applied to all the holy garments. The four pieces of the priestly attire were each and all of them required, none was to fail; nor was it permitted to wear more than was prescribed ; and the warning " that he die not" (ver. 35, 43) seems to bear upon an exact fulfilment of the divine command in this, no less than in other things. The shining white of the linen garments typified that the servants of him who covers himself with light as with a garment (Psa. civ, 2; Dan. ii, 22; vii, 9), and who dwelleth "in light which no man can approach unto" (1 Tim. vi, 1G), are clothed typically in light (Exod. xxxiv, 29) ; so that the ministers should minister in the earthly sanctuary in the same livery as his min- isters wear in the heavenly sanctuary (Dan. xii, 6; Ezek. x, 2, 7; Matt, xvii, 2; xxviii, 3; Acts x, 30). But light (consequently white, as the most perfect reflec- tion of light) is universally the type of salvation (Job xviii, 5, etc.; Psa. xxvii, 1; Isa. lix, 9), of righteous- ness (Psa. xxxvii, 6; Mai. iv, 2), of purity and holiness (1 John i, 5, 7) ; just as darkness, black, is the type of wickedness, uncleanness, etc. (Isa. v, 20 ; Lam. iv, 7, 8 ; John iii, 19; Pom. iii, 12; 2 Cor. vi, 14). It is not without meaning that the priests, like the angels, are specially called the holy ones.
3. Regulations. — The idea of a consecrated life, which was thus asserted at the outset, was carried through a multitude of details. Each probably had a symbolic meaning of its own. Collectively they formed an edu- cation by which the power of distinguishing between things holy and profane, between the clean and the un- clean, and so ultimately between moral good and evil, was awakened and developed (Ezek. xliv, 23). Before they entered the tabernacle the priests were to wash their hands and their feet (Exod. xxx, 17-21; xl, 30- 32). During the time of their ministration they were to drink no wine or strong drink (Lev. x, 9; Ezek. xliv, 21). Their function was to be more to them than the ties of friendship or of blood, and, except in the case of the nearest relationships (six degrees are specified, Lev. xxi, 1-5 ; Ezek. xliv, 25), they were to make no mourn- ing for the dead. The high-priest, as carrying the con- secrated life to its highest point, was to be above the disturbing power of human sorrow even in these in- stances. Public calamities seem to have been an ex- ception, for Joacim the high-priest, and the priests, in such circumstances, ministered in sackcloth with ashes on their mitres (Judith iv, 14, 15; comp. Joel i, 13). Customs which appear to have been common in other priesthoods were (probably for that reason) forbidden them. They were not to shave their heads. They were to go through their ministrations with the serenity of a reverential awe, not with the orgiastic wildness which led the priests of Baal, in their despair, to make cuttings in their flesh (Lev. xix, 28; 1 Kings xviii, 28), and carried those of whom Atys was a type to a more terrible mutilation (Deut. xxiii, 1). The same thought found expression in two other forms affecting the priests of Israel. The priest was to be one who, as the repre- sentative of other men, was to be physically as well as lifcurgically perfect. The idea of the perfect body, as symbolizing the holy soul, was, as might be expected, wide-spread among the religions of heathenism. " Sa- cerdos non integri corporis quasi mali ominis res vitanda est" (Seneca, Control: iv, 2). As the victim was to be without blemish, so also was the sacrificer (comp. Biihr, Symbol, vol. ii, ch. ii, § 3). The law specified in broad outlines the excluding defects (Lev. xxi, 17-21), and these were such as impaired the purity, or at least the dignity, of the ministrant. The morbid casuistry of the later rabbins drew up a list of not less than 144 faults or infirmities which involved permanent, and of twenty-two which involved temporary deprivation from the priestly office (Carpzov. App. Crit. p. 92, 93; Ugo- lino, xii, 54 ; xiii, 903) ; and the original symbolism of the principle (Philo, De Vict, and De Monarch ii, 5) was lost in the prurient minuteness which, here as else- where, often makes the studv of rabbinic literature a
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somewhat repulsive task. If the Christian Church has sometimes seemed to approximate, in the conditions it laid down for the priestly character, to the rules of Ju- ■ daism, it was yet careful to reject the Jewish principles, and to resl it- regulations simply on the grounds of j expediency (Constt. Apost. 77. 78). The marriages of the sons of Aaron wire, in like manner, hedged round with special rules. There is, indeed, no evidence for what has sometimes been asserted, thai cither the high- priesl (Philo, De Monarch, ii. 11; ii. 229, ed. Mang.; Ewald, A Itertk. p. 302) or the other sons of Aaron (Ugo- lino, xii, 62) were limited in their choice to the women of their own tribe, and we have some distinct instances to the contrary. It is probable, however, thai the priestly families frequently intermarried, and it is cer- tain that they were forbidden to marry an unchaste woman, or one who had been divorced, or the widow of any but a priest ( Lev. xxi. 7. II: Ezek. xliv, 22). The prohibition of marriage with one of an alien race was assumed, though not enacted in the law ; and hence the reforming zeal of a later time compelled all who had contracted such marriages to put away their strange wives (Ezra x, 18), and counted the offspring of a priest and a woman taken captive in war as illegitimate (Jo- sephus, Ant. iii,10; xi. -1; c. Apion. i. 7), even though the priest himself did nol thereby lose his function (Cgolino, xii, 924). The high-priesl was to carry the same idea to a yet higher point, and was to marry none but a virgin in the firsl freshness of her youth (Lev. xxi. 13). Later casuistry fixed the age within the nar- row limits of twelve and twelve and a half (Carpzov. App. Crit. p. 88). It followed, as a matter of necessi- ty, from these regulations that the legitimacy of every priest depended on his genealogy. A single missing or faulty link would vitiate the whole succession. To those genealogies, accordingly, extending back un- broken for 2000 years, the priests could point, up to the time of the destruction of the Temple (Josephus, c. Apion. i. 7). In later times, wherever the priest migbl live Egj pt, Babylon, (ireeee— he was to send the reg- ister ol all marriages in his family to Jerusalem (ibid.). They could be referred to in any doubtful or disputed case (Ezraii, (>2; Neh.vii, 64). In them was registered the name of every mother as well as of every father (ibid.; comp. also the story already referred to in Sui- das, s. v. '\ijmirr). It was the distinguishing mark of a priest, not of the Aaronic line, that he was airaTUp, AufiTiap, ayevidKoynroc (Heb.vii,3), with no father or mother named as the ground of his title.