RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Priest
4. Exile to New-
dynasty when it fell. After the deportations of 722, 720, and later, the replanted colony asked for
priests of Yahweh to conduct the serv- 3- T e ice of the national religion (II Kings p ^d xv^" ^ S<W-)- Amos (vii. 10 sqq.) and
Hosea (iv. 4-14, vi. 9) give unflattering pictures of the priests of the north. In the southern kingdom Jehoshaphat is said to have appointed priests as judges in Jerusalem and throughout the country (II Chron. xvii. 8, xix. 8-11). The / priesthood supported the dynasty of David in the j time of Athaliah and defended the religion of Yah-' weh against the Phenician Baal worship. The degeneracy of the Jewish priesthood is described by Isaiah and Micah, but on the discovery of the book of the law (622 B.C.; cf. E. Naville, The Discovery of the Book of the Law, London, 1910) the priesthood cooperated with the king in carrying out its provisions (II Kings xxii.-xxiii.). The reform of Josiah abolished idolatry and the worship on the high places, and raised the position of the priesthood of the capital. Jeremiah (viii. 8) has priests in mind when, among other complaints, he declares that the scribes turn the law into lies. The priests were, next to the false prophets, Jeremiah's principal opponents.
Many priests must have returned after the exile (Ezra viii. 2, 24). In the first years after the exile the priests seem to have sunk to a low spiritual
and moral level (Z'eph. hi. 4; Mai. i.
6-ii. 9), and were among those who Testament intermarried with the heathen. Twen- Times. ty-one of these, with the Levites and
heads of the people, signed the covenant of Neh. ix. (Neh. x. 3-9) . The incomes of the priests and the order of the temple service were regulated at that time. Nehemiah energetically suppressed, during his second stay in Jerusalem, renewed attempts of the priests to form alliances with the surrounding peoples and to grant them rights in the temple (Neh. xiii. 4-9, 28-31), a measure which led to the establishment of the Samaritan congregation (Neh. xiii. 28; Josephus, Ant, XI., vii. 2, viii. 2 sqq.). The high priest and his house steadily gained in importance, and the scribes, as interpreters of the law, acquired the real spiritual leadership of the people (see High Priest; Pharisees and Sadducees). Priests abandoned the service of the altar during the Hellenistic period (see Hellenism), to view the gymnastic exercises (II Mac. iv. 14). On the other hand, the Maccabees (see Hasmoneans) came of a priestly family. As a consequence of the Maccabean victory the old highpriestly aristocracy was compelled to retire, but found in the newly established temple of Leontopolis (q.v.) in Egypt an opportunity for priestly activity. The high regard in which the priesthood was held by the pious in this and the subsequent period may be inferred from the Book of Jubilees and the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (see Pseudepigrapha, IV., 33, III. 23) in their glorification of Levi. John the Baptist was the son of a priest (Luke i. 5 sqq.), and Josephus came of a priestly family.
3. Organization: The historical data concerning the organization of the priesthood are scanty.
It is probable that there were higher and low*™ grades of temple attendants from the beginning.
1 Ea k The Canaanites were probably employed and Grades. m mcmal services about the sanctuary '(Josephus, Ant., IX., xxi. sqq.). Foreigners served in the temple up to the time of the exile, and formed racial associations and are called nethinim, "gifts," in the lists of the returned exiles. Toward the close of the regal period there was at the head of the Jerusalem priesthood a " high priest " and a " chief priest," and three doorkeepers (II Kings xxiii. 4, xxv. 18). All this is independent of the question of the relative rank of priests and Levites, which had become acute under the reform of Josiah. Deuteronomy distinguishes between regular priests in service and the solitary Levite in a country town, who occupied the position of a ger ("stranger," q.v.; see also Proselyte) and depended upon charity for his subsistence. The Levite had the right to act as priest at the central sanctuary, but it is uncertain what rank he would take there and whether he might remain permanently or must return to his home. This was a question which did not interest the Deuteronomist. During the exile, Ezekiel drafted his proposals for the reorganization of the temple service, among which was that the priests who had served idols on the high places were as a punishment to do the work formerly performed by the foreigners in the temple (Ezek. xliv. 10 sqq.). His program did not create the distinction between superior and inferior temple attendants, or between the aristocratic Zaaokites and the humbler Levites of the country; but he established the terminology, and " Levites " was thenceforward the designation of the subordinate temple attendants. Developments, however, did not follow Ezekiel's ideals. The lists of the returned exiles show that those who could not give evidence of priestly descent were excluded from the temple service, that not a few must have attained the priesthood from families outside Jerusalem, and that the distinction between priests and Levites had been established in Palestine as well as in Baby^ Ionia. In the priest code the Levites take a prom, inent position, but are subordinate to the priests. Theoretically they are the substitutes for the whole community in place of the first-born that belonged to Yahweh and as such are " given " to the priests (Num. iii. 9, viii. 19, xviii. 6). The older opposition between the priestly tribe of Levi and the other tribes appears in P, especially in Num. xvi.xvii. The proportion of priests and Levites given in P, one to 11,000, at no time corresponded in the remotest degree with the facts. P is the representation of an ideal theocracy such as was supposed actually to have existed in the time of Moses. Ezra's reform sought to realize a holy community in accordance with the ideas expressed in P.
A more elaborate distribution of the priests into classes gradually arose out of the preexilic organization into families. There were four classes or families on the return from the exile, those of Joshua (the high-priestly family), Immer, Pashur, and Harim (Ezra ii. 36-39). There was an attempt to connect the post-exilic with the preexilic families. According to rabbinical tradition the
Priest