Another animal of the leopard tribe, the well-
known cheeta or hunting-leopard of India [Felis jubatus), is sometimes found in the hills of Galilee and in the neighbourhood of Tabor, but its occur- rence is rare. It is much tamer than the Felis pardus, and in India it is often domesticated and kept for hunting antelopes and other animals.
LrrERATURB.— H. B. Tristram, SWP vii. [1884], p. 18 f., The Natural History of the Bible^^, 1911, pp. 111-114 ; H. B. Swete, The Apocalypse oj St. John^, 1907, p. 162 ; SDB 540 f. ; HDB iii. 95 ; EBiVn. 2762 f. ; W. M. Thomson, The Land and, the Book, 1864, p. 444 f. P, S. P. HaNDCOCK.
LETTER.— The distinction between the 'true letter' and the 'epistle' was dealt with in the art. Epistle. In the Christian literature of the Apostolic Age till the end of the 1st cent, we have, besides Ac 15^"-" and 23-^"^", sixteen letters in the proper sense of the term — viz. the ten Epistles of St. Paul that may reasonably be regarded as authentic ; the three Pastoral Epistles, which, if authentic, are undoubtedly real letters, and, if spurious, are at all events based upon genuine letters from the Apostle's hand ; the Second and Third Epistles of St. John, both of which could at once be characterized rather as something like short private missives ; and, finally, the First Epistle of Clement. Of the genuine Pauline letters, Romans comes nearest in character to the ' epistle,' though the fact that it is less personal and intimate in its tone and more suggestive of the treatise is quite well accounted for by certain psychological considerations — as, e.g., that the A\Titer was not personally known to the community which he was addressing ; we should not there- fore be justified in saying that the letter-form is a mere artifice. On the other hand, the so-called First Epistle of Clement, which is written in the name of one entire community to another, is a peculiar composite of ' letter ' and ' epistle ' ; it was certainly meant to be a true letter, arising out of the actual circumstances of the wTiter's own church at Rome, and having in view the actual circumstances of the church in Corinth, but it is quite clear that Clement was working upon a tradi- tion of Christian letters and epistles, so that — especially in regard to the length of his message — he does not altogether succeed in maintaining the characteristics of a true letter. The Christian writers of the Apostolic Age, in fact, had not yet become proficient in such literary forms as the treatise, the dialogue, or the controversial pam- phlet, and this explains why they had recourse to the letter as the simplest literary vehicle, and yet at the same time burst the trammels of its form. A comparison of the true letters of the Apostolic Age with true letters from approximately the same period of the heathen world shows that, while the similarities in style and diction are manifold and by no means insignificant, yet the former class display a very remarkable independence in their use of the traditional form.
Literature. — Cf. the works cited in art. Epistle ; on the true letters of the ancients cf. esp. L. Mitteis and U. Wilcken, Grundziige und Chrestomathie der Papyruskunde, 2 vols., Leip- zig, 1912 ; also H. Lietzmann, Griechische Papyri'^, Bonn, 1910 ; G. A. Deissmann, Licht vom Osten", 1909 (Eng. tr.2, 1911), and the well-known edd. of Oxyrhynchus papyri, etc. On ' true letters' from the Christian sphere, cf. the present writer's Geseh. der altchristl. Literatur, Leipzig, 1911.
H. Jordan. LEYL— See Tribes, Priest, Aaron.
LEVITE. — According to the view represented in the OT by the so-called ' Priests' Code,' the Levites were originally the clan whose members were quali- fied for the priestly office. In the course of time a distinction arose, and the Levites became the principal attendants upon the priests, entrusted with minor sacerdotal duties but not competent to
LEWD, LEWDNESS
liberti:nes
695
succeed to the full status. In the NT, outside the Gospels, the term occurs but once or twice. Barna- bas of Cyprus, where there were numerous Jews and Christians (1 Mac 15-'S Ac IV^), was a land- owner, thouoh a Levite (Ac 4^^), the old ordinance (Nu IS^'') against the possession of real estate having long before fallen into abeyance, and probably having never been meant to apply to land outside Palestine. In He 7'^ the writer coins a word to enable him to write of ' the Levitical priesthood,' as though the hallowing of the tribe were concen- trated in 'the order of Aaron' (so Westcott, ad loc), or with a view to indicating the provisional character of all parts of the earlier sacrificial service and not merely of its central acts. The priestly tribe with all its privileges passes away ; and another — the royal tribe (He 7")— yields Him who is able really to save, and to ' save to the utter- most' (7^^). In later times an assumed parallel between the historical and the true Israel was pushed, until the relation of deacons to bishops and presbyters was based upon that of Levites to priests. The theory has proved useful since the days of Cyprian, and may conceivably have origin- ated in some of the Ebionitic Christian communities of our period ; but the functions of the two classes, Levites and deacons, were quite distinct, and any analogy between them is artificial and an after- thought. R. W, Moss.