the time of Kzra as ' Levites' was an artiKcial creation, which served only the purpose of disposing of the old non- Jerusalem ite priests. In so far as these were not, like the Ithamarites, admitted to the post-exilic priesthood, they received as 'Levites' an intermediate place, which is hard to deline, between the priests on the one liand and the singers and doorkeepers on the other. Thus it came about that at last the Levites /car' i^oxh" were absorbed in the singers and doorkeepers, who constituted the only two surviving professional classes of Levites. In this way the arrangement gained ground, which the author of the I'riests' Code, if we judged rightly, had in view. He thought of his Levites as singers (for he reckons to them the singer-family of the Korahites) and door- keepers (for he employs to describe their service the technical term ' keep '). Of any other kind of Levites he for his part seems to know notliing, and the close of the history of the Israelitish cultus personnel knows as little.
In fi.\ing the position of the cultus personnel, a later age accepted on other points as well the simpler and more natural arrangement, and dis- regarded ordinances which had for some time enjoyed validity, thanks to an artificial theory or
to historical confusion. The tenth as a sacred due is readily intelligible if it is either devoted to a sacrificial meal (as proposed in Dt), or even given to the priests, as representatives of the deity, but not when it falls to subordinate servants of the sanctuary. Tlie Priests' Code, which assigns it t« the Levites, shows by this very circumstance that the name ' Levites ' was originally a designation of the priests (Gesch. p. 52 f.). After the tithe regulation of the Priests' Code had lieen actually put in force under Neliemiah in later times, accord- ing to the testimonj' of Josephus [Ant. XX. viii. 8, ix. 2 ; Vita, 12, 15) and the Talmud (see the refer- ences in Graetz, M(jiint.':schrift, 1886, p. 97 ff.}, the tithes were withdrawn from the Levites and assigned exclusively to the priests (cf. Van Hoon- acker, Sacerdore, etc. p. 40). The Mishna [Maaser shcni, V. 6) appears, indeed, to assume as the correct practice that some receive the first tenth and others the tSrilinah of the tenth. The first class could be only the Levites (Schiirer, p. 258, note 44) ; but then this description, as it seems, would not correspond with the actually existing relations of later times. It is possible tliat, as Vogelstein (p. 72 ff.) holds, the tradition handed down in the Mishna, to the effect that the high priest Johanan abolished ' the prayer of thanksgiving and confession at the tithe, refers to the abolition of the paying of the tithe to the Levites, and that by this Johanan is to be under- stood the contemporary of the Persian satrap Bagoses (cf. above, § 8 g ; so also Van Hoonacker, Saccrdoce, etc. p. 401, who, according to his chrono- logical scheme [p. 60 f.], regards this Johanan as a contemporary of Ezra ; on the other hand, Biber- feld, p. 18, holds that the Johanan who abolished the tithe prayer was John Hyrcanus). Our earliest evidence that the priests received the tenth comes from a much later time. Josephus (I.e.) assumes it as a matter of right that the priests receive the tenth, and complains only that some priests take it by force. He is speaking of the time of Agrippa II. Since Josephus describes the priests as taking the tithe at the hands of the laity, he cannot have in view the tenth that had to be paid by the Levites to the priests. He appears thus to be quite unacquainted with the paying of the tenth to the Levites as a usual thing. From the fact that the Talmud looks ujion it as a punishment that the tithe was withdrawn from the Levites and paid to the jiriests instead, which was the custom after the destruction of the temple (Graetz, Monatssehrift, ISSO, p. 107 f.), it has been inferred by Graetz (I.e. p. 98 11'.) that the offence in view as punished maybe the presump- tion of the Levites, who — but only the temple singers — in the time of Agrip|ia II. succeeded in obtaining the right to wear the linen garment of the priests (see below). The historical motive fo"* deviating from the law cannot be determined, bu^ it is readily conceivable that any o]iportunity would be seized for altering the awkwardly com- plicated tithe law of the Priests' Code.