Online Encyclopedia
Search over 40,000 articles from the original, classic Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition.
PRIEST (Ger. Priester, Fr. pretre)
Online EncyclopediaEncyclopedia Home :: PRE-PYR
del.icio.us it!
|
See also:PRIEST (Ger. Priester, Fr. pretre)
, the contracted See also:form of " See also:presbyter " (7rpeo-,&npos, " See also:elder "; see PRESBYTER), a name of See also:office in the See also:early See also:Christian See also: Probably magic was always accompanied by some primitive form of See also:animism whether the Melanesian mana or See also:fetishism (see Dr Haddon's Magic and Fetishism, pp . 58-62, 64-90) . The investigations which have been carried on in See also:recent years by King . Tallquist and Zimmern, as well as by Briinnow and See also:Craig, on the magic and ritual of Babylonia and See also:Assyria have been fruitful of results . The question, however, remains to be settled how far the officials and their functions, which in the much more highly See also:developed civilization of Babylonia came to be differentiated and specialized, can be strictly included under the functions of priesthood . The See also:answer to this question will be in many cases negative or affirmative according to our strict adherence or the See also:reverse to the See also:definition of the priest set forth above as " a minister whose stated business it was to perform on behalf of the community certain ritual acts, in some cases sacrifices (or the recitation of prayers), directed Godwards." On the other See also:hand the seer, diviner and See also:prophet is a minister whose See also:function it is to communicate See also:God's will or word to See also:man . This is not a distinction which governs Zimmern and other writers . Our See also:chief source of See also:information is Zimmern's Beitrdge zur Kenntniss der See also:Babylon: Religion, pp . 81-95, from which See also:Lagrange in his Etudes sur See also:les religions semitiquesz has chiefly derived his materials (ch. vi. p . 222 sqq.) respecting Babylonia and Assyria . Zimmern's results are summarized in K.A.T3. p . 589 sqq . Here we find magic and soothsaying closely intertwined with priestly functions as, we shall see, was the See also:case in early Hebrew pre-exilian days with the Kohen . It must be See also:borne in mind that primitive humanity is not governed by logical distinctions . Among the Babylonians and Assyrians the See also:bard (from See also:bare to see, inspect) was a soothsaying priest who was consulted whenever any important undertaking was proposed, and addressed his inquiries to Samas the See also:sun god (or See also:Adad) as See also:bel See also:biri or See also:lord of this See also:oracle (accompanied by the sacrifice of See also:lambs) . The signs were usually obtained from the inspection of the See also:liver (according to Johns, that of the See also:lamb that was sacrificed); or it took See also:place through birds; hence the name in this case given to the See also:barn of dagil insure" " See also:bird inspector." Johns, however, is disposed to regard him as a distinct functionary . Sometimes See also:divination took place through vessels filled with See also:water and oil (see See also:OMEN and DIVINATION) . As contrasted with the bard or soothsaying priest, as he is called by Zimmern, we have the asipu, who was the priest-magician who dealt in conjurations (siptu), whereby diseases were removed, spells broken, or in expiations whereby sins were expiated . Tallquist's edition of the Maklic See also:series of incantations and his explanations of the ritual, and also the publications by Zimmern of the Surpu series of tablets in his Beitrdge have rendered us See also:familiar with the functions of the asipu . See See also:article " Magic " in See also:Hastings's Dict . Bible, where examples are given of incantations with magical by-See also:play . Also compare Jastrow's Religion of Babylonia (1898), ch. xvi., " The Magical Texts," where a See also:fuller treatment will be found . Now, as the conjurations were addressed to the deity, asipu, according to the definition given above, comes more reasonably under the categoryof priest . But the priest belongs to the See also:realm of religion proper, which involves a relation of dependence on the See also:superior power, whereas the asipu belongs to the realm of magic, which is coercive and seeks " to constrain the hostile power to give way " (Lagrange) . There was also a third See also:kind of priest called the zammaru, whose function it was to sing See also:hymns . In the earlier See also:period of the See also:Assyrian See also:monarchy we find the king holding the office of pa-te-si or isakku or (more definitely) the sangu, i.e. priest of Agur, the See also:patron-deity of Assyria . This high-priestly office towaids the tutelary deity of the nation appears to have belonged to the king by virtue of his royal See also:rank . In Babylonia under the last See also:empire (except in the case of See also:Nebuchadrezzar, who calls himself patesi "exalted priest," K.I.B. iii. p . 6o) no such high-priestly function attached to the king, for in Babylonia the priesthoods were endowed with great wealth and power, and even the king stood in See also:awe of them (see johns, Babylonian and Assyrian See also:Laws, Contracts and Letters, p . 212 sqq) . These powerfully-organized priesthoods, as well as the elaborate nature of their ritual and apparatus of See also:worship, must have deeply and permanently impressed the exiled Jewish community . Thus arose the more developed See also:system of See also:Ezekiel's See also:scheme (xl.-xlviii.) and of the Priestercodex and the high dignity which became attached to the See also:person of the High Priest (reflected in the narrative of See also:Uzziah's leprosy in 2 Chron. See also:xxvi . 16-2o) . Other See also:parallels to the sacerdotal system of the Priestercodex may here be noted . (I) According to Zimmern the barn and the agipu formed close See also:gilds and the office passed from See also:father to son . This is certainly true of the sangutu or priesthood, which was connected with a special See also:family attached to a particular temple and its worship . (2) Johns also points out the existence of the See also:rab-barii, chief soothsayer, and the rab-masmasu or chief magician . (3) Bodily defects (as squinting, lack of See also:teeth, maimed See also:finger) was disqualifications for priesthood (cf . Lev. xxi . 17 sqq.) . (4) In the ritual tablets for the agipu published in Zimmern's Beitrdge, No . 26, See also:col. iii . 19 sqq., we read " that the masmasu (priest's magician) is to pass forth to the gateway, sacrifice a See also:sheep in the See also:palace portal, and to smear the See also:threshold and posts of the palace gateway right and See also:left with the See also:blood of the Iamb." We are reminded of Exod. xii . 7 (P) . (5) The Babylonian term kuppuru (infin . Pael) is used of the magician-priest or agipu and means " wipe out." This confirms the view that the Hebrew See also:kipper, which appears to be a See also:late word (specially employed in Ezek, and P.), originally had the meaning which belongs to the Aramaic viz . " wipe off " and not " See also:cover " as in Arabic . Zimmern thinks that the meaning " atone" " expiate," which belongs to the Pael form of the See also:root k-p-r in both Aramaic and Arabic was borrowed See also:floor the Babylonian (cf . See also:Driver's See also:note in "See also:Deuteronomy," Int . Commentary, p . 425 sqq, and especially his article " Propitiation" in Hastings's Dict . Bible) . The Rev . C . H . W . Johns, to whom reference has already been made, demurs (in a communication to the writer) to the See also:fusion of the priest and the magician, and to the See also:custom of " calling every unknown See also:official a priest or a See also:eunuch." " If a Babylonian said sangu he meant one thing, by issipu another, and by ramku another . I do not deny that the same man might unite all three functions in one person . Thus a sangu had a definite See also:share in the offerings, a masimasiu a different share . It seems to me that the priests belonged to the old families who were descended from the original tribe or See also:clan, &c., that founded the See also:city, and they could not admit outsiders See also:save by See also:adoption into the family . If a new god had a temple set up he had a new set of priests, but this priesthood descended in its See also:line, e.g. a Samas priest did not beget a man who became a priest of NabQ . Further `priest' implied a See also:peculiar relation to the god . A soothsayer was a See also:general practitioner in his See also:art, not attached to any one god or temple . Anyone could be a ramku who actually poured out libations; that a priest usually did it was no exception to that See also:rule . The priest was only a sort of specialist in the practice . The priest also offered prayer, interceded, &c . I cannot see that he taught . An oracle of the god came through him . If the modus operandi was akin to soothsaying it was only because that special form of soothsaying was peculiar to the particular cult of that god, and even this as a secondary development . I do not think that early priests received oracles save in dreams, &c . That magic early invaded religion is possible, but there are many traces of its being a See also:foreign See also:element . This is not usually pointed out." Among the ancient Egyptians the See also:local god was the See also:protector and lord of the See also:district . Consequently it was the See also:interest and See also:duty of the inhabitants to maintain the cultus of the patron-deity of their city who dwelt in their midst . Moreover, in the earlier times we find the See also:prince of the See also:nome acting as the High Priest of the local god, but in course of time the See also:state, represented by the king, began to an ever-increasing degree to take oversight over the more important local cults . Thus we find that the See also:Egyptian monarch was empowered to exercise priestly functions before all the gods . We constantly see him in the See also:wall-paintings portrayed as a priest in the conventional attitudes before the images of the gods . In the chief sanctuaries the chief priests possessed special privileges, and it is probable that those in the immediate entourage of the king were elected to these positions . The highest See also:nobility in the nome sought the See also:honour of priesthood in the service of the local deity . One special class called kher heb were charged with reciting the divine formulae, which were popularly held to possess magical virtue . In the See also:middle empire (VIIth to XIIth Dynasties) the See also:lay element maintains its position in religious cultus despite its complexity . But under the new empire (Dynasties XVIIIth and following) the professional priest had attained to ominous power . The temples possessed larger estates and became more wealthy . Priests increased in number and were divided into ranks, and we find them occupying state offices, just as in Babylonia the priest acts as See also:judge or inspector of canals (Johns, Babyl. and Assyr . Laws, &c., p . 213) . We now turn to the priesthood as we find it in ancient See also:Greece and See also:Italy . See also:Homer knows special priests who preside over ritual acts in the temples to which they are attached; but his kings also do sacrifice on behalf of their See also:people . The king, in fact, both in Greece and in See also:Rome, was the acting See also:head of the state religion, and when the See also:regal power came to an end his sacred functions were not transferred to the See also:ordinary priests, but either they were distributed among high See also:officers of state, as archons and prytanes, or the See also:title of " king " was still preserved as that of a religious functionary, as in the case of the rex sacrorum at Rome and the See also:archon basileus at See also:Athens . In the domestic circle the See also:union of priesthood and natural headship was never disturbed; the Roman paterfamilias sacrificed for the whole family . On the other hand, gentes and phratriae, which had no natural head, had special priests chosen from their members; for every circle of ancient society, from the family up to the state, was a religious as well as a See also:civil unity, and had its own gods and sacred See also:rites . The lines of religious and civil society were identical, and, so See also:long as they remained so, no antagonism could arise between the spiritual and the temporal power . In point of fact, in Greece and Rome the priest never attained to any considerable See also:independent importance; we cannot speak of priestly power and hardly even of a distinct priestly class . In Greece the priest, so far as he is an independent functionary and not one of the magistrates, is simply the elected or hereditary minister of a temple charged with " those things which are ordained to be done towards the gods " (see See also:Aristotle, Pol. vi . 8), and remunerated from the revenues of the temple, or by the gifts of worshippers and sacrificial dues . The position was often lucrative and always See also:honourable, and the priests were under the special See also:protection of the gods they served . But their purely ritual functions gave them no means of establishing a considerable See also:influence on the minds of men, and the technical knowledge which they possessed as to the way in which the gods could be acceptably approached was neither so intricate nor so mysterious as to give the class a special importance . The funds of the temples were not in their See also:control, but were treated as public moneys . Above all, where, as at Athens, the decision of questions of sacred See also:law See also:fell not to the priests but to the See also:college of E tit-neat, one great source of priestly power was wholly lacking . There remains, indeed, one other sacred function of great importance in the ancient See also:world in which the Greek priests had a share . As man approached the gods in sacrifice and prayers, so too the gods declared themselves to men by See also:divers signs and tokens, which it was possible to read by theart of Divination (q.v.) . In many nations divination and priest-hood have always gone hand in hand; at Rome, for example, the See also:augurs and the X V viri sacrorum, who interpreted the Sibylline books, were priestly colleges . In Greece, on the other hand, divination was not generally a priestly function, but it did belong to the priests of the Oracles (see ORACLE) . The great oracles, however, were of Panhellenic celebrity and did not serve each a particular state, and so in this direction also the See also:risk of an independent priestly power within the state was avoided.' In Rome, again, where the functions of the priesthood were politically much more weighty, where the technicalities of religion were more complicated, where priests interpreted the will of the gods, and where the pontiffs had a most important See also:jurisdiction in sacred things, the state was much too strong to suffer these See also:powers to See also:escape from its own immediate control: the old monarchy of the king in sacred things descended to the inheritors of his temporal power; the highest civil and religious functions met in the same persons (cf . Cie . De dom. i . 1); and every priest was subject to the state exactly as the magistrates were, referring all weighty matters to state decision and then executing what the one supreme power decreed . And it is instructive to observe that when the plebeians extorted their full share of See also:political power they also demanded and obtained See also:admission to every priestly college of political importance, to those, namely, of the pontiffs, the augurs, and the X V viri sacrorum . The See also:Romans, it need hardly be said, had no hereditary priests.2 We can only glance briefly at the ancient religions of See also:India (See also:Aryan) . " In See also:historical times the priesthood is rigidly confined to members of the See also:Brahman See also:caste, who are regarded as the representatives of God on See also:earth . But there are indications that at an earlier date the Kshatriya or See also:warrior caste often became priests . The power of the priesthood began with the delegation by the king of his sacrificial duties to a ` See also:president ' (purohita) . This power See also:grew with the growing importance of the sacrifice and the complication of its ceremonial . In the See also:post-Vedic period ` right ' or ` wrong ' simply means the exact performance or the neglect, whether intentional or unintentional—of all the details of a prescribed ritual, the centre of which was the sacrifice . At this period the priestly caste gained its unbounded power over the minds of men " (See also:Professor Rapson) . For further details as to the development of the priestly caste and See also:wisdom in India the reader must refer to BRAHMINISM; here it is enough to observe that among a religious people a priesthood which forms a close and still more an hereditary See also:corporation, and the assistance of which is indispensable in all religious acts, must rise to See also:practical supremacy in society except under the strongest form of despotism, where the See also:sovereign is head of the Church as well as of the state . Among the Zoroastrian Iranians, as among the See also:Indian See also:Aryans, the aid 'of a priest to recite the sacrificial See also:liturgy was necessary at every offering (See also:Herod. i . 132), and the Iranian priests (&llravans, later Magi) claimed, like the Brahmans, to be the highest See also:order of society; but a variety of conditions were lacking to give them the full place of their Indian brethren . Zoroastrianism is not a nature religion, but the result of a reform which never, under the old empire, thoroughly penetrated the masses; and the priesthood, as it was not based on family tradition, did not form a strict hereditary caste . It was open to any one to obtain entrance into the priesthood, while on the other hand it was only as a priest that he could exercise sacerdotal functions, for these were strictly reserved to priests . Accordingly the See also:clergy formed a compact hierarchy not inferior in influence to the clergy of the Christian middle ages, had great power in the state, and were often irksome even to the great king . 1 For the Greek priests, see, besides See also:Schomann and other See also:works on Greek antiquities, See also:Newton, Essays on Art and See also:Archaeology, p . 136 seq . (from epigraphic material) . See also for Greek as well as Roman priest, art . " Sacerdos " (Sacerdotium) in Warre Cornish's Concise See also:Diet. of Greek and Roman Antiquities . 2 On the Roman priests, see in general See also:Marquardt, Romische Slaatsverwaltung, vol. iii., and for the pontiffs in particular the art . Sacerdos " in Warre Cornish's Concise Dict., also See also:Pontifex . But the best established hierarchy is not so powerful as a caste, and the monarchs had one strong hold on the clergy by retaining the patronage of great ecclesiastical places, and another in the fact that the Semitic provinces on the See also:Tigris, where the See also:capital lay, were mainly inhabited by men of other faith) . The duties of the priests were not restricted to the services of the temple, but they also took See also:part in the See also:household cults . The ritual had a See also:mechanical character and was by no means attractive . It is impossible to enter into the manifold details of the See also:fire cultus which forms the See also:main part of the worship in the Avesta . They belong to an earlier period than the Zoroastrian, nor was this fire cultus restricted to the temples . Portable fire altars were carried about and the worship could be celebrated in any spot . It may be noted that in all the ceremonies in the religion of the Avesta, incantations, prayers and confessions play a very large part . The prevailing element in the incantations consists in the See also:exorcism of devils . In fact, the See also:Persian religion throughout all its multitude of purifications, observances and expiations was a See also:constant warfare against impurity, See also:death and the See also:devil . Amid all the ceremonialism of its priesthood there were also high ideals set forth in Zoroastrian religion of what a priest should be . Thus we read in Vendidad xviii., " Many there be, See also:noble Zarathustra, who See also:bear the mouth bandage, who have yet not girded their loins with the law . If such a one says ` I am an Athravan ' he lies, See also:call him not Athravan, noble Zarathustra, said Ahura Mazda, but See also:thou shouldst call him priest, noble Zarathustra, who sits awake the whole See also:night through and yearns for See also:holy wisdom that enables man to stand on death's See also:bridge fearless and with happy See also:heart, the wisdom whereby he attains the holy and glorious world of See also:paradise." In this rapid glance at some of the chief priesthoods of antiquity we have hitherto passed over the pure Semites, whose priesthoods call for closer examination because of the profound influence which one of them—that of the See also:Jews—has exercised on See also:Christianity, and so on the whole history of the See also:modern world . But before we proceed to this it may be well to note one or two things that come out by comparison of the systems already before us . Priestly acts—that is, acts done by one and accepted by the gods on behalf of many—are See also:common to all See also:antique religions, and cannot be lacking where the See also:primary subject of religion is not the individual but the natural community . But the origin of a See also:separate priestly class, distinct from the natural heads of the community, cannot be explained by any such broad general principle; in some cases, as in Greece, it is little more than a See also:matter of convenience that part of the religious duties of the state should be confided to special ministers charged with the care of particular temples, while in others the intervention of a special priesthood is indispensable to the validity of every religious See also:act, so that the priest ultimately becomes a mediator and the vehicle of all divine See also:grace . This position, we see, can be reached by various paths: the priest may become indispensable through the growth of ritual observances and precautions too complicated for a layman to See also:master, or he may lay claim to special nearness to the gods on the ground, it may be, of his See also:race, or, it may be, of habitual practices of purity and See also:asceticism which cannot be combined with the duties of ordinary See also:life, as, for example, See also:celibacy was required of priestesses of See also:Vesta at Rome . But the highest developments of priestly influence are hardly separable from something of magical superstition, the See also:opus operatum of the priest has the power of a sorcerer's spell .
The strength of the priesthood in See also:Chaldaea and in See also:Egypt stands plainly in the closest connexion with the survival of a magical element in the state religion, and Rome, in like manner, is more priestly than Greece, because it is more superstitious
.
In most cases, however, where an ancient civilization shows us a strong priestly system we are unable to make out in any detail the steps by which that system was elaborated; the clearest case perhaps is the priesthood of the Jews, which is not less interesting from its origin and growth
Cf. especially See also:Noldeke's See also:Tabari, p
.
450 seq.than from the influence exerted by the system long after the priests were dispersed and their See also:sanctuary laid in ruins
.
Among the nomadic Semites, to whom the See also:Hebrews belonged before they settled in See also:Canaan, there has never been any developed priesthood
.
The acts of religion partake of the general simplicity of See also:desert life; apart from the private worship of household gods and the oblations and See also:salutations offered at the See also:graves of departed kinsmen, the ritual observances of the ancient See also:Arabs were visits to the tribal sanctuary to salute the god with a See also:gift of See also:milk, first-fruits or the like, the sacrifice of firstlings and vows (see See also:NAZARITE and See also:PASSOVER), and an occasional See also:pilgrimage to discharge a See also:vow at the See also:annual feast and fair of one of the more distant holy places (see See also:MECCA)
.
These acts required no priestly aid; each man slew his own victim and divided the sacrifice in his own circle; the share of the god was the blood which was smeared upon or poured out beside See also: The fundamental type of the Arabic sanctuary can be traced through all the Semitic lands, and so appears to be older than the Semitic See also:dispersion; even the technical terms are mainly the same, so that we may justly assume that the more developed ritual and priesthoods of the settled Semites sprang from a state of things not very remote from what we find among the See also:heathen Arabs . Now among the Arabs, as we have seen, ritual service is the affair of the individual, or of a See also:mass of individuals gathered in a great feast, but still doing worship each for himself and his own private circle; the only public aspect of religion is found in connexion with divination and the oracle to which the affairs of the community are submitted . In Greece and Rome the public sacrifices were the chief function of religion, and in them the priesthood represented the ancient kings . But in the desert there is no king and no See also:sovereignty save that of the divine oracle, and therefore it is from the soothsayers or ministers of the oracle that a public See also:ministry of religion can most naturally See also:spring . With the beginning of a settled state the sanctuaries must rise in importance and all the functions of See also:revelation will gather See also:round them . A sacrificial priesthood will arise as the worship becomes more complex (especially as sacrifice in antiquity is a common preliminary to the consultation of an oracle), but the public ritual will still remain closely associated with oracle or divination, and the priest will still be, above all things, a revealer . That this was what actually happened may be inferred from the fact that the Canaanite and Phoenician name for a priest (kahen) is identical with the Arabic kahin, a " soothsayer." Soothsaying was no modern importation in See also:Arabia; its characteristic form—a monotonous croon of See also:short rhyming clauses—is the same as was practised by the Hebrew " wizards who peeped and muttered " In the days of See also:Isaiah, and that this form was native in Arabia is clear from its having a technical name (saj'), which in Hebrew survives only in derivative words with modified sense' The kahin, therefore, is not a degraded priest but such a soothsayer as is found in most primitive See also:societies, and the Canaanite priests grew out of these early revealers . In point of fact some form of revelation or oracle appears to have existed in every great See also:shrine of Canaan and See also:Syria,' and the importance of this element in the cultus may be measured from the fact that at See also:Hierapolis it was the charge of the chief priest, just as in the Levitical.legislation . But the use of kahin ' for " priest " in the Canaanite See also:area points to more than this: it is connected with the orgiastic character of Canaanite religion . The soothsayer differs from the priest of an oracle by giving his revelation under excitement and often in a frenzy allied to madness . In natural soothsaying this frenzy is the necessary See also:physical See also:accompaniment of an afflatus which, though it seems supernatural to a See also:rude people, is really akin to poetic See also:inspiration . I Meshugga', 2 Kings ix . 
II, Jer. See also:xxix
.
26—a term of contempt applied to prophets
.
(See HEBREW RELIGION.)
' For examples, see See also:PALMYRA and See also:PHILISTINES; see further, See also:Lucian, De dea Syria, 36, for HierapoliS; See also:Zosimus i
.
58, for Aphaca; See also: |