Thus, until the destruction of the Temple at Jerusa- lem by the Komans, the priestly order continued as a hereditary and honored body (contrasted with the laity in the Talmud, Tenim. v, 4), directing and expressing the religious views of the people by symbolic usages, and when their relations to Jehovah were disturbed hv sin, restoring them by expiatorj' sacrifices. It was a kind of nobility (Josephus, Life, sec. i). It seems to have been in correspondence with their natural position in the nation that at an early period the priests liad an active share in the government as political counsellors (Numb, xxvii, 2, 19; xxxi, 12 sq., 20; xxxii, 2 ; Deut. xxvii, 9 ; Josh, xvii, 4). Under the kings, they some- times mediated between the prince and the i)eople (2 Sam. xix, 11), or were prized as counsellors at court (1 Kings i, 7 sq., 39; iv, 4; 2 Sam. viii, 17); but later,
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when the corruption of the people and the State became obvious, they allied themselves with kings and princes for the suppression of the bold speaking of the prophets (Jer. XX, 1 sq., xxvi, 7 sq.), for their love of form and ritual would naturally endanger the spirit of faith within them, and place them in opposition to the prophets. See Seer.
The rule of the sacerdotal caste in Palestine does not seem to have begun with the settlement of the Israelites there. In the time of the Judges there were family priests appointed by the head of the household (Judg. xvii, 5 sq. ; xviii, 3, 27, 30). Those wlio were not Le- rites, or at least not priests, offered on altars which they had themselves built (.Judg. vi, 2G; xiii, 19; 1 Sam. vii, 9; xvi. b\ but Judg. vi, 18 does not belong here; see Rosenmitller, adloc. ; so in 1 Sam. vi, 14, as in 2 Sam. vi, 17, though priests are not expressly named) ; and in Shiloh, near the sanctuary, where a family <if priests performed service, the people visited high-places and altars long before consecrated. See Sacrifice. Even under David, it would seem that the Levitical priests were not exclusively intrusted with the sanctuary, for David's sons were priests (2 Sara, viii, 18). It is true that the word C^jflS, kohinim, is here often rendered 2)rivy-councillors, or, as in the A. V., "princes;" and so in other places where the priests are named with the people of the court, but without philological grounds (Gesenius, Thesaur. ii, 6()3 sq.). An exclusive priest- hood, as a distinct caste, was confirmed by the building of the Temple, and their influence may have been in- creased by being concentrated within the little king- dom of Jiidah. According to 2 Chron. xi, 18 (comp. 1 Kings xii, 31; xiii, 33) the priests and Levites left the kingdom of Israel under its first king, and gathered in the kingdom of Judah (but comp. 2 Kings xvii, 27 sq.).
See, in general, Philo, in the first book, Be Monar- chia. p. 225 sq. ; Saubert, I)e Sucerclot. Hehr. in his Op. Posth. p. 283 sq., and De Sacrif. Vet. p. 637 sq. ; also in Ugolini Thesaur. vol. xii ; Krumbholz, Sacerdot. Ilehr. and Ugolini Sacerdot. Hehr. in Thesaur. vol. xiii ; Carp- zov, Appar. p. 89 sq. ; Reland, Ant. Sac, ii, 4 sq. — Wi- ner. See Priest.
Sacheverell, Henry, D.D., a celebrated English divine, son of .loshua, minister of St. Peter's Church, Marlborough, was born about 1672. He was educated at Magdalen College, of which he became a fellow, and appears to have been celebrated and successful as a col- lege tutor. He took his degree of M.A. in 1696, of B.D. in 1707, and of D.D. in 1708. The first living he held was at Cannock, in Staffordshire, but in 1705 he was ap- pointed preacher of St. Saviour's, Southwark. It was while in this situation that he delivered his two famous sermons — the first at the assizes at Derby, Aug. 15, 1709; the other before the lord mayor at St. Paul's, Nov. 5, in the same year. In both sermons he vehe- mently attacked Low-Churchmen and Dissenters, and asserted that the Church was in imminent danger. In one he was supposed to allude, under the name of Yol- pone, to lord Godolphin. He was impeached by the House of Commons, and tried before the Lords, found guilty, and suspended for three years, his sermons to be burned by the public hangman. On the expiration of his sentence (1713), the queen presented him to the living of St. Andrew's, Holborn. He died Jime 5, 1724. He left a number of sermons, principally remarkable be- cause of their connection with his trial. Some excel- lent Latin poems by him are in the Mitsm Anr/licanw, vols, ii, iii. See Secret Memoirs of Sacheveixdl (Lond. 1710) ; llUtory of Dr. Sacheverell (ibid. 1711).
Sachs, Hans, an eminent people's poet of Ger- many, was born at Nuremberg, Nov. 5, 1494. In a Latin school, from 1501 to 1509, he learned the ele- ments of the sciences of the day. Though apprenticed to the trade of a shoemaker in his fifteenth year, and hindered from university training, the beginnings of general knowledge which he obtained in j-outh were IX.-O
fruitfully utilized in his after-life. As a schoolboy he was trained to take part in the choral service of the Cliurch; and he enjoyed also the special instruction of the Meistersinger Lienhard Nonnenbeck. Thus he joined to his profession of cobbler that of a Meister- singer. In 1511 he started upon a wandering tour, and in the course of five years became acquainted with most of the cities and eminent persons of Germany. In 1519 he returned to Nuremberg, married, and plied his two trades of cobbler and poet to the end of his life. He died Jan. 20, 1.576, at the age of eighty-one.