IV.II.2. With the commencement of the monarchical period the priests forthwith begin to come into greater prominence along with the kings; the advance in centralisation and in publicity of life makes itself noticeable also in the department of worship. At the beginning of Saul's reign we find the distinguished Ephraimitic priesthood, the house of Eli, no longer at Shiloh, but at Nob, in the vicinity of the king, and to a certain degree in league with him; for their head, Ahijah the priest, is in immediate attendance on him when arms are first raised against the Phiiistines, shares the danger with him, and consults the ephod on his behalf. Subsequently the entente cordiale was disturbed, Ahijah and his brethren fell a sacrifice to the king's jealousy, and thus the solitary instance of an independent and considerable priesthood to be met with in the old history of Israel came for ever to an end. Abiathar, who alone escaped the massacre of Nob (1Samuel xxii.), fled with the ephod to David, for which he was rewarded afterwards with high honours, but all that he became he became as servant of David. Under David the regius priesthood began to grow towards the importance which it from that time forward had. This king exercised unfettered control over the sanctuary of the ark which stood in his citadel, as also over the appointment of the priests, who were merely his officials. Alongside of Abiathar he placed Zadok (and subsequently Ira also), as well as some of his own sons. For when it is stated in 2Sam. viii. 18 that the sons of David were priests, the words must not out of regard to the Pentateuch be twisted so as to mean something different from what they say. We also (1Kings iv. 5) find the son of the prophet Nathan figuring as a priest, and on the other hand the son of Zadok holding a high secular office (ver. 2); even at this date the line of demarcation afterwards drawn between holy and non-holy persons has no existence. What under David was still wanting to the institution of the royal worship and the regius priests—a fixed centre—was added by the erection of the temple under his successor. At the beginning of Solomon's reign there was still no ISRAELITE place of sacrifice such as sufficed for the greater contingencies; he was compelled to celebrate his accession at the great Bamah at Gibeon, a town in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, which, although it had been subjugated for a considerable time, was still entirely Canaanite. He now took care to make it possible that his colossal festivals should be celebrated at his own sanctuary. And next he made Zadok its priest after having previously deposed and relegated to his patrimonial property at Anathoth, a village adjoining Jerusalem, the aged Abiathar, a man of pure and honourable priestly descent, on account of the support he had given to the legitimate heir to the crown, thereby bringing to pass the fate with which the once so proud and powerful family of Eli had in 1Samuel ii. been threatened. Doubtless other priests also by degrees attached themselves to the family of Zadok, and ultimately came even to call themselves his sons, just as the Rechabites regarded Jonathan ben Rechab, or the "children of the prophets" one or other of the great prophets, as their father.

Regarding their sanctuaries as their own private property, precisely as Micah does in the classical instance recorded in Judges xvii., xviii., and proceeding quite untrammelled in the appointment and removal of the officials employed, neither do these early kings hesitate in the least to exercise personally the rights which had emanated from themselves, and been delegated to others. Of Saul, who indeed was in the habit of delegating but seldom, and of doing with his own hand all that required to be done, it is several times mentioned that he sacrificed in person; and it is clear that this is not brought as a charge against him in 1Samuel xiv. and xv. David sacrificed on the occasion of his having successfully brought the ark to Jerusalem; that it was he himself who officiated appears from the fact that he wore the priestly ephod—the ephod bad—and at the close of the offering pronounced the benediction (2Samuel vi. 14, 18). In the same way was the consecration of the temple conducted by Solomon; it was he who went before the altar, and after praying there upon his knees with outstretched arms, rose and blessed the people (1Kings viii. 22, 54, 53),—doubtless also it was he who with his own hands offered the first sacrifice. The priests' technical skill is necessary only for inquiring of the oracle before the ephod (1Samuel xiv. 18).

IV.II.3. These beginnings are continued in the history of the priesthood after the division of the kingdom. Jeroboam I., the founder of the kingdom of Israel, is treated by the historian as the founder also of Israel's worship in so far as the latter differed from the Judaean ideal: "he made the two calves of gold, and set them up at Bethel and at Dan; he made the Bamoth-houses and made priests from the mass of the people, who were not of the sons of Levi, and ordained a feast in the eighth month and ascended to the altar to burn incense" (1Kings xii. 28 seq., xiii. 33). Here indeed after the well-known manner of pious pragmatism retrospective validity is given to the Deuteronomic law which did not come into force until three centuries afterwards, and judgment is thus passed in accordance with a historically inadmissable standard; moreover, the facts on which the judgment is based are on the one hand too much generalised, and on the other hand laid too exclusively to the charge of Jeroboam. The first king bears the weight of all the sins in worship of all his successors and of the whole body of the people. But the recognition of the sovereign priesthood of the ruler, of the formative influence which he exercised over the worship, is just. The most important temples were royal ones, and the priests who attended at them were the king's priests (Amos vii. 10 seq.). When therefore Jehu overthrew the house of Ahab, he did not extirpate all its members merely, and its officials and courtiers, but also its priests as well; they too were servants of the crown and in positions of trust (2Kings x. 11I; comp. 1Kings iv. 5). The statement that they were chosen at the pleasure of the king is therefore to be taken as implying that, as in David's and Solomon's time, so also later they could and might be chosen at pleasure; on the other hand, in point of fact the sacred office, in Dan at least, continued from the period of the Judges down to the Assyrian deportation hereditary in the family of Jonathan. One must, moreover, avoid imagining that all the "houses of the high places" and all the priestly posts /1/ belonged to the king; it was impossible that the

******************************************** 1. The parallelism between "Bamoth-houses" and a priestly appointment in 1Kings xii. 31 seems not to be casual merely. Whilst a Bamah may be a simple altar, a "Bamoth-house" presupposes a divine image, and renders an aedituus necessary. ********************************************

government should be so all-pervading in such matters. At this period most of the sanctuaries were public, but not therefore as yet on that account royal, and so also doubtless there were numerous priests who were not servants of the king. The preponderance of official cultus and of an official personnel to carry it on was counteracted in the northern kingdom by the frequent dynastic changes and the unattached particularism of the separate tribes; the conditions may be presumed to have developed themselves with great variety and freedom, hereditary and unhereditary priests, priests with independent benefices and others in complete poverty, subsisting side by side; the variety and the equality of rights enjoyed by all is the distinguishing mark of the time.

Speaking generally, however, the priesthood has distinctly consolidated itself as compared with its former condition, and gained not a little alike in number and in influence; it has become an important power in public life, without which the nation cannot be imagined. It would perhaps be somewhat bold to assert this on the strength merely of the brief and inadequate indications in the Book of Kings, which is chiefly interested in the extraordinary interventions of the prophets in the course of Israel's history, but other and more authentic testimonies justify us in doing so. First of these is the Blessing of Moses, an independent document of northern Israel which speaks for itself. Here we read: "Thy Thummim and thy Urim belong to the man of thy friendship, whom thou didst prove at Massah, for whom thou didst strive at the waters of Meribah; who saith of father and mother, I have never seen them, and acknowledgeth not his brethren nor knoweth his own children— for they observe thy word and keep thy covenant, they teach Jacob thy judgments and Israel thy law; they bring savour of fat before thee and whole burnt sacrifice upon thine altar; bless, O Lord, his strength, and accept the work of his hands; smite through the loins of them that rise up against him, and of them that hate him that they rise not again" (Deuteronomy xxxiii. 8-11). In this passage the priests appear as a strictly close corporation, so close that they are mentioned only exceptionally in the plural number, and for the most part are spoken of collectively in the singular, as an organic unity which embraces not merely the contemporary members, but also their ancestors, and which begins its life with Moses, the friend of Jehovah who as its beginning is identified with the continuation just as the man is identified with the child out of which he has grown. The history of Moses is at the same time the history of the priests, the Urim and Thummim belong—one is not quite sure to which, but it comes to the same thing; every priest to whom the care of an ephod has been intrusted interrogates before it the sacred oracle. The first relative clause relating to Moses passes over without change of subject into one that refers to the priests, so that the singular immediately falls into plural and the plural back to the singular. Yet this so strongly marked solidarity of the priesthood as a profession rests by no means upon the natural basis of family or clan unity; it is not blood, but on the contrary the abnegation of blood that constitutes the priest, as is brought out with great emphasis. He must act for Jehovah's sake as if he had neither father nor mother, neither brethren nor children. Blind prepossession in people's conceptions of Judaism has hitherto prevented the understanding of these words, but they are thoroughly unambiguous. What they say is, that in consecrating himself to the service of Jehovah a man abandons his natural relationships, and severs himself from family ties; thus, with the brotherhood of the priests in northern Israel the case is precisely similar as with that of the religious guilds of the sons of the prophets—the Rechabites, and doubtless too the Nazarites (Amos ii. 11 seq.)—also native there. Whosoever chose (or, whomsoever he chose) was made priest by Jeroboam—such is the expression of the Deuteronomic redactor of the Book of Kings (1Kings xiii. 33). A historical example of what has been said is afforded by the young Samuel, as he figures in the narrative of his early years contained in 1Samuel i.-iii.—a narrative which certainly reflects the condition of things in Ephraim at the period of the monarchy. The child of a well-to-do middle class family at Ramah, in the district of Zuph Ephraim, he is even before his birth vowed to Jehovah by his mother, and as soon as possible afterwards is handed over to the sanctuary at Shiloh,—not to become a Nazarite or one of the Nethinim in the sense of the Pentateuch, but to be a priest,—for in his ministry he wears the linen ephod, the ephod bad, and even the pallium (1Samuel ii. 18) /1/ And it is made very plain that

*********************************************** 1. Comp. Koran, iii. 31: "I vow to thee that which is in my womb as a devotee of the mosque, to serve it." *[pallium. "1.Antiq. A large rectangular cloak or mantle worn by men' chiefly among the Greeks; esp. by philosophers and by early Christian ascetics...Himation...2.Eccl. A vestment of wool worn by patriarchs and metropolitans... SOED. Heb. m(yl q+n ii.19?]* **********************************************

the mother's act, in thus giving up her son, who is properly hers, or (as she expresses it) lending him to Jehovah for ever (1Samuel i. 28: MW)L=MW)L), is regarded as a renunciation of family rights. The circumstance that it is by the parents and not by Samuel himself that the consecration is made makes no material difference; the one thing is on the same plane with the other, and doubtless occurred as well as the other, although seldomer. But, on the other hand, it can hardly have been the rule that any one should abandon not parents and brethren merely, but also wife and children as well in order to enter the priesthood; in Deuteronomy xxxiii. 9 this is adduced only as an extreme instance of the spirit of self-sacrifice. In any case it is not to be inferred that celibacy was demanded, but only that the priestly office was often barely sufficient to support the man, not to speak of a family.

So fixed and influential, so independent and exclusive had the priesthood become at the date of the composition of the Blessing of Moses, that it takes a place of its own alongside of the tribes of the nation, is itself a tribe, constituted, however, not by blood, but by community of spiritual interests. Its importance is brought into clearness even by the opposition which it encounters, and which occasions so vigorous a denunciation of its enemies that one might well believe the person who committed it to writing to have been himself a priest. The cause of the hostility is not stated, but it seems to be directed simply against the very existence of a professional and firmly organised clergy, and to proceed from laymen who hold fast by the rights of the old priestless days.

Next to the Blessing of Moses the discourses of Hosea contain our most important materials for an estimate of the priesthood of Northern Israel. How important that institution was for public life is clear from his expressions also. The priests are the spiritual leaders of the people; the reproach that they do not fulfil their high vocation proves in the first place that they have it. Degenerate they are, to be sure; in Hosea's representation they are seen in the same light as that in which the sons of Eli appear as described in 1Samuel ii. 22 seq., from which description one conjectures the author to have derived his colours from a state of matters nearer his own day than the period of the judges. The priests of Shechem are even taxed by the prophet with open highway robbery (vi. 9), and in one charge after another he accuses them of taking advantage of their office for base gain, of neglecting its most sacred duties, and in this way having the principal blame for the ruin of the people. "Hear the word of Jehovah, ye children of Israel, for the Lord hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. (2.) There is swearing, and Iying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery; they use violence and add murder to murder. (3.) Therefore the land mourneth, and every creature that dwelleth therein languisheth, even to the wild beasts of the field and the fowls of heaven; and even the fishes of the sea are taken away. (4.) Yet let no man strive and no man reprove; for the people do just as their priests. (5.) Therefore shall ye (priests) stumble on that day, and also the prophets with you on that night; and I will destroy your kin. (6.) My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge, because ye yourselves reject knowledge; I will therefore reject you that ye shall be no longer priests unto me; ye have forgotten the doctrine of your God, so will I forget your children. (7.) The more they are, the more they sin against me; their glory they turn into shame. (8.) They eat up the sin of my people, and they set their heart on their iniquity. (9.) And it shall be as with the people so with the priest; I will punish them for their ways and requite them for their doings. (10.) They shall eat and not have enough, they shall commit whoredom and shall not increase, because they have ceased to take heed to the Lord" (Hosea iv. 1-10). /1/

********************************************** 1. In the introductory words the people are invited to hear what it is that Jehovah complains of them for; sin prevails to such an extent that the complete ruin of the country is inevitable (vers. 1-3). With the word "yet" at the beginning of the following verse the prophet changes the course of his thought; from the people he passes to the priests; the root of the general corruption is the want of divine knowledge (the knowledge, namely, that "I will have mercy and not sacrifice; "compare Jeremiah xxii. 16), and for this the priests are to blame, whose task it was to diffuse "knowledge," but who, instead of this for their own selfish interests fostered the tendency of the people to seek Jehovah's grace by sacrifice rather than by righteousness. For if it be conceded that it is the priests who are addressed from ver. 6 onwards, then it is not easy to see why a change in the address should take place between ver. 5 and ver. 6, especially as the co-ordination of priests with prophets seems more reasonable in ver. 5 than that of prophets and people. As ver. 4 in this way occupies an intermediate position between the complaint made against the people in vers. 1-3, and that against the priests in vers. 5-10, the transition from the one to the other, indicated by the "yet," must occur in it. Hosea abruptly breaks off from reproaching the people, "Yet let no man strive and no man reprove"—why not, the words that follow must explain. In verse 4b some circumstance must be mentioned which excuses the people, and at the same time draws down indignation upon the priests who are the subjects of the following. These considerations necessarily determine the thought which we are to expect, namely, this—"for the people do just as their priests." This meaning is obtained by the conjectural reading W(MY KKMRYW instead of W(MKKMRYB. Comp. ver. 9. The remaining YKH must be deleted. The ordinary view of ver. 4 is hardly worth refuting. The )L YWKH, it is said, is spoken from the people's point of view. The people repel the prophet's reproach and rebuke, because (such is the interpretation of ver. 4b) they themselves have no scruples in striving EVEN with the priest. "Even," for want of subjection to the priests is held to be specially wicked. But the prophet Hosea would hardly have considered it a capital offence if the people had withheld from the priests the respect of which, according to his own language, they were so utterly unworthy. Moreover, every exegesis which finds in ver. 4 a reproach brought against the people, leaves in obscurity the point at which the transition is made from reproach of the people to reproach of the priests. ***********************************************

In the northern kingdom, according to this, the spiritual ascendancy of the priests over the people seems hardly to have been less than that of the prophets, and if in the history we hear less about it, /1/ the explanation is to be sought in the

******************************************** 1. According to 2Kings xvii. 27, 28, the foreign colonies introduced by the Assyrians into Samaria after it had been depopulated, were at first devoured by lions because they were ignorant of the right way of honouring the deity of the land. Esarhaddon therefore sent one of the exiled Samaritan priests, who fixed his abode at Bethel, the ancient chief sanctuary, and instructed (MWRH) the settlers in the religion of the god of the country. This presupposes a definite priesthood, which maintained itself even in exile for a considerable time. *******************************************

fact that they laboured quietly and regularly in limited circles, taking no part in politics, and fully submissive to the established order, and that for this reason they attracted less notice and were less talked about than the prophets who, like Elijah and Elisha, stirred up Israel by their extraordinary and oppositional action.

IV.II.4. In Judah the nucleus of the development was the same as in Israel. The idea that in Judah the genuine Mosaic priesthood had by the grace of God been maintained, while in Israel, on the other hand, a schismatic priesthood had intruded itself by the favour of the king and man's device, is that of the later Judaeans who had the last word, and were therefore of course in the right. The B'ne Zadok of Jerusalem as contrasted with the B'ne Eli whom they superseded were originally illegitimate (if one may venture to apply a conception which at that time was quite unknown), and did not inherit their right from the fathers, but had it from David and Solomon. They always remained in this dependent condition, they at all times walked, as 1Samuel ii. 35 has it, "before Jehovah's anointed," as his servants and officers. To the kings the temple was a part of their palace which, as is shown by 1Kings vii. and 2Kings xi., stood upon the same hill and was contiguous with it; they placed their threshold alongside of that of Jehovah, and made their door-posts adjoin to His, so that only the wall intervened between Jehovah and them (Ezekiel xliii. 8). They shaped the official cultus entirely as they chose, and regarded the management of it, at least so far as one gathers from the epitome of the "Book of the Kings," as the main business of their government. They introduced new usages and abolished old ones; and as they did so the priests always bent to their will and were merely their executive organs. /1/ That they were at

******************************************* 1. Compare for example 2Kings xii. 5 seq. (Joash and Jehoiada), xvi. 10 seq. Ahaz and Urijah), and, finally, chap. xxii. (Josiah and Hilkiah). ******************************************

liberty to offer sacrifice also is a thing of course; they did it, however, only on exceptional occasions, such as, perhaps, at the dedication of a new altar (2Kings xvi. 12, 13). Even with Jeremiah, who as a rule does not consider sacrifice and drawing near to Jehovah (Numbers xvi 5) as every man's business, the king as such is held to be also the supreme priest; for at the beginning of the exile and the foreign domination his hope for the future is: "Their potentate shall be of themselves, and their governor shall proceed from the midst of them, and I will cause him to draw near, and he shall approach unto me; for who else should have the courage to approach unto me? saith the Lord" (xxx. 21). Ezekiel is the first to protest against dealing with the temple as a royal dependency; for him the prerogative of the prince is reduced to this, that it is his duty to support the public cultus at his own expense.

The distinction between the Judaean and the Israelite priesthood did not exist at first, but arose out of the course of events. The sheltered and quiet life of the little state in the south presents a marked contrast with the external and internal conflicts, the easily raised turmoil, of the northern kingdom. In the latter, the continual agitation brought extraordinary personalities up to the surface; in the former, institutions based upon the permanent order of things and supported by permanent powers were consolidated./1/

************************************************* 1. The Rechabites, who arose in the northern kingdom, continued to subsist in Judah, and Jeremiah prophesied to them that there should never fail them a priestly head of the family of their founder (xxxv. 19). **************************************************

Naturally the monarchy itself benefited most by this stability. The king's cultus, which in the kingdom of Samaria was in no position to supersede the popular and independent worship, easily obtained a perceptible preponderance in the smaller Judah; the king's priesthood, which in the former was incidentally involved in disaster by the overthrow of the dynasty, in the latter gained in strength side by side with the house of David—even Aaron and Amminadab were according to the Priestly Code related to the royal family, as Jehoiada and Ahaziah were in actual fact. Thus at an early period was the way paved for the Act of Uniformity by which Josiah made the king's cultus the official and the only one. One effect which accompanied the measures he took was naturally the exclusive legitimation of the king's priesthood at Jerusalem. But the principle of heredity had already pervaded the other priestly families so thoroughly that to enter any secular calling was nowhere expected of them. The Deuteronomic legislator had conferred upon them the right of carrying on their office at Jerusalem, and of executing it there on behalf of any one who requested their services; but this regulation, from the opposition of the B'ne Zadok, was found on the whole impracticable (2Kings xxiii. 9), although doubtless some extraneous elements may at that time have succeeded in making their way into the temple nobility. The bulk of the priests of the high places who had been superseded had to content themselves (since they could not now get rid of their spiritual character) with being degraded among their brethren at Jerusalem, and with admission to a subordinate share in the service of the sanctuary (comp. 1Samuel ii. 36). It was thus, at the close of the pre-exilic history, that the distinction between priests and Levites arose to which Ezekiel is at pains to give the sanction of law.



IV.III.

IV.III.1. On the whole it is easy here to bring the successive strata of the Pentateuch into co-ordination with the recognisable steps of the historical development. In the Jehovistic legislation there is no word of priests (Exodus xx.-xxiii., xxxiv.), and even such precepts as "Thou shalt not go up by steps unto mine altar, that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon " (Exodus xx. 26) are directed to the general "thou," that is, to the people. With this corresponds the fact that in the solemn ratification of the covenant of Sinai (Exodus xxiv. 3-8), it is young men of the children of Israel who officiate as sacrificers. Elsewhere in the Jehovist Aaron (Exodus iv. 14, xxxii. 1 seq.) and Moses (xxxiii. 7-lI; Deuteronomy xxxiii. 8) figure as the founders of the clerical order. Twice (in Exodus xix. 22 and xxxii 29) mention is made of other priests besides; but Exodus xxxii. 29 rests upon Deuteronomy, and even Exodus xix. 22 can hardly have been an original constituent of one of the Jehovistic sources.

IV.III.2. In Deuteronomy the priests, as compared with the judges and the prophets, take a very prominent position (xvi. 18-xviii. 22) and constitute a clerical order, hereditary in numerous families, whose privilege is uncontested and therefore also does not require protection. Here now for the first time begins the regular use of the name of Levites for the priests,—a name of which the consideration has been postponed until now.

In the pre-exilic literature apart from the Pentateuch it occurs very seldom. First in the prophets, once in the Book of Jeremiah (xxxiii. 17-22), in a passage which in any case is later than the capture of Jerusalem by the Chaldaeans, and certainly was not written by Jeremiah. /1/ The use of the name is an

********************************************** 1. In the LXX, chap. xxxiii. 14-26 is wanting. The parallelism between vers. 17-22 and 23-26 is striking. It looks as if David and Levi arose out of a misunderstanding of the families mentioned in ver. 24, namely, Judah and Ephraim. In any case wdwd in ver. 26 is an interpolation. ************************************************

established thing in Ezekiel (573 B.C.), and henceforward occurs without interruption in the writings of the later prophets, a sign that its earlier absence is not to be explained as accidental, not even in Jeremiah, who speaks so frequently of the priests. /2/

******************************************** 1. Ezekiel xl. 46, xliii. 19, xliv. 10, 15, xlv. 5, xlviii. 11-13, 22, 31; Isaiah lxvi. 21; Zechariah xii. 13; Malachi ii. 4, 8, iii. 3. *******************************************

In the historical books the Levites (leaving out of account 1Samuel vi. 15, 2Samuel xv. 24, and 1Kings viii. 4, xii. 31) /1/

********************************************** 1. Upon 1Samuel vi. 15 all that is necessary has been said at IV.II.1; on 1Kings viii. 4 see. I.III.1. That 1Kings xii. 31 proceeds from the Deuteronomic redactor, the date of whose writing is not earlier than the second half of the exile, needs no proof. The hopeless corruptness of 2Samuel xv. 24 I have shown in Text. d. BB. Sam. (Goettingen, 1871). ******************************************

occur only in the two appendices to the Book of Judges (chaps. xvii., xviii., and xix., xx.), of which, however, the second is unhistorical and late, and only the first is certainly pre-exilic. But in this case it is not the Levites who are spoken of, as elsewhere, but A LEVITE, who passes for a great rarity, and who is forcibly carried off by the tribe of Dan, which has none.

Now this Jonathan, the ancestor of the priests of Dan, notwithstanding that he belongs to the tribe of Judah, is represented as a descendant of Gershom the son of Moses (Judges xviii. 30). The other ancient priestly family that goes back to the period of the Judges, the Ephraimitic, of Shiloh, appears also to be brought into connection with Moses; at least in 1Samuel ii. 27 (a passage, however, which is certainly post-Deuteronomic), where Jehovah is spoken of as having made himself known to the ancestors of Eli in Egypt, and as thereby having laid the foundation for the bestowal of the priesthood, it is clearly Moses who is thought of as the recipient of the revelation. Historical probability admits of the family being traced back to Phinehas, who during the early period of the judges was priest of the ark, and from whom the inheritance on Mount Ephraim and also the second son of Eli were named; it is not to be supposed that he is the mere shadow of his younger namesake, as the latter predeceased his father and was of quite secondary importance beside him. But Phinehas is both in the Priestly Code and in Josh. xxiv. 33 (E) the son of Eleazar, and Eleazar is, according to normal tradition, indeed a son of Aaron, but according to the sound of his name (Eliezer) a son of Moses along with Gershom. Between Aaron and Moses in the Jehovistic portion of the Pentateuch no great distinction is made; if Aaron, in contradistinction from his brother, is characterised as THE LEVITE (Exodus iv. 14), Moses on the other hand bears the priestly staff, is over the sanctuary, and has Joshua to assist him as Eli had Samuel (Exodus xxxiii. 7-11). Plainly the older claims are his; in the main Jehovistic source, in J, Aaron originally does not occur at all, /2/ neither

************************************** 1. That Aaron was not originally present in J, but owed his introduction to tile redactor who combined J nnd E together into JE, can be shown best from Exod vii. x. For Jehovah's COMMAND to appear before Pharaoh is in J given to Moses alone (vii. 14, 26 [viii. 1], viii. 16 [20], ix. 1, 13, x. 1); it is only in the sequel that Aaron appears along with him four times, always when Pharaoh in distress summons Moses and Aaron in order to ask their intercession. But strangely enough Aaron is afterwards completely ignored again; Moses alone makes answer, speaking solely in his own name and not in Aaron's also (viii. 5, 22, 25 [9, 26, 29]; ix. 29), and although he has not come alone ; he goes so and makes his prayer in the singular (viii. 8, 26 [12, 30], ix. 33, x. 18), the change of the number in x. 17 is under these circumstances suspicious enough. It appears as if the Jehovistic editor had held Aaron's presence to be appropriate precisely at the intercession. ***********************************

is he mentioned in Deuteronomy xxxiii. 8. In the genealogies of the Priestly Code one main branch of the tribe of Levi is still called, like the eldest son of Moses, Gershom, and another important member is actually called Mushi, 2:e., the Mosaite.

It is not impossible that the holy office may have continued in the family of Moses, and it is very likely that the two oldest houses in which it was hereditary, those at Dan and at Shiloh, may have claimed in all seriousness to have been descended from him. Afterwards, as Deuteronomy xxxiii. 8 seq. informs us, all priests honoured Moses as their father, not as being the head of their clan but as being the founder of their order. The same took place in Judah, but there the clerical guild ultimately acquired a hereditary character, and the order became a sort of clan. Levite, previously an official name, now became a patronymic at the same time, and all the Levites together formed a blood-kinship, /1/

********************************************** 1. The instance of the Rechabites shows how easily the transition could made. **********************************************

a race which had not received any land of its own indeed, but in compensation had obtained the priesthood for its heritage. This hereditary clergy was alleged to have existed from the very beginning of the history of Israel, and even then as a numerous body, consisting of many others besides Moses and Aaron. Such is the representation made by Deuteronomist and subsequent writers, but in Deuteronomy we read chiefly of the Levites in the provincial towns of Judah and of the priests, the Levites in Jerusalem, seldom of Levi as a whole (x. 8 seq., xviii. 1) /2/

************************************************ 2. On Deut xxvii. compare Kuenen, Theol. Tidjdschr., 1878, p. 297. ***********************************************

That the hereditary character of the priesthood is here antedated and really first arose in the later period of the Kings, has already been shown in the particular instance of the sons of Zadok of Jerusalem, who were at first parvenus and afterwards became the most legitimate of the legitimate. But it is very remarkable how this artificial construction of a priestly family,—a construction which has absolutely nothing perplexing in itself— was suggested and favoured by the circumstance that in remote antiquity there once actually did exist a veritable tribe of Levi which had already disappeared before the period of the rise of the monarchy. This tribe belonged to the group of the four oldest sons of Leah,—Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah,—who are always enumerated together in this order, and who settled on both sides of the Dead Sea, towards the wilderness. Singularly no one of them succeeded in holding its own except Judah; all the others became absorbed among the inhabitants of the wilderness or in other branches of their kindred. The earliest to find this destiny were the two tribes of Simeon and Levi (in Genesis xlix. regarded as one), in consequence of a catastrophe which must have befallen them at some time during the period of the judges. "Simeon and Levi are brethren, their shepherds' staves are weapons of slaughter; O my soul, come not thou into their assembly! mine honour, be thou far from their band! for they slew men in their anger, and in their self-will they houghed oxen; cursed be their anger—so fierce! and their wrath—so cruel! I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them over Israel!" (Genesis xlix.5-7). The offence of Simeon and Levi here rebuked cannot have been committed against Israelites, for in such a case the thought could not have occurred, which is here emphatically repelled, that Jacob, that is to say, Israel as a whole, could have made common cause with them. What is here spoken of must be some crime against the Canaanites, very probably the identical crime which is charged upon the two brothers in Genesis xxxiv., and which there also Jacob (ver. 30) repudiates,—the treacherous attack upon Shechem and massacre of its inhabitants, in disregard of the treaty which had been made. In Judges ix. it is related that Shechem, until then a flourishing town of the Canaanites, with whom moreover Israelite elements were already beginning to blend, was conquered and destroyed by Abimelech, but it is quite impossible to bring into any connection with this the violent deed of Simeon and Levi, which must have taken place earlier, although also within the period of the judges. The consequences of their act, the vengeance of the Canaanites, the two tribes had to bear alone; Israel, according to the indication given in Genesis xlix. 6, xxxiv. 30, did not feel any call to interfere on their behalf or make common cause with them. Thus they fell to pieces and passed out of sight,—in the opinion of their own nation a just fate. In the historical books they are never again mentioned.

It is quite impossible to regard this Levi of the Book of Genesis as a mere shadow of the caste which towards the end of the monarchy arose out of the separate priestly families of Judah. The utterance given in Genesis xlix. 5-7 puts the brothers on an exact equality, and assigns to them an extremely secular and blood-thirsty character. There is not the faintest idea of Levi's sacred calling or of his dispersion as being conditioned thereby; the dispersion is a curse and no blessing, an annihilation and no establishment of his special character. But it is equally an impossibility to derive the caste from the tribe; there is no real connection between the two, all the intermediate links are wanting; the tribe succumbed at an early date, and the rise of the caste was very late, and demonstrably from unconnected beginnings. But in these circumstances the coincidence of name is also very puzzling: Levi the third son of Jacob, perhaps a mere patronymic derived form his mother Leah, and levi the official priest. If it were practicable to find a convincing derivation of levi in its later use from the appellative meaning of the root, then one might believe the coincidence to be merley fortuitous, but it is impossible to do so. the solution therefore has been suggested that the violent dissolution of the tribe in the period of the judges led the individual Levites, who now were landless, to seek their maintenance by the exercise of sacrificial functions; this lay to their hand and was successful because Moses them an of God had belonged to their number and had transmitted to them by hereditary succession a certain preferential claim to the sacred office. But at that time priestly posts were not numerous, and such an entrance of the levites en masse into the service of Jehovah in that early time is in view of the infrequency of the larger sanctuaries a very difficult assumption. It is perhaps correct to say that Moses actually was descended from Levi, and that the later significance of the name Levite is to be explained by reference to him. In point of fact, the name does appear to have been given in the first instance only to the descendants of Moses, and not to have been transferred until a later period to those priests as a body, who were quite unconnected with him by blood, but who all desired to stand related to him as their head. Here it will never be possible to get beyond conjecture.

IV.III.3 While the clerical tribe of the Levites is still brought forward only modestly in Deuteronomy (x. 8 seq. xviii. 1; Joshua xiii. 14, 33), it is dealt with in very real earnest in the Priestly Code. The tribe of Levi (Numbers i. 47, 49, iii. 6, xvii. 3, xviii. 2) is given over by the remaining tribes to the sanctuary, is catalogued according to the genealogical system of its families, reckons 22,000 male members, and even receives a sort of tribal territory, the forty-eight Levitical cities (Josh. xxi.). At the beginning of this chapter we have already spoken of a forward step made in the Priestly Code, connected with this enlargement of the clergy, but of much greater importance; hitherto the distinction has been between clergy and laity, while here there is introduced the great division of the order itself into sons of Aaron and Levites. Not in Deuteronomy only, but everywhere in the Old Testament, apart from Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles, Levite is the priest's title of honour. /1/ Aaron himself is so styled in the

************************************************ 1. Exodus iv. 14; Deuteronomy xxxiii. 8; Judges xvii. seq.; Exodus xxxii. 26-28; Deuteronomy x. 8 seq., xii. 12, 18 seq. xiv. 27, 29, xvi. 11, 14, xvii. 9, 18, xviii. 1-8, xxiv. 8, xxvii. 9, 14, xxxi. 9, 25; Joshua iii. 3,xiii. 14, 33, xiv. 3 seq., xviii. 7; Judges xix. seq., 1Samuel v1. 15; 1Kings xii. 31, Jeremiah xxxiii 17-22; Ezekiel xliv. 8 seq.; Isaiah lxvi. 2, Zechariah xii. 13, Malachi Ii. 4, 8, iii. 3. Only the glosses 2Samuel xv. 24, and 1Kings viii. 4 (compare, however, 2Chronicles v. 5) can rest upon the Priestly Code. ********************************************

often-quoted passage, Exodus iv. 14, and that too to denote his calling, not his family, for the latter he has in common with Moses, from whom, nevertheless, it is intended to distinguish him by the style, "thy brother the Levite." In Deuteronomy we are struck by the deliberate emphasis laid on the equal right of all the Levites to sacrificial service in Jerusalem— "The priests, the Levites, the whole tribe of Levi, shall have no portion or inheritance with Israel; they shall eat the offerings of Jehovah and his inheritance....And if a Levite come from any of thy cities out of all Israel, where he sojourned, and come to the place which Jehovah shall choose, then he shall minister in the name of Jehovah his God as all his brethren the Levites do who stand there before Jehovah" (Deuteronomy xviii. 1, 6, 7). Here the legislator has in view his main enactment, viz., the abolition of all places of worship except the temple of Solomon; those who had hitherto been the priests of these could not be allowed to starve. Therefore it is that he impresses it so often and so earnestly on the people of the provinces that in their sacrificial pilgrimages to Jerusalem they ought not to forget the Levite of their native place, but should carry him with them. For an understanding of the subsequent development this is very important, in so far as it shows how the position of the Levites outside of Jerusalem was threatened by the centralisation of the worship. In point of fact, the good intention of the Deuteronomist proved impossible of realisation; with the high places fell also the priests of the high places. In so far as they continued to have any part at all in the sacred service, they had to accept a position of subordination under the sons of Zadok (2Kings xxiii. 9). Perhaps Graf was correct in referring to this the prophecy of 1Samuel ii. 36 according to which the descendants of the fallen house of Eli are to come to the firmly established regius priest, to beg for an alms, or to say, "Put me, I pray thee, into one of the priests' offices, that I may eat a piece of bread:" that historically the deposed Levites had no very intimate connection with those ancient companions in misfortune is no serious objection to such an interpretation in the case of a post-Deuteronomic writer. In this way arose as an illegal consequence of Josiah's reformation, the distinction between priests and Levites. With Ezekiel this distinction is still an innovation requiring justification and sanction; with the Priestly Code it is a "statute for ever," although even yet not absolutely undisputed, as appears from the Priestly version of the story of Korah's company. /1/ For all Judaism subsequent to Ezra, and so for

*********************************************** 1. Distorted references to the historical truth are round also in Numbers xvii. 25 and xviii. 23, passages which are unintelligible apart from Ezekiel xliv. Compare Kuenen, Theol. Tijdschr., 1878, p. 138 seq. *********************************************

Christian tradition, the Priestly Code in this matter also has been authoritative. Instead of the Deuteronomic formula "the priests the Levites," we henceforward have "the priests and the Levites," particularly in Chronicles, /2/ and in the

*********************************************** 2. Except in 2 Chrom v. 5, xxx. 27. *********************************************

ancient versions the old usus loquendi is frequently corrected. /3/

********************************************* 3. E.g., Josh. iii. 3 and Isaiah lxvi. 21 in the LXX, Deuteronomy xviii. 1 and Judges xvii. 13 in "Jerome; and many passages in the Syriac. On the carrying out of the new organisation of the temple personnel after the exile, see Vatke, p. 568, Graf (in Merx's Archiv, i., p. 225 seq.), and Kuenen (Godsdienst, ii. p. 104 seq ). With Zerubbabel and Joshua, four priestly families, 4289 persons in all, returned from Babylon in 538 (Ezra iv. 36-39); with Ezra in 458 came two families in addition, but the number of persons is not stated (viii. 2). Of Levites there came on the first occasion 74 (ii. 40); on the second, of the 1500 men who met at the rendezvous appointed by Ezra to make the journey through the wilderness, not one was a Levite, and it was only on the urgent representations of the scribe that some thirty were at last induced to join the company (viii. 15-20). How can we explain this preponderance of priests over Levites, which is still surprising even if the individual figures are not to be taken as exact? Certainly it cannot be accounted for if the state of matters for a thousand years had been that represented in the Priestly Code and in Chronicles. On the other hand, all perplexity vanishes if the Levites were the degraded priests of the high places of Judah. These were certainly not on the whole more numerous than the Jerusalem college, and the prospect of thenceforward not being permitted to sacrifice in their native land, but of having slaughtering and washing for sole duties, cannot have been in any way very attractive to them; one can hardly blame them if they were disinclined voluntarily to lower themselves to the position of mere laborers under the sons of Zadok. Besides, it may be taken for granted that many (and more particularly Levitical) elements not originally belonging to it had managed to make way into the ranks of the Solomonic priesthood; that all were not successful (Ezra ii. 61) shows that many made the attempt, and considering the ease with which genealogies hoary with age were then manufactured and accepted, every such attempt cannot have failed.

How then came it to pass that afterwards, as one must conclude from the statements in Chronicles, the Levites stood to the priests in a proportion so much more nearly, if even then not quite fully corresponding to the law? Simply by the "Levitising" of alien families. At first in the community of the second temple the Levites continued to be distinguished from the singers, porters, and Nethinim (Ezra ii. 41-58), guilds which from the outset were much more numerous and which rapidly grew (Nehemiah xi. 17, 19, 36, xii. 28 seq.; 1Chronicles ix. 16, 22, 25). But the distinction had in fact no longer any actual basis, once the Levites had been degraded to the rank of temple-servitors and become Nethinim to the priests (Numbers iii. 9). Hence, where the Chronicler, who is at the same time the author of the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah, is not reproducing old sources but is writing freely, he regards the singers also and the porters as Levites. By artificial genealogies of rather a rough and ready kind the three families of singers, Heman, Asaph, and Ethan are traced up (1Chronicles v1.. 1 seq.) to the old Levitical families of Kohath, Gershon, and Merari (see Graf, as above, p. 231; and Ewald, iii. p. 380 seq.). How far the distinction between the Nethinim and the Levites was afterwards maintained (Josh. ix. 21 seq., I Esdras i. 3; Ezra viii. 20) is not clear. It would not be amiss if Ezekiel's intention of banishing foreigners from the temple found its fulfilment only through these heathen hieroduli, the Mehunim, the Nephisim, the sons of Shalmai, and the others whose foreign-sounding names are given in Ezra ii. 43 seq., obtaining admission into the tribe of Levi by artificial genealogies. A peculiar side light is thrown upon the course of development by the fact that the singers who in Ezra's time were not yet even Levites, afterwards felt shame in being so, and desired at least externally to be placed on all equality with priests. They begged of King Agrippa II. to obtain for them the permission of the synedrium to wear the white priestly dress. ***********************************************

The copestone of the sacred structure reared by the legislation of the middle books of the Pentateuch is the high priest. As the Aaronites are above the Levites so is Aaron himself above his sons; in his person culminates thc development of the unity of worship inaugurated by Deuteronomy and the agency of Josiah. No figure of such incomparable importance occurs anywhere else in the Old Testament; a high priest of pre-eminent sanctity is still unknown to Ezekiel even. Even before the exile, it is true, the temple worship at Jerusalem had become so magnificent and its personnel so numerous as to render necessary an orderly division of offices and a gradation of ranks. In Jeremiah's time the priests constituted a guild divided into classes or families with elders at their head; the principal priest had a potent voice in the appointment of his inferior colleagues (1Samuel ii. 36); alongside of him stood the second priest, the keepers of the threshold, the captain of the watch as holders of prominent charges. /1/ But in the Law the position of Aaron is not merely

*********************************************** I The Kohen ha-rosh first occurs in 2Samuel xv. 27, but here HR)# (so read, instead of HRW)H) comes from the interpolator of ver. 24. So again 2Kings xii. 11, HKHN HGDWL, but 2Kings xii. is from the same hand as 2Kings xvi. 10 seq. Elsewhere we have simply "the priest," compare besides 2Kings xix. 2; Jeremiah xix. 1; 2Kings xxiii. 4; xxv. 18; Jeremiah xx. 1; xxix. 25, 26; In 1Samuel ii. 36 SPXNY "incorporate me" shows that KHNH must mean "priestly guild" or "order." In connection with the name LWY it is noteworthy that SPX is parallel with LWH in Isaiah xiv. 1. **********************************************

superior but unique, like that of the Pope in relation to the episcopate; his sons act under his oversight (Numbers iii. 4); he alone is the one fully qualified priest, the embodiment of all that is holy in Israel He alone bears the Urim and Thummim and the Ephod; the Priestly Code indeed no longer knows what those articles are for, and it confounds the ephod of gold with the ephod of linen, the plated image with the priestly robe; but the dim recollections of these serve to enhance the magical charm of Aaron's majestic adornment. He alone may enter into the holy of holies and there offer incense; the way at other times inaccessible (Nehemiah vi. 10, 11) is open to him on the great day of atonement. Only in him, at a single point and in a single moment, has Israel immediate contact with Jehovah. The apex of the pyramid touches heaven.

The high priest stands forth as absolutely sovereign in his own domain. Down to the exile, as we have seen, the sanctuary was the property of the king, and the priest was his servant; even in Ezekiel who on the whole is labouring towards emancipation, the prince has nevertheless a very great importance in the temple still; to him the dues of the people are paid, and the sacrificial expenses are in return defrayed by him. In the Priestly Code, on the other hand, the dues are paid direct into the sanctuary, the worship is perfectly autonomous, and has its own head, holding not from man but from the grace of God. Nor is it merely the autonomy of religion that is represented by the high priest; he exhibits also its supremacy over Israel. He does not carry sceptre and sword; nowhere, as Vatke (p. 539) well remarks, is any attempt made to claim for him secular power. But just in virtue of his spiritual dignity, as the head of the priesthood, he is head of the theocracy, and so much so that there is no room for any other alongside of him; a theocratic king beside him cannot be thought of (Numbers xxvii. 21). He alone is the responsible representative of the collective nation, the names of the twelve tribes are written on his breast and shoulders; his transgression involves the whole people in guilt, and is atoned for as that of the whole people, while the princes, when their sin-offerings are compared with his, appear as mere private persons (Leviticus iv. 3, 13, 22, ix. 7, xvi. 6). His death makes an epoch; it is when the high priest—not the king—dies that the fugitive slayer obtains his amnesty (Numbers xxxv. 28). At his investiture he receives the chrism like a king, and is called accordingly the anointed priest; he is adorned with the diadem and tiara (Ezekiel xxi. 31, A.V. 26) like a king, and like a king too he wears the purple, that most unpriestly of all raiment, of which he therefore must divest himself when he goes into the holy of holies (Lev. xvi. 4). What now can be the meaning of this fact,—that he who is at the head of the worship, in this quality alone, and without any political attributes besides, or any share in the government, is at the same time at the head of the nation? What but that civil power has been withdrawn from the nation and is in the hands of foreigners; that Israel has now merely a spiritual and ecclesiastical existence? In the eyes of the Priestly Code Israel in point of fact is not a people, but a church; worldly affairs are far removed from it and are never touched by its laws; its life is spent in religious services. Here we are face to face with the church of the second temple, the Jewish hierocracy, in a form possible only under foreign domination. It is customary indeed to designate in the Law by the ideal, or in other words blind, name of theocracy that which in historical reality is usually called hierarchy; but to imagine that with the two names one has gained a real distinction is merely to deceive oneself. But, this self-deception accomplished, it is easy further to carry back the hierocratic churchly constitution to the time of Moses, because it excludes the kingship, and then either to assert that it was kept secret throughout the entire period of the judges and the monarchy, or to use the fiction as a lever by which to dislocate the whole of the traditional history.

To any one who knows anything about history it is not necessary to prove that the so-called Mosaic theocracy, which nowhere suits the circumstances of the earlier periods, and of which the prophets, even in their most ideal delineations of the Israelite state as it ought to be, have not the faintest shadow of an idea, is, so to speak, a perfect fit for post-exilian Judaism, and had its actuality only there. Foreign rulers had then relieved the Jews of all concern about secular affairs; they had it in their power, and were indeed compelled to give themselves wholly up to sacred things, in which they were left completely unhampered. Thus the temple became the sole centre of life, and the prince of the temple the head of the spiritual commonwealth, to which also the control of political affairs, so far as these were still left to the nation, naturally fell there being no other head! /1/

*********************************************** 1. Very interesting and instructive is Ewald's proof of the way in which Zech. vi. 9-15 has been tampered with, so as to eliminate Zerubbabel and leave the high priest alone. Just so in dealing with Caliphs and Sultans, the Patriarchs were and are the natural heads of the Greek and Oriental Christians even in secular matters. ***********************************************

The Chronicler gave a corresponding number of high priests to the twice twelve generations of forty years each which were usually assumed to have elapsed between the exodus and the building of Solomon's temple, and again between that and the close of the captivity; the official terms of office of these high priests, of whom history knows nothing, have taken the place of the reigns of judges and kings, according to which reckoning was previously made (1Chronicles v. 29, seq.). One sees clearly from Sirach l., and from more than one statement of Josephus (e.g., Ant., xviii. 4, 3, xx. 1, 11), how in the decorations of Aaron (where, however, the Urim and Thummim were wanting; Nehemiah vii. 65) people reverenced a transcendent majesty which had been left to the people of God as in some sense a compensation for the earthly dignity which had been lost. Under the rule of the Greeks the high priest became ethnarch and president of the synedrium; only through the pontificate was it possible for the Hasmonaeans to attain to power, but when they conjoined it with full-blown secular sovereignty, they created a dilemma to the consequences of which they succumbed.



CHAPTER V. THE ENDOWMENT OF THE CLERGY.

The power and independence of the clergy run parallel with its material endowment, which accordingly passes through the same course of development. Its successive steps are reflected even in the language that is employed, in the gradual loss of point sustained by the phrase "to fill the hand," at all times used to denote ordination. Originally it cannot have had any other meaning than that of filling the hand with money or its equivalent; we have seen that at one time the priest was appointed by the owner of a sanctuary for a salary, and that, without being thus dependent upon a particular employer, he could not then live on the income derived from those who might employ him sacrificially. But when the Levitical hereditary priesthood arose in the later kingdom of Judah the hands of the priests were no longer filled by another who had the right to appoint and to dismiss, but they themselves at God's command "filled their own hand," or rather they had done so in the days of Moses once for all, as is said in Exodus xxxii. 26-29, an insertion corresponding with the position of Deuteronomy. It is obvious that such a statement, when carefully looked at, is absurd, but is to be explained by the desire to protest against outside interference. Even here the etymological sense is still sufficiently felt to create an involuntary jar and leads to a change of the construction; but finally all sense of it is lost, and the expression becomes quite colourless: "to fill the hand " means simply "to consecrate." In Ezekiel not only the priest but also the altar has its "hand filled" (xliii. 26); in the Priestly Code the abstract milluim ["consecrations"] is chiefly used, with subject and object left out, as the name of a mere inaugural ceremony which lasts for several days (Leviticus viii. 33; Exodus xxix. 34), essentially consists in the bringing of an offering on the part of the person to be consecrated, and has no longer even the remotest connection with actual filling of the hand (2Chronicles xiii. 7; comp. xxix. 31). The verb, therefore, now means simply the performance of this ceremony, and the subject is quite indifferent (Leviticus xvi. 32, xxi. 10; Numbers iii. 3); the installation does not depend upon the person who performs the rite, but upon the rite itself, upon the unction, investiture, and other formalities (Exodus xxix. 29).

This variation in the usus Ioquendi is the echo of real changes in the outuard condition of the clergy, which we must now proceed to consider more in detail.

V.I.

V.I.1. Of the offerings, it was the custom in the earlier time to dedicate a portion to the deity but to use the greater part in sacred feasts, at which a priest, if present, was of course allowed also in one way or another to participate. But he does not appear to have had a legal claim to any definite dues of flesh. "Eli's sons were worthless persons, and cared not about Jehovah, or about the priests' right and duty with the people. When any man offered a sacrifice the servant of the priest came (that is all we have here to represent the 22,000 Levites) while the flesh was in seething, with a three-pronged flesh-hook in his hand, and stuck it into the pan, or kettle, or caldron, or pot; and all that the flesh-hook brought up the priest took. So they did in Shiloh unto all the Israelites that came thither. Even before the fat was burnt, the servant of the priest came and said to the man that sacrificed: "Give flesh to roast for the priest; he will not take sodden flesh of thee, but raw. And if the other said to him: Let the fat first be burnt, and then take according to thy soul's desire; then he would answer: Nay, but thou shalt give it now; and if not, I will take it by force" (1Samuel ii. 12-16). The tribute of raw portions of flesh before the burning of the fat is here treated as a shameless demand which is fitted to bring Jehovah's offering into contempt (ver. 17), and which has the ruin of the sons of Eli as its merited reward. More tolerable is it, though even that is an abuse, when the priests cause boiled flesh to be brought them from the pot, though not seeking out the best for themselves, but leaving the selection to chance; they ought to wait and see what is given to them, or be contented with an invitation to the banquet. On the other hand we have it in Deuteronomy as "the priest's due from the people" (xviii. 3 = 1Samuel ii. 12) that he receives the shoulder and the two cheeks and the maw of the slaughtered animal; and yet this is a modest claim compared with what the sons of Aaron have in the Priestly Code (Leviticus vii. 34),—the right leg and the breast. The course of the development is plain; the Priestly Code became law for Judaism. In sacrifice, ITS demands were those which were regarded; but in order to fulfil all righteousness the precept of Deuteronomy was also maintained, this being applied—against the obvious meaning and certainly only as a result of later scrupulosity of the scribes—not to sacrifices but to ordinary secular slaughterings, from which also accordingly the priests received a portion, the cheeks (according to Jerome on Malachi ii. 3), including the tongue, the precept being thus harmonistically doubled. /1/ At an earlier

******************************************** 1. Philo, De praem. sacerd., sec. 3. Josephus, Ant., iii. 9. 2; iv. 4, 4. ********************************************

date the priests at Jerusalem received money from those who employed them (Deuteronomy xviii. 8), but for this had the obligation of maintaining the temple; from this one can discern that the money was properly speaking paid to the sanctuary, and was only conditionally delivered to its servitors. When they failed to observe the condition, King Jehoash took the money also from them (2Kings xii. 7 seq.).

The meal-offerings are in the Priestly Code a subordinate matter, and the share that falls to the priests is here trifling compared with what they receive of the other sacrifices. The meal, of which only a handful is sprinkled upon the altar, the baked bread, and the minha altogether are theirs entirely, so also the sin and trespass offerings so frequently demanded, of which God receives only the blood and the fat and the offerer nothing at all (Ezekiel xliv. 29); of the burnt-offering at least the skin falls to their lot, These perquisites, however, none of them in their definite form demonstrably old, and some of them demonstrably the reverse, may be presumed to have had their analogues in the earlier period, so that they cannot be regarded absolutely as augmentation of the priestly income. In Josiah's time the mac,c,oth were among the principal means of support of the priests (2Kings xxiii. 9); doubtless they came for the most part from the minha. Instead of sin and trespass offerings, which are still unknown to Deuteronomy, there were formerly sin and trespass dues in the form of money payments to the priests,—payments which cannot, however, have been so regular (2Kings xii. 17). It is as if money payments were in the eye of the law too profane; for atonement there must be shedding of blood. That the skin of the holocaust, which cannot well be consumed on the altar, should fall to the priest is so natural an arrangement, that one will hardly be disposed to regard it as new, although Ezekiel is silent about a due which was not quite worthless (xliv. 28-31).

So far then as departures from earlier custom can be shown in the sacrificial dues enjoined by the Priestly Code, they must not indeed be treated as purely local differences, but neither are they to be regarded as on the whole showing a serious raising of the tariff. But in the Code the sacrificial dues are only a subordinate part of the income of the priests. In Deuteronomy the priests are entirely thrown upon the sacrifices; they live upon them (xviii. 1) and upon invitations to the sacred banquets (xii. I2, 18 seq.); if they are not exercising the priestly function they must starve (1Samuel ii. 36). On the other hand, the Aaronidae of the Priestly Code do not need to sacrifice at all, and yet have means of support, for their chief revenue consists of the rich dues which must be paid them from the products of the soil.

V.I.2. The dues falling to the priests according to the law were all originally offerings—the regular offerings which had to be brought on the festivals; and these all originally were for sacred banquets, of which the priests received nothing more than the share which was generally customary. This is true in the first instance of the male firstlings of cattle. As we have seen in the chapter on the sacred feasts, these are sacrifices and sacrificial meals, alike in the Jehovistic legislation and in the Jehovistic narrative of the exodus and of Abel, as were all the offerings brought by private individuals in the olden time. When in Exodus xxii. 29 it is said that they must be given to JEHOVAH, this does not mean that they must be given to THE PRIESTS; no such thing is anywhere said in thc Book of the Covenant. Matters still stand on essentially the same footing in Deuteronomy also: "THOU SHALT SANCTIFY THEM UNTO JEHOVAH; thou shalt not plough with the firstling of the bullock, nor shear the firstling of thy sheep; THOU SHALT EAT IT BEFORE JEHOVAH year by year in the place which He shall choose; and if there be any blemish therein, thou shalt not OFFER IT TO JEHOVAH THY GOD" (Deuteronomy xv. 19, 20). To sanctify to Jehovah, to eat before Jehovah, to offer to Jehovah, are here three equivalent ideas. If now, in Numbers xviii. 15 seq., every first birth is assigned without circumlocution to the priest, and a special paschal offering is appointed in addition, this can only be understood as the last phase in the development, partly because the idea of dues altogether is secondary to that of offerings, and partly because the immense augmentation in the income of the priests points to an increase of the hierocratic power. Ezekiel does not yet reckon the firstlings among the revenues of the clergy (xliv. 28-3I); the praxis of Judaism, on the other hand, since Nehemiah x. 37, is regulated, as usual, in accordance with the norm of the Priestly Code.

The tithe also is originally given to God, and treated just as the other offerings are; that is to say, it is not appropriated by the priests, but eaten by those who bring it in sacred banquets. It does not occur in the Jehovistic legislation, but Jacob dedicates it (Genesis xxviii. 22) to the God of Bethel, a place where, although the whole story is a projection out of a later time, it would hardly be in harmony with the conceptions of the narrator to think of the presence of priests. The prophet Amos, who probably represents much the same stage of the cultus as the Jehovist does, says: "Come to Bethel to transgress, to Gilgal to sin still more; and bring every morning your sacrifices, every three days your tithes, and offer with bread pieces of flesh to the flames, and proclaim free offerings aloud, for so ye like, ye children of Israel" (Amos iv. 4 seq.). He ironically recommends them to persevere in the efforts they have hitherto made in honour of God, and to double them; to offer daily, instead of, as was usual (1Samuel i.), yearly at the chief festival; to pay tithes every three days, instead of, as was the custom, every three years. It is clear that the tithe here holds rank with Zebah, Toda, and Nedaba; it is a sacrifice of joy, and a splendid element of the public cultus, no mere due to the priests. Now, in this point also Deuteronomy has left the old custom, on the whole, unchanged. According to xiv. 22 seq. the tithe of the produce of the soil, or its equivalent in money, must be brought year by year to the sanctuary, and there consumed before Jehovah that is, as a sacrificial meal; only every third year it is not to be offered in Jerusalem, but is to be given as alms to the people of the locality who have no land, to which category the Levites in particular belong. This last application is an innovation, connected on the one hand with the abolition of the sanctuaries, and on the other with the tendency of the Deuteronomist to utilise festal mirth for humane ends. /1/

********************************************* 1. Connection is, however, possible with some older custom, such as must certainly be assumed for Amos iv. 4. Comp. Deuteronomy xxvi. 12, "the year of tithing." **********************************************

But this is a mere trifle compared with what we find in the Priestly Code, where the whole tithe has become a mere due to be collected by the Levites (Nehemiah x. 38 [37]) on behalf of the clergy, whose endowment thereby is again very largely increased. Ezekiel is silent on this point also (xliv. 18-31), but as the tithe is demanded in Numbers (xviii. 21 seq.), so was it paid from the days of Nehemiah (x. 38 [37] seq.) by the church of the second temple. Later there was added over and above, so as to meet the divergent requirement of Deuteronomy, the so-called second tithe, which usually was consumed at Jerusalem, but in every third year was given to the poor (so Deuteronomy xxvi. 12, LXX), and in the end the tithe for the poor was paid separately over and above the first and second (Tobit i. 7, 8; Jos., Ant., iv. 8, 22).

It is absolutely astounding that the tithe which in its proper nature should apply only to products of definite measure, such as corn and wine and oil (Deuteronomy xiv. 23), comes to be extended in the Priestly Code to cattle also, so that besides the male firstlings every tenth head of cattle and of sheep must also be paid to the priests. This demand, however, is not yet met with in Numbers xviii., nor even in Nehemiah x. 38, 39, but first occurs as a novel in Lev. xxvii. 32 (1Samuel viii. 17). Whether it ever came into the actual practice of Judaism seems doubtful; in 2Chronicles xxxi. 6 the tithe of cattle is indeed mentioned, but on the other hand the firstlings are not; in the pre-rabbinical literature no traces of it are discoverable,—especially not in Philo, who knows only of the ordinary tithes due to the Levites, and not of the tithes of cattle due to the priests (De praem. sacerd. 6).

With the tithe of the fruit of the soil the first fruits are at bottom identical; the latter were reduced to definite measure later and through the influence of the former. This is no doubt the reason why in the Jehovistic legislation tithe and first fruits are not both demanded, but only a gift of the first and best of corn, wine, and oil, left to the free discretion of the offerer, which is conjoined with the firstling of cattle and sheep (Exodus xxii. 28 [29]. xxiii. 19, xxxiv. 26). In a precisely similar way the TITHE of the field stands conjoined with the firstlings of cattle in Deuteronomy (xiv. 22, 23, xv. 19 seq.). But also the reshith, usually translated first-fruits, occurs in Deuteronomy,—as a payment of corn, wine, oil, and wool to the priests (xviii. 4); a small portion, a basketful, thereof is brought before the altar and dedicated with a significant liturgy (xxvi. 1 seq.). It appears that it is taken from the tithe, as might be inferred from xxvi. 12 seq. taken as the continuation of vers. 1-11; in one passage, xxvi. 2, the more general usus loquendi reappears, according to which the reshith means the entire consecrated fruit, which as a whole is consumed by the offerers before Jehovah, and of which the priests receive only a portion. But in the Priestly Code not only is the entire tithe demanded as a due of the clergy, the reshith also is demanded in addition (Numbers xviii. 12), and it is further multiplied, inasmuch as it is demanded from the kneading-trough as well as from the threshing-floor: in every leavening the halla belongs to Jehovah (xv. 20). Nor is this all; to the reshith (xviii. 12) are added the bikkurim also (xviii. 13), as something distinct. The distinction does not occur elsewhere (Exodus xxxiv. 26); prepared fruits alone are invariably spoken of, the yield of the threshing-floor and the wine-press, of which first produce—"the fulness and the overflow "—was to be consecrated. The FAT of oil, wine, and corn is the main thing in Numbers xviii. also, and is called reshith (ver 12) or terumah (ver. 27); but the bikkurim (ver. 13) seem to be a separate thing, and, if this be really the case, must mean those raw fruits which have ripened earliest. Judaism, here once more moulding itself essentially in accordance with the tenor of the Priestly Code, actually drew this distinction; from the publication of the Law through Ezra the community pledged itself to bring up yearly the bikkurim to the house of Jehovah, and to deliver the reshith into the temple cells (Nehemiah x. 36 [35]). The former was a religious solemnity, associated with processions, and the use of the ritual in Deuteronomy xxvi.; the latter was rather a simple tax paid from natural products,—a distinction which perhaps is connected with the different expressions they shall bring (Numbers xviii. 13) and they shall give (xviii. 12). The LXX keeps )APARXH and PRWTOGENNHMATA strictly apart, as also do Philo (De praem. sacerd. 1, 2) and Josephus (Ant., iv. 4, 8, 22).

V.I.3. The amount which at last is required to be given is enormous. What originally were alternatives are thrown together, what originally was left free and undetermined becomes precisely measured and prescribed. The priests receive all the sin and trespass offerings, the greater share of the vegetable offerings, the hides of the burnt offerings, the shoulder and breast of meat offerings. Over and above are the firstlings, to which are added the tithes and first-fruits in a duplicate form, in short, all kodashim, which originally were demanded merely as ordinary meat offerings (Deuteronomy xii. 26 = ver. 6, 7, and so on), and were consumed at holy places and by consecrated guests indeed, but not by the priest. And, notwithstanding all this, the clergy are not even asked (as in Ezekiel is the prince, who there receives the dues, xlv. 13 seq.) to defray the cost of public worship; for this there is a poll-tax, which is not indeed enjoined in the body of the Priestly Code, but which from the time of Nehemiah x. 33 [32] was paid at the rate of a third of a shekel, till a novel of the law (Exodus xxx. 15) raised it to half a shekel.

V.II.

V.II.1. To the endowment of the clergy in the Priestly Code belong finally the forty-eight cities assigned by Joshua in accordance with the appointment of Moses (Numbers xxxv.; Josh. xxi.). The tribes gave them up freely; the smaller giving few and the larger more (Numbers xxxv. 8). The Aaronidae and the three families of the Levites cast lots about them in four divisions; the sons of Aaron get thirteen cities in Judah, the Levites ten in Ephraim-Manasseh, thirteen in Galilee, and twelve in the territory eastward of Jordan. It is not merely the right to inhabit, but, in spite of all apologetic rationalism, the right of absolute possession that they receive (Josh. xxi. 12), inclusive of a portion of land two thousand ells square (square in the strictly literal sense; Numbers xxxv. 5), which serves as public common.

The physical impracticability of such an arrangement has been conclusively shown, after Gramberg, by Graf (Merx, Archiv, i. p. 83). The 4 x 12 or the substituted 13+10+13+12 cities, of which in spite of Numbers xxxv. 8 for the most part four belong to each of the twelve tribes, are already sufficient to suggest a suspicion of artificial construction; but the regulation that a rectangular territory of two thousand ells square should be measured off as pasture for the Levites around each city (which at the same time is itself regarded only as a point; Numbers xxxv. 4) might, to speak with Graf, be very well carried out perhaps in a South Russian steppe or in newly founded townships in the western States of America, but not in a mountainous country like Palestine, where territory that can be thus geometrically portioned off does not exist, and where it is by no means left to arbitrary legal enactments to determine what pieces of ground are adapted for pasturage and what for tillage and gardening; there, too, the cities were already in existence, the land was already under cultivation, as the Israelites slowly conquered it in the course of centuries. Besides, from the time of Joshua there is not a historical trace of the existence of the Levitical cities. Quite a number of them were in the days of the judges and down to the early monarchy still in the hands of the Canaanites,— Gibeon, Shechem, Gezer, Taanach; some perhaps may even have so continued permanently. Those on the other hand which passed into the possession of the Israelites at no time belonged to the Levites. Shechem, Hebron, Ramoth, were the capital cities of Ephraim, Judah, and Gilead; and Gibeon, Gezer, Heshbon were in like manner important but by no means ecclesiastical towns. In the Deuteronomic period the Levites were scattered throughout Judah in such a manner that each locality had its own Levites or Levite; nowhere did they live separated from the rest of the world in compact masses together, for they made their living by sacrificing for others, and without a community they could not exercise their calling. Some indeed possessed land and heritage; such were at an earlier period the Silonic family at Gibeath-Phineas, Amaziah at Bethel, and Abiathar at Anathoth, and at a later period Jeremiah, also at Anathoth. But Anathoth (for example) was not on that account a priestly city in the sense of Joshua xxi.; Jeremiah had his holding there as a citizen and not as a priest, and he shared not with the priests but with the people (xxxvii. 12). As a tribe Levi was distinguished from the other tribes precisely by holding no land, and its members joined themselves to the settled citizens and peasants, for the most part as dependent inmates (Deuteronomy x. 9, xviii. 1).

Even after the exile, indeed, matters were not different in this respect. "Ab excidio templi prioris sublatum est Levitis jus suburbiorum," says R. Nachman (B. Sotah, 48b), and he is borne out by the silence of Nehemiah x. The execution of the law was probably postponed to the days of the Messiah; it was not in truth within the power of man, and cannot be seriously demanded in the Priestiy Code itself, which contemplates a purely ideal Israel, with ideal boundaries, and leaves the sober reality so far out of sight that on archaeological grounds it never once so much as mentions Jerusalem, the historical capital of the priests.

The circumstance that these towns lay in partibus infiidelium seems to make them unavailable as a means of fixing the antiquity of the Priestly Code. It is possible with Bleek to explain the transcendence of history as Mosaicity; such a view is not to be argued against. But it is also possible with Noldeke to insist that an invention so bold cannot possibly be imputed to the spirit of the exilic and post-exilic time, which in everything is only anxiously concerned to cleave to what is old and to restore it; and such a contention deserves and admits of refutation. It is not the case that the Jews had any profound respect for their ancient history; rather they condemned the whole earlier development, and allowed only the Mosaic time along with its Davidic reflex to stand; in other words, not history but the ideal. The theocratic ideal was from the exile onwards the centre of all thought and effort, and it annihilated the sense for objective truth, all regard and interest for the actual facts as they had been handed down. It is well known that there never have been more audacious history-makers than the Rabbins. But Chronicles affords evidence sufficient that this evil propensity goes back to a very early time, its root the dominating influence of the Law, being the root of Judaism itself. Judaism is just the right soil for such an artificial growth as the forty-eight priestly and Levitical cities. It would hardly have occurred to an author living in the monarchical period, when the continuity of the older history was still unbroken, to look so completely away from all the conditions of the then existing reality; had he done so, he would have produced upon his contemporaries the impression merely that he had scarcely all his wits about him. But after the exile had annihilated the ancient Israel, and violently and completely broken the old connection with the ancient conditions, there was nothing to hinder from planting and partitioning the tabula rasa in thought at pleasure, just as geographers are wont to do with their map as long as the countries are unknown.

But, of course, no fancy is pure fancy; every imagination has underlying it some elements of reality by which it can be laid hold of, even should these only be certain prevailing notions of a particular period. It is clear, if a proper territory is assigned to the clergy, that the notion of the clerical tribe which already had begun to strike root in Deuteronomy has here grown and gathered strength to such a degree that even the last and differentiating distinction is abolished which separates the actual tribes from the Levites, viz. communal independence and the degree of concentration which expresses itself in separate settlements. For when we read, notwithstanding, in the Priestly Code that Aaron and Levi are to have no lot nor inheritance in Israel (Numbers xviii. 20, 23), this is merely a form of speech taken over from Deuteronomy and at the same time an involuntary concession to fact; what would the forty-eight cities have been, had they actually existed, if not a lot, a territorial possession, and that too a comparatively large one? The general basis which serves as starting-point for the historical fiction being thus far recognisable, we are able also to gain a closer view of its concrete material. The priestly and Levitical cities stand in close connection with the so-called cities of refuge. These are also appointed in Deuteronomy (xix.), although not enumerated by name (for Deuteronomy iv. 41-43 cannot be regarded as genuine). Originally the altars were asylums (Exodus xxi. 14; 1Kings ii. 28), some in a higher degree than others (Exodus xxi. 13). In order not to abolish the asylums also along with the altars, the Deuteronomic legislator desired that certain holy places should continue as places of refuge, primarily three for Judah, to which, when the territory of the kingdom extended, three others were to be afterwards added. The Priestly Code adopts the arrangement, and specifies three definite cities on this side and three on the other side of Jordan (Numbers xxxv.; Joshua xx.), four of which are demonstrably famous old seats of worship,—all the three western ones, and Ramoth, that is, Mizpah, of the eastern ones (Genesis xxxi.; Judges xi. 11). But as all these asylums are at the same time priestly and Levitical cities, it is an obvious conjecture that these also in like manner arose out of old sanctuaries. We need not suppose that there is more in this than an echo of the general recollection that there were once in Israel many holy places and residences of priesthoods; it is by no means necessary to assert that each of the towns enumerated in Joshua xxi. had actually been an ancient sanctuary. In many cases, however, this also admits of being shown, /1/ although some of the

********************************************* 1. In the cases of Hebron, Gibeon, Shechem, Ramoth, Mahanaim and Tabor (Host v. 1) by historical data; in those of Bethshemesh, Ashtaroth, Kadesh,, perhaps also Rimmon, by the names. Not even here can one venture to credit the Priestly Code with consistent fidelity to history. As for Hosea v. 1, 2, the original meaning seems to be: "A snare have ye become for Mizpah, and an outspread net upon Tabor, and the pit-fall of Shittim (XT H+YM) have they made deep." Shittim as a camping-place under Moses and Joshua must certainly have been a sanctuary, just like Kadesh, Gilgal, and Shiloh; the prophet names these seats at which in his opinion the worship was especially seductive and soul-destroying; his reproach is levelled at the priests most famous (or according to the later view, infamous) high places, such as Bethel, Dan, Gilgal, and Beersheba are omitted, probably of set purpose.

The immediate starting-point, however, for this territorial donation to the Levites is perhaps to be sought in Ezekiel, in the picture of the future Israel which he draws at the close of his book. He concerns himself there in a thorough-going manner about the demarcation of the national and tribal boundaries, and in doing so sets quite freely to work, taking, so to speak, the yard measure in his hand. Leaving the land eastward of Jordan wholly to the Saracens, he divides the western portion into thirteen parallel transverse sections; in the middle of the thirteenth (the rest of which is assigned to the prince), lying between Judah and Benjamin, the twelve tribes give up a square with a base line of 25,000 ells as a sacred offering to Jehovah. This square is divided into three parallelograms, 25,000 ells long, running east and west; the southernmost of these, 5000 ells broad, includes the capital with its territory; the middle one, 10,000 ells broad, contains the temple and the priestly territory; the northernmost, also 10,000 ells broad, has the inheritance and the cities of the Levites. /1/

********************************************** 1. For (SRYM LKT (xlv. 5), read, with the LXX, (RYM LBT "to dwell within the gates." Compare a similar transposition of letters in xiii. 3, LXX. The expression "gates" for "cities" has its origin in Deuteronomy. *********************************************

Thus we have here also a surrender of land to the clergy on the part of the tribes; the comparison with Josh. xxi. is not to be put aside,—all the less, because nowhere else in the Old Testament is anything similar met with. Now Ezekiel is quite transparent, and requires no interpreter but himself. In order that the temple may be protected in its sanctity in the best possible manner, it is placed in the centre of the priestly territory, which in its turn is covered by the city on the south, and by the Levites on the north. At the same time the personnel connected with the function of worship is to dwell as much as possible apart on its own soil and territory, which shall serve them for separate houses to sanctify them, as is expressly remarked for the priests (xiv. 4), and in an inferior degree holds good also, of course, for the Levites beside them. Here everything starts from, and has its explanation in, the temple. Its original is unmistakably the temple of Solomon; its site is beside the capital, in the heart of the sacred centre of the land between Judah and Benjamin; there the sons of Zadok have their abode, and beside them are the Levites whom Josiah had brought up from all the country to Jerusalem. Obviously the motives are not here far to seek. In the Priestly Code, on the other hand, which was not in a position to shape the future freely out of the present, but was compelled to accept archaeological restrictions, the motives are historically concealed and almost paralysed. The result has remained, namely, the holding of separate territory by the clergy, but the cause or the purpose of it can no longer be recognised on account of the sanctuary being now an abstract idea. Jerusalem and the temple, which, properly speaking, occasioned the whole arrangement, are buried in silence with a diligence which is in the highest degree surprising; and on the other hand, in remembrance of the priesthoods scattered everywhere among the high places of Israel in earlier days, forty-eight fresh Levitical cities are created, from which, however, their proper focus, a temple to wit, is withheld only in the circumstance that precisely the thirteen cities of Judah and Benjamin happen to fall to the lot of the sons of Aaron, does the influence of Jerusalem unconsciously betray itself.

V.II.2. Apart from this historical fiction, the other claims that are made for the endowment of the clergy are, however exorbitant, nevertheless practicable and seriously meant. So far as the circumstances of their origin are concerned, two possibilities present themselves. Either the priests demanded what they could hope to obtain, in which case they were actually supreme over the nation, or they set up claims which at the time were neither justified nor even possible; in which case they were not indeed quite sober, yet at the same time so sane prophetically, that centuries afterwards the revenues they dreamed of became in actuality theirs. Is it to be supposed that it was (say) Moses, who encouraged his people as they were struggling for bare life in the wilderness to concern themselves about a superabundantly rich endowment of their clergy? Or is it believed that it was in the period of the judges, when the individual tribes and families of Israel, after having forced their way among the Canaanites, had a hard fight to maintain their position, get somehow settled in their new dwelling-places and surroundings, that the thought first arose of exacting such taxes from a people that was only beginning to grow into a national unity, for an end that was altogether remote from its interest? What power could then have been able in those days, when every man did what was right in his own eyes, to compel the individual to pay? But even when actually, under the pressure of circumstances, a political organisation had arisen which embraced all the tribes, it could hardly have occurred to the priests to utilise the secular arm as a means for giving to themselves a place of sovereignty; and still less could they have succeeded WITHOUT the king on whom they were so completely dependent. In short, the claims they make in the Law would in the pre-exilic period have been regarded as utopian in the strict sense of that word; they allow of explanation only by the circumstances which from the beginning of the Chaldaean rule, and still more that of the Persians, lent themselves to the formation of a hierocracy, to which, as to the truly national and moreover divine authority, the people gave voluntary obedience, and to which the Persians also conceded rights they could not have granted to the family of David. At the very beginning of the exile, Ezekiel begins to augment the revenues of the priests (xliv. 28-30), yet he still confines himself on the whole to the lines of Deuteronomy, and makes no mention of tithes and firstlings. Of the demands of the Priestly Code in their full extent we hear historically in Nehemiah x. for the first time; there it is stated that they were carried through by men who had the authority of Artaxerxes behind them. This was the most difficult and at the same time the most important part of the work Ezra and Nehemiah had to do in introducing the Pentateuch as the law of the Jewish Church; and that is the reason why it is so specially and minutely spoken of. Here plainly lies the material basis of the hierocracy from which the royal throne was ultimately reached.

For all these dues, apart from sacrificial perquisites, flowed into a common coffer, and benefited those who had the control of this, viz., the priestly aristocracy of Jerusalem, whom it helped to rise to a truly princely position. The ordinary priests, and especially the Levites, did not gain by all this wealth. The latter indeed ought, according to law, to have had the tithes, and to have handed over the tithes of these again to the sons of Aaron, but as the general tendency of the time was to depress the Levites, this legal revenue was also gradually withdrawn from them and appropriated by the priests. Afterwards the chief priests claimed the tithes for themselves alone, while their inferior brethren had to suffer severe privation and even hunger itself (Josephus, Ant., xx. 8, 8; 9, 2).

Upon the difference just stated between the later practice and the Law, one argument more has recently been founded against assigning the latter to the Babylonio-Persian period. "Another testimony borne by tradition completely excludes the idea of the Elohistic torah (i.e., the Priestly Code) having been composed by Ezra. As is well known, it is the Elohistic torah that carefully regulates the mutual relations of priests and Levites, while Deuteronomy groups the two together without bringing forward the distinction. It is the former that assigns the tithes to the Levites, while requiring these in their turn to hand over the tithe of their tithes as a due to the priests. Such was also the practice (Nehemiah x. 38 seq.) soon after the exile [i.e., a hundred years later; Nehemiah vii. 5]. But subsequently the payment of the tithes to the Levites fell entirely into disuse; these were rendered immediately and exclusively to the priests, so that Jose ben Hanina actually confesses: "We do not pay the tithes according to the command of God" (Sota, 47b). But everywhere the Talmud refers this practice back to Ezra. Ezra it was who punished the Levites by withdrawal of the tithes, and that because they had not come out from Babylon (Jebam. 386b; Chullin 11b). The point to be noted is that Ezra, according to the testimony of tradition, superseded a precept of the Elohistic torah, supporting himself in this perhaps by reference to the Deuteronomic torah." So Delitzsch in the Zeitschr. fuer luth. Theol., 1877, p. 448 seq. That Ezra is not the author of the Priestly Code may readily be granted—only not on such an argument as this. If the genuine historical tradition expressly names Ezra as the man who introduced the Levites' tithe just as prescribed by law (Nehemiah x. 38 seq.), what conscientious man can attach any weight to the opposite assertion of the Talmud ?