fallen victims to some other outburst of Saul's furj', and,' though there were survivors (2 Sam. xxi, 2), the' num- ber was likely to be quite inadequate for the greater stateliness of the new worship at Jerusalem. It is to this period accordingly that the origin of the class bear- ing this name may be traced. The Nethinim were those " whom David and the princes appointed (Heb. gave) for the service of the Levites" (Ezra viii, 20). Though their number is nowhere given up to tlie time of the Babylonian captivity, yet the fact that the ai>o- riginal Ilieroduli, i. e. the Gibeonites, consisted of the jiopulation of five cities when the service of the sanct- uary was not so imposing makes it pretty certain that the Nethinim with whom David and the other jmnces replenished the thinned ranks at tlie time when the Temple worship required a large staff of menial servants must have counted their thousands. As a matter of convenience, they most probably lived within the pre- cincts and in the immediate neighborhood of the Tem- ple, and must have been supported by the contributions of the people. We have more decided information about them in the post-exilian records. Only C12 Nethinim returned from Babylon— 392 with Zerubbabel (Ezra ii, 58 ; Neh. vii, 00), and 220 with Ezra (Ezra viii, 20)— un- der tlue leadership of Ziha and Gispa (Neh. xi, 21), who, as their foreign names indicate, were of their own bodj-. But even this small number had to be coaxed in order to get them to return from exile, as is evident from Ezra viii, 17, where they are addressed as brethren of Iddo, a chief of the Levites. It is evident from the whole context (Ezra viii, 15-19), which speaks of se- curing Iddo's interests to procure Levites as well as Nethinim, that he was not a Nathin, but a distinguished Levite who had great influence both among his own Le- vitical brethren and the Nethinim who were under his control. Some of them lived in Ophel, which they helped to rebuild (Neh. iii, 20 ; xi, 26), because of its proximity to the Temple ; while others, as in the pre- exilian period, dwelt with the Levites in their own cities (Ezra ii, 70). They were under the control of a chief of their own body (Ezra ii, 43 ; Neh. vii, 40). Be- longing to the Temple, they, like the other sacrc<l min- isters, were exempted from taxation by the Persian sa- traps (Ezra vii, 24), and were maintained from the Tem- ple treasury and Crj ''.'CV^) the second tithes (Jeha- ?H0?/(, 86 b; Jerusalem ^faaser Sheni,v,lo; Jerusalem Sota, ix, 11; comp. Ilerzfeld, Cesf/nVAfe des Volkes Is- rael, i, 138-140). Though they conformed to the Jew- ish religion (Exod. xii, 48 ; Deut. xxix, 11 ; Josh, ix, 9 ; Neh. X, 28), they occupied a very low position, and were even ranged below the Jfamzcr ("iT^"C), or illegal off- spring, as may be seen from the following order of pre- cedence given in the Mishna: "A priest is before a Levi, a Levi before an Israelite, an Israelite before a Jfamzer, a Mamzer before a Xathin, a Xathin before a proselyte, and a proselyte before a manumitted slave" {llorujoth, iii, 8). The Nethinim were restricted to in- termarriage among tliemsehes, and if a Jew or Jewess married one of them, though all the valid ceremonies were performed, the issue shared in all the degrading disqualilications of the Nethinim (Mishna, Kiddushin, iii, 12; iv, 1 ; Jebamoth, ii, 4); and they were even ex- cluded from the privileges of being exempt from military service, allotted to newly-married people and to those j who were faint-hearted (Deut. xx, 7, 8, with ^lishna, Sota, viii, 3-6). If a woman was suspected of being dc- j flowered by any one, or if she had an illegitimate child, \ it was ascribed to a Nathin, and the offspring look the I degraded position of the Nathin, notwithstanding the assertion of the motlier that tlie father of the child wds i a priest, unless she could ad(hice proof to support her assertion (Mishna, Kethuboth, i, 8, 9). If a court of jus- I tice {'{^'^ rr^S) gave a decision, and one of the mcm- I bers of the court was found to be a Nathin, the judg- I ment was invalid, inasmuch as he was not regarded as .
NETON
983
NETTER
a legal member of the congregation ("TIj') specified in Lev. iv, lo ; Numb, xxxv, 24 (Mishna, llorajoth, iii, 1) (Kitto ; Smith). Eventually thej' seem to have been merged in the mass of the Jewish population, as no al- lusion to thera occurs in the Apocrypha or New Testa- ment. Their number, at all events, was then insufficient for the service of the Temple ; whence, as Josephus tells us {War, ii, 17,6), a festival, called Sv\o(popia (Xylo- phoria), was established, in which the people, to supply the deficiency, were obliged to bring a certain quantity of wood to the Temple for the use of the altar of burnt- offering. See Schroder, De Nethiiueis (Marb. 1719; Will, he NethincBis Levitarum famulis (Altdorf, Hio) ; Lampe, in Miscell. Groning. i, 463 sq., 539 sq. ; Pfeffiuger, in Uffolin. Tkesaur. vol. xiii. See Gibeonite ; Tejiple.
Neton. Macrobius, in his Saturnalia, mentions that the Accitani, an Iberian tribe, worshipped under the name of Netori a statue of Mars adorned with rays of light.