PREPARATION
PREPARATION ( H TTAPACKEYH), Mt. 2762 Mk.
15 42 Lk. 23 54 Jn. 19 1 4 3 1 4 2 t . See W E E K , z ; c p
further, CHRONOLOGY, Q 56.
PRESBYTER. The English word ’ priest ’ is simply
a contraction of the Latin pres6yter. But, as it was
1. lYIeaning.commonly used to translate sacerdos,
which the Western Church freely em-
ployed as a title of the Christian ministry, its meaning
was extended to include pre-Christian senses of sncerdos
as well ; and thus a word originally signifying ‘ a n
elder ’ came to be used for the ministers of Jewish or
heathen cults. In the AV indeed it is confined to these,
and the word employed as the equivalent of presbyter is
a elder. ’
The Greek word T ~ P E U ~ L ~ T E P Olike
S, its English equiva-
lent ‘elder,’ has various shades of meaning, arising
from the natural connection between age, honour, and
office ; and they can be distinguished only by the con-
text in which the word occurs. In the N T the word
is used in reference both to the ancient Jewish polity
(S z ) and to the new Christian Church (5s 3 3 ) .
( a ) The earliest form of the Gospel narrative
contains the phrase ‘ the tradition of the elders’ (Mk.
Here it appears that the elders are
2. among f 3 ) .
the Jews. the great religious leaders of the past ; just
as to-day appeal is made to ‘ the Fathers.’
Somewhat similarly; in- Heb. 112 we are told that ‘ by
faith the elders obtained a good report.’
(6) ‘ Elder’ is also perpetually employed in the
Synoptic Gospels and Acts, in conjunction with the
‘scribes,’ the ‘rulers’ and the ‘chief priests,’ to de-
scribe certain officials of the community, who are also
spoken of collectively as the ‘ presbytery’ or ‘ body of
elders ‘ (dTpeu/3udprov).
( a ) I n Acts.-In Acts1130 we are suddenly intro-
duced by the historian to ‘the elders’ of the church
3. In the in Jerusalem. T o them Barnabas and
Saul bring the contributions collected in
Christian Antioch for the poorer brethren in Judza.
church. T h e persecution which the believers a t
Jerusalem had by this time (about 44 A . D. ) begun to suffer
at the hands of their countrymen had doubtless tended
to eniphasise their separate existence as a community ;
and in a community composed of Jews it would be very
natural that the leading members should be spoken of
as elders. Shortly after this a question of principle
was raised at Antioch in reference to the circumcision
of Gentile converts. Its decision was certain to he
pregnant with issues for the future of the Christian
church. After much discussion it was agreed to refer
it to Jerusalem for settlement (Acts15). [See C O UN C IL
OF J ERUSALEM .] It was to ’the apostles and elders’
that the delegates of the church in Antioch were sent ;
‘ t h e apostles and elders’ received them on their
arrival ; ’ the apostles and the elders ‘-the reitera-
tion cannot be accidental-’ came together to see about
this matter.’ A line of action was agreed upon by
‘ t h e apostles and elders with the whole church,’ and
the letter sent to Antioch began thus: ‘ T h e apostles
and the elder brethren to the brethren in Antioch and
Syria and Cilicia that are of the Gentiles, greeting.’
Later this letter is again referred to as ‘ t h e decisions
of the apostles and elders that were in Jerusalem’
( 1 6 4 ) . The expression of the letter itself differs from
the phrase of the historian by the addition of a single
word-‘the elder b~ethren.’ It is not as an official
class, but as the senior members of the church, that
they make their voice heard ; beneath the precedence
of office lies the natural precedence of age and of
priority in discipleship. In fact this expression is the
key to much of the difficulty that attaches to the use of
the word ‘elder’ in the early Christian writings; a
distinction is not always sharply drawn between what
we may call natural and official prestige. The word
occurs again on another occasion of importance. Pan1
arrives in Jerusalem, bearing ‘ t h e offering of the
3833
PRESBYTER
Sentiles,’-a large contribution which he has gathered
among his Greek churches, and now brings, in some
anxiety as to its reception, to the church in Jerusalem.
His first act is to visit James. On this occasion, we
we told, all the elders came together (Acts21 18) ; and
it was they who suggested a plan by which Paul’s
personal loyalty to the Mosaic law might be openly
affirmed.
Even if this use of the word ‘elders’ in Acts,-
to denote a class of men holding in the Christian church
in Jerusalem a position parallel to that of the elders of
the Jewish people-were regarded as the usage of a
slightly later period, introduced almost unconsciously
by Lk. into his narrative of earlier events; or, again,
even if (on another theory) the Lucan authorship
were set aside and the date of the book slightly de-
pressed: we should still have very early evidence for
the existence and title of a class of elders in Jerusalem ;
for the writer is notably careful in his use of official
designations, and verisimilitude would at least require
that he should not introduce an institution to which
there was not and had not been any counterpart in the
Palestinian churches. It is important to bear this in
mind as we pass on to the other allusions to Christian
elders in Acts.
O n their return to Lystra, Iconium, and the Pisidian Antioch,
after their work in Derbe Paul and Rarnabas are said to have
appointed elders in each’of these churches (1423). I t was in
itself wholly natural that the two apostles should establish in
those communities which no doubt embraced a large number,
if not a majority,’of Jews and proselytes, a n institution with
which, as the history has related, both of them had together
come personally into contact in Jerusalem. Moreover, as they
were acting in a sense as the delegates of the church of Antioch.
we are justified in assuming, what in itself is highly probable,
that the same institution already existed in that church as well.
On the journey to Jerusalem which led to his imprisonment we
are told that from Miletus Paul sent to Ephesus and summoned
‘the elders of the church’ (20 17 ). Here then the same
organisation is implied for the E p k a n church. T h e elders
are exhorted ‘to take heed to themselves and to the whole flock,
wherein the Holy Spirit has set them as overseers ( ~ ~ L c K ~ ~ io w ) ’
their duty is declared to he ‘ t o feed (moiyaivcrv ‘ t o shepherd
or ‘rule’) the church of God. Wetchfulnes’s is especially
urged upon them in view of the certainty that ‘wolves,’ or false
teachers, will presently attack the flock : the apostle’s own
example will show them how they should labour with their own
hands and assist those who need their help. I t is noteworthy
that Paul is not represented as himself using the word ‘elders
in addressing them : nor does the word occur in any sense in
the Pauline Epistles, until we come to the Pastoral Epistles.
(6) In Timothy and Titus. -In I Tim. 4 14 ‘ t h e
hands of the presbytery’ are said to have been laid on
Timothy; thus we seem to have another reference to
the elders of Lystra. In 5 I-‘ rebuke not an elder ’-
it is probable from the subsequent reference to ’ younger
men,’ elder women,’ and ‘younger women,’ that the
idea of age is dominant. In v.17 we have an injunction
of considerable importance : ‘ The elders who preside
well (or K a X r j s . r r p o e m r j n s Tppsuphrpor) are to be
accounted worthy of double honour (6mh?js np?js).
especially those who labour in the m-ord and teaching.’
It is not clear whether this ‘honour ’ is in reality a n
honorarium ; nor whether the word ’ double ’ is used in
contrast to the provision for widows ’ mentioned jnst
before (cp v. 3, X?jpas sipa, K . T . X . ) . or in comparison
with other elders, or somewhat vaguely; nor, again,
whether all elders are regarded as ‘ presiding.’ But
undoubtedly a distinction is made in favour of such of
the elders as exercise the gift of teaching ; and it seems
on the whole fair to suppose that we have here a class
of men whose public services entitle them to public
support. In the command which follows-not to
entertain hastily a charge against an elder (v. 19),-it
is probable that the term is used in the same sense as
in the previous context.
I n the Epistle to Titus we have but one instance of the word,
and there it is plainly official : ‘that thou shouldest appoint
elders in every city, as I commanded thee’ (1 5).
( c ) I Pefer.-In I Pet. 51-5 we have an example
of the recognition of the two elements which co-exist in
the term ‘elder.’ The first words are in themselves
3834
 PRESBYTER
ambiguous : ‘ T h e elders among you (or ’ the elder
among you,’ npeu/3m6pous o b &r bpb) I exhort, who
am your fellow-elder (6 uupnpeu,136repos).’ The refer-
ence might be simply to a g e ; or, again, to length of
discipleship (cp ‘ and witness of the sufferings of Christ ’).
T h e words of v. 5--( Likewise, ye younger, be subject
to the elder ’ (or ‘ the elders ‘)-seem to point in a like
direction. But between vv. I and 5 comes the solemn
charge, ‘Feed (noipdvase) the flock of God that is
among you,’ with a warning against covetousness and
despotic rule, and with the promise of a reward from
‘ the Head Shepherd ’ (dpxinoipqv). I t is thus evident
that a recognised authority is implied; and when the
term ‘ the younger ’ is used of those whose duty was to
obey, this is because the original significance of the
word ‘ elder ’ was felt, and because the contrast between
rulers and ruled was in the main a contrast between the
elder and the younger members of the congregation.
( d ) Otker CutkoZic EpistZes.-In the Epistle of James
the sick man is bidden to call ‘the elders of the
church,’ that they may pray over him and anoint him
for his recovery. Here the institution is clearly attested,
and once more for Jewish churches, It is to be observed
that here as elsewhere the elders act not individually,
hut together ; the word is never in the N T used in the
singular number when any . duty. pertaining to the office
is described.
T h e second and third Epistles of John are written
in the name of a the elder’-(6 npeu/3thpos) ; but they
contain nothing which helps us to fix the precise mean-
ing of the term. Nor is it easy to gain any light from
the mention of the twenty-four elders in the visions of
the Apocalypse. Apart from these instances the word
is not used at all in the Johannine writings.
Let us endeavour now to sum up the evidence of
the NT as to the meaning and usaEe of the word
‘ elder,’ as applied t o leading men
** summiq up. in the Christian church. If we
accept the historical character of Acts and regard the
letter from the church in Jerusalem as an authentic
document, we are able to trace the institution practically
from the very beginning. a The elder brethren,’ as
they are described in the letter, take rank below the
apostles, but above the rest of the church ( ’ the whole
multitude,’ a h s b nAijOos, Acts15 12). T h e expression
‘ the elder brethren,’ as contrasted with the more formal
term ‘ the elders ’ used by the historian in his narrative,
in itself supports the genuineness of the document ; it
could scarcely have originated with the writer of its
historical setting, for five times over he reiterates his
own phrase in this connection. Either, then, we may
suppose that the senders of the letter purposely modify
the more official title by which others spoke of them ;
or we may gather that at that time, while a body of
leading persons actually existed as a recognised
authority within the Church, they were still thought of
as its senior members, rather than as formal officers
strictly corresponding to the elders of the Jewish people.
In the latter case we still see that it was natural and
almost inevitable that the new institution should attach
to itself the familiar title, and that ‘ the elder brethren ’
should become the Christian ‘elders.’ Our choice
lies, in fact, between a conscious imitation of the old
Jewish institution and an unconscious assiniilation to it.
The institution thus shaped in Jerusalem is seen to
reproduce itself in the earliest churches of Paul’s
foundation. Whatever his practice may have been
later, when he was guiding the Greek churches to a
complete independence of Judaism, it was likely enough
that in this first missionary journey he should fashion
the organisation of his earliest converts on the one
existing model of which alone we have any information,
-that, namely, of the church in Jerusalem.
W e have seen that ‘ the elders of the church’ in
Ephesus (Acts2017) are not so entitled in the address
which the historian puts into the mouth of Paul. This
3835
PRESBYTER
is in strict harmony with the apostle’s usage in all his
epistles, if we except the Pastoral Epistles. That the
historian, on the other hand, should speak of them as
‘elders’ does not necessarily imply more than that
their functions were the same as were exercised by those
whom he has hitherto described by this title ; in other
words, that they were ‘ the elders of the church,’ even
if they were not commonly addressed as such.
As in the case of Acts, so too in that of the
Pastoral Epistles, the question of authorship and date
does not seriously affect the evidence which they offer
us on this subject. They cannot with any reason be
placed so late as to disqualify them as witnesses to
actual institutions of the close of the Apostolic age.
Even a pseudonymous writer must have some regard to
verisimilitude, and in laying down practical rules he
will offer iniportailt testimony to the conditions of his
own, if not of an earlier time. In these epistles, then,
we see the same class of ‘elders’ spoken of for
Ephesus and Crete ; but we seem to see them in a later
stage than that which is represented by Paul’s charge
to the Ephesian elders in Acts. Paul had formerly
encouraged the elders to be self-supporting after his
own example ; he now comes before us as apparently
claiming for them public maintenance, especially in the
case of those who are devoting their strength lo the
labours of teaching. That there is no inconsistency in
this is plain from his full discussion of the question in
relation to his own practice in I Cor. 93-14. Incident-
ally we learn that it was natural and not uncommon
that the elders should be not only the rulers but also
the instructors of their flock ; and we can see that the
combination of the two functions was certain to increase
the influence of the individual who should exercise them
both.
With a view to the question of the relation between
the term ‘ elder’ (npeu/3hepos) and the term ‘ bishop ’
5. Other hi mono^), it is important to notice that
those of the Pauline Epistles which do not
ofhcial contain the word ‘elder’ do nevertheless
terms. refer under various appellations to persons
holding a prominent position in the communities to
which they are written.
Thus the church of the Thessalonians, immediately
after its foundation, is exhorted in these terms: ‘ t o
know them that labour among you and preside over
you (apotusap&ous bp&) in the Lord and admonish
you ; and to esteem them very highly in love for their
work‘s sake’ ( I Thes. 512J). Some organisation (cp
Rom. 128, 6 nporudpevor 2r u n o u 6 ~; I l i m . 34f: 517),
whether the title of ‘elders’ or any other title was
connected with it or not, is certainly implied in these
words. At the same time, as the second letter still more
clearly shows ( 3 14f. ), the conimunity is addressed as a
whole, and is held generally responsible for the sup-
pression of disorder among its members. T h e Corinthian
church is likewise called upon as a whole to exercise dis-
cipline (cp esp. I C o r . 5 3 8 ) ; but a t the same time we
readof ‘governments’(~~/3eppv$~etr) as ‘set in the church ’
by God (1228). ‘ The household of Stephanas,’who were
among the earliest converts and had received baptism
from Paul himself, clearly held some position of pre-
eminence. They had a devoted themselves to minister to
the saints’ (cis GiaKoviav sois dyiots E~aEau baurolis):
to such as these subjection was to be rendered (16 r 5 J .
c p 116). I t is noteworthy that in epistles which deal
with so many points of practical order we do not find
more definite indications of a constituted authority.
The lack of such an authority-if we are justified in
pressing the argument from silence-may perhaps in
part account for the exceptionally disturbed condition
of the Corinthian church.
In the Epistle to the Galatians the main trouble is
with false teachings ; of organisation we hear nothing.
For the restoration of an erring brother Paul appeals to
those who have a spiritual gift (6& ol rrvcuparrror, 6 I ; if this
3836
 PRESENCE
he not rather intended a s a designation of the whole body): the
taught ( b x a ~ , y 0 6 p e v o c )is to make contributions for the support
of his teacher ( r @x a n l ~ o i h r i ) ,66.
In the Colossian church .kchippus is to he warned to
fulfil some 'ministry' (&awouiau), which he has ' r e -
ceived in the Lord ' ; but it is not further defined,
For the case of the Philippian church see B ISHOP, § 7.
It would appear that in these Pauline churches such
organisation as there was held a very subordinate
position at this period. The church as a whole in each
place had alike full powers and full responsibility for
the exercise of its powers. T h e authority of the founder
and the influence of eminent men who laboured in
connection with him were the main elements of guidance,
and these at present retarded the development of any
local form of government which there may have been.
The Epistle to the Hebrews bids the Christians to
whom it is addressed ' remember their leaders ' ( 4 u
Y W who
~ ~ O U ~ ~6pLL;v) Y have passed away, on the ground
that 'they spake to them the word of t i o d ' (137).
They are also charged to obey their present ' leaders,'
as those who 'watch for their souls ' (!317). At the
close the writer salutes all their ' leaders (1324). The
word thus used is in the present day a technical term
(hegwnenos) for the head of a Greek monastery, as it
was in Egypt i n the fourth century; but here it must
be regarded as simply a description of the ruling class
in the church, and it is noticeable that honour is
specially claimed for this class on the ground of the
spiritual fnnctions of teaching and ' watching for souls. '
'Thus far, then, we have found three terms employed
to describe the ruling class in the Christian church-
'elders,' ' those who preside,' and ' those who lead.'
The first appears to he an official title ; the second and
third are descriptive of the main function which these
rulers perform. There is no ground for supposing that
more than one institution is pointed to by these three
terms.
T h e question whether the term 'bishop' ( i t i r o r r o c ) describes
the same or a different institution has been considered in the
article € 3 1 ~ ~ 0 1 ' . To that article reference must also be made for
patristic illustrations, and especially for the use of the word
rrpra,%repoc in the Epistle of Clement of Rome.
I t only remains to be said that in the second century we find
the word Z~EOSQTC~OS used by Papias (Eus. H E 339) and
Irenzus (e.g., iv. 27 I ) in speaking of 'disciples of the Lord ' or
'disciples of the apostles' from whom certain traditions had
heen received. This sense reminds us of the first meaning of
the word to which we made reference above ($ 2 ) in ipeaking of
the use of the term among the Jews. J. A. R.
PRESENCE (napoycia), Mt. 243, etc., RVmg. See
ESCHATOLOGY, 848
PRESENCE BREAD (nrJg;l nnS), EX. 2530, etc.,
KVmg., EV S HEWBREAD (q,..).
PRESIDENTS (]'??!, sa'rZ'in), Dan. 62-7 [3-8]+.
Most commentators take this A y m a i c yord to be of Persian
origin=suruk, ' chief,' from sn'r, head. See Bevan, Marti,
Driver. I n Tg. it is used for 9ki. Q has T W T C K ~ ,Vg.
princeps.
PRESS. I. ne,gath, Is.313. See OIL-PRESS,
W INE-PRESS.
2. and 3. I?.;,y@e6, Is. 16 I O , etc., and ?l;?s,jrivEh,Hag. 216.
See W INE-PRESS, WINE-FAT.
PRIEST, a contracted form of PRESBYTER [ q . ~ . ]a,
name of office in the early Christian church. But in
1. Meaning the EV the presbyters of the N T are
' elders,' not ' priests ' : the latter
of word. called
name is reserved for ministers of pre-
Christian religions, the Sem. o m > (KJhulnim, sing.
KShPn) and o'?p? (Klmdrim),or'ihe Gk. k p c i s . T h e
reason of this will appear more clearly in the sequel ;
it is enough to observe at present that, before our
English word was formed, the original idea of a
presbyter had been overlaid with others derived from
pre- Christian priesthoods. The theologians of the
Greek and Latin churches expressly found the con-
ception of a Christian priesthood on the hierarchy of
3837
PRIEST
the Jewish temple, while the names by uhich the
sacerdotal character is expressed-kpelis, sacerdos-
originally designated the ministers of sacred things in
Greek and Roman heathenism, and then came to be
used as translations into Greek and Latin of t h t
Hebrew K8hin. K8hPn, iepelir, sacerdos are in fact fair
translations of one another ; they all denote a minister
whose stated business was to perform, on behalf of the
community, certain public ritual acts, particularly sacri-
fices, directed godwards. There were such ministers or
priests in all the great religions of ancient civilisation,
and indeed a priesthood in the sense now defined is
generally found, in all parts of the world, among races
which have a tribal or national religion of definite
character, and not merely an unorganised mass of
superstitious ideas, fears, and hopes, issuing in practices
of sorccry. T h e tcrm 'priest is sometimes taken to
inc!ude 'sorcerer,' just as religion is often taken to
inclucle the belief in mysterious or superhuman powers
which can be constrained by spells ; but this is an abuse
of language. Religion begins when the relation of the
divine powers to man is conceived-on the analogy o f
the relations of formed human society-as having a
certain stable personal character on which the wor-
shippers can calculate and act. The gods of the
ancient religions might d o arbitrary acts ; but their
conduct towards man was not habitually arbitrary.
T h e actions on the part of individuals or of the state by
which their favour w-as maintained, lost, or regained
were matter of tradition. It was the business of the
comniunity to see that the right course of action was
pursued, and on behalf of the community, with which
alone properly speaking the gods had intercourse, the
right kind of service was performed either by its natural
head or by specially appointed officials. 'There is the
closest connection in early times between state and
religion.
It would be too large a task to attempt a general
survey of the priesthoods, royal or other, in antiquity.
It may be well, however, to notice oiie
2. Origin of
or two points which a comparative study
priesthood of organised religions reveals to us.
in general. Priestly acts-that is, acts done by one
and accepted by the gods on behalf of niany--are
coninion to all antique religions, and cannot be lacking
where the primary subject of religion is not the in-
dividual hut the natural comniunity. But the origin
of a 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 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 act, so that the priest ultimately becomes
a mediator and the vehicle of all divine grace.
This position, we see, can be reached b y various paths ; the
priest may become indispensable through the growth of ritual
observances and precautions too complicated for a layman to
master, or he may lay claim to special nearness to the gods on
the ground, it may be, of his race, or it may be of habitual
practices of purity and asceticism which cannot be combined
with the duties of ordinary life, as for example, celibacy was
required of priestesses of Vesta a t Rome.
The highest developments of priestly inflnence, how-
ever, are hardly separable from something of magical
superstition ; the opus operatum of the priest has the
power of a sorcerer's spell. The strength of thc priest-
hood in Chaldea and in Egypt stands plainly in the
closest connection with the survival of a magic 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 civilisation
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 priest-
3838
 PRIEST
hood of the Jews, which is not less interesting from its
origin and growth than from the influence exerted by
the system long after the priests were dispersed and
their sanctuary laid in ruins.
Among the nomadic Semites, to whom the Hebrews
belonged before they settled in Canaan, there has never
3. origin of been any developed priesthood. The
acts of religion partake of the general
Semitic simplicity of desert life ; apart from the
priesthood.
private worship of household gods and
the oblations and salutations offered a t the graves of
departed kinsmen, the ritual observances of the ancient
Arabs were visits to the tribal sanctuary to salute the
god with a gift of milk, first-fruits, or the like. the
sacrifice of firstlings and vows (see NAZIRITE and
P A SS O V E R), and an occasional pilgrimage to discharge
a vow a t the annual feast and fair of one of the more
distant holy places. These acts required no priestly
a i d ; each man slew his own victim and divided the
sacrifice i n his own circle ; the share of the god was the
blood which was smeared upon, or poured out beside, a
stone (cp Ar. n q b . gfznbghab) set up as an altar or
perhaps a; a symbol of the deity (see MASSEBAH). I t
does not appear that any portion of the sacrifice was
burned on the altar, or that any part of the victim %-as
the due of the sanctuary. W e find, therefore, no trace
of a sacrificial priesthood ; but each temple had one or
more doorkeepers (sddin. &jib), whose office was usually
hereditary in a certain family, and w-ho had the charge
of the temple and its treasures. The sacrifices and
offerings were acknowledgments of divine bounty and
means used to insure its continuance ; the Arab was the
‘ slave’ of his god and paid him tribute, as slaves used
to do to their masters, or subjects to their lords: and
the free Bedouin, trained in the solitude of the desert to
habits of absolute self-reliance, knew no master except
his god, and acknowledged no other will before which
his own should bend.
Hence the other side of Arab religion was to look
for divine direction in every grave or difficult concern
of life; what could not be settled in the free council
of the tribesmen, or by the unenforced award of an
umpire, WRS referred to the command of the god,
and the oracle was the only authority by which dis-
sensions could be healed, lawsuits determined, and
judgment authoritatively spoken. The voice of the
god might be uttered in omens which the ‘skilled could
read, or conveyed in the inspired rhymes of soothsayers ;
but frequently it was sought in the oracle of the sanctuary,
where the sacred lot was administered for a fee by the
sldin. The sanctuary thus became a seat of judgment,
and here, too, compacts were sealed by oaths and sacri-
ficial ceremonies.
These institutions, though known to us only from
sources belonging to an age when the old faith was
falling to pieces, are certainly very ancient. Their
whole stamp is primitive, and they correspond in
the closest way with what we know of the earliest
religion of the Israelites, the only other Semitic people
whose history can be traced back to a time when they
had not fully emerged from nomad life. In fact,
the fundamental type of the Arabic sanctuary can be
traced through all the Semitic lands, and so appears to
be older than the Semitic 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 ffom a state of things not very
remote from what we find among the heathen Arabs.
Now among the Arabs, as we have seen, ritual service
is the affair of the individual, or of a 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 connection with divination
and the oracle to which the affairs of the community
are submitted. In Greece and Rome the public sacri-
fices were the chief function of religion, and in them
3839
PRIEST
the priesthood represented the ancient kings. In the
desert there is no king and no sovereignty save that of
the divine oracle, and therefore it is from the sooth-
sayers or ministers of the oracle that a public ministry
of religion can most naturally spring. With the be-
ginning of a settled state the sanctuaries must rise in
importance and all the functions of revelation will gather
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 Phcenician name for a
priest (KdhEn) is identical with the Arabic Kdhin, a
‘ soothsayer.’
Note also the intimate connection in I S. 6 2 hetween the
KahZnZ?n and the K8sZmim of the Phili&nes. Soothsaying
was no modern importation in Arabia ; its characteristic form-
a monotonous croon of short rhyming clauses-is the same as
was practised by the Hebrew ‘wizards who peeped and muttered’
in the days of Isaiah (Is. 294), 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.1
T h e KBhin, therefore, is not a degraded priest hut such a
soothsayer as is found in most primitive societies, and the
Canaanite priests grew out of these early revealers.2 I n
point of fact there appears to have been some form of revelation
or oracle in every great shrine of Canaan and Syria,z and the
importance of this element in the cultus may be measured
from the fact that a t Hierapolis it was the charge of the chief
priest, just as in the Levitical legislation.
The use of ‘ Kiihin’ for ‘priest’ in the Canaanite
area points, however, to more than this ; it is connected
with the orgiastic character of Canaanite religion.
T h e soothsayer differs from the priest of a n oracle by giving
his revelation under excitement and often in a frenzy allied to
madness. I n natural soothsaying this frenzy is the necessary
physical accompaniment of a n afflatus which, though it seems
to a rude people supernatural is really akin to poetic inspiration.
I t is soon learned, however, ;hat a similar physical state can be
produced artificially, and a t the Canaanite sanctuaries this was
done on a large scale.
W e see from I K.18 z K. 10 that the great Baal
temples had two classes of ministers, k6hBnim and
nebi’im, ‘ priests’ and ‘prophets,’ and as the kBhBnini
bear a name which primarily denotes a soothsayer, so
the nCbi’im are also a kind of priests who do sacrificial
service with a wild ritual of their own. How deeply
the orgiastic character was stamped on the priesthoods
of N. Semitic nature-worship is clear from Greek and
Roman accounts, such as that of Apuleius (iVIetum.
hk. 8). Sensuality and religious excitement of the
wildest kind went hand in hand, and a whole army of
degraded ministers of a religion of the passions was
gathered round every famous shrine.
T h e Hebrews, who made the language of Canaan
their own, took also the Canaanite name for a priest.
4. Beginnings But the earliest forms of Hebrew
are not Canaanite in
of theinpriest-
hood priesthood
Israel. character ; the priest, as he appears
In the older records of the time of the
Judges, Eli a t Shiloh, Jonathan in the private temple of
Micah (see M ICAH ) and at Dan, is much liker the
1 MZfug@* 2 K . 9 II Jer. 2926 [Hos. 9j-]-a term of con-
tempt applied’to prophets (cp PROPHETIC LITERATUI(E, $ I, 3).
2 On the relation of the Canaanite (or Hebrew) priest to the
Arabian Kthin, see, further, Sprenger, Le6en Muhammen‘s,1255 ;
Stade, G I 1 M q 7 r ; Wellhausen, Heid.P) x3rfl Sprenger and
Stade consider the priesthood to have arisen out of the seer’s
function. According to Wellhausen, on the ,other hand, the
&thin,who from the first had been connected wlth the sanctuary,
with the development of the seer’s office gradually took over
from the priests the principal and most honourable share of
their work, and a t the same time their title of honour. Thus
the priest at last sank to the grade of a mere door-keeper.
3 See Lucian De Dea Syria, 36, for Hierapolis ; Zosimus,
158, for Aphala ; Pliny, H N 37 58 (compared with Lucian
ut s u p m , and Movers, Phoenizier, 1655), for the temple oi
Melkart a t T e I S . 6 2 for Ekron.
4 T h e pre-hi;o&ic prieithood, t o the elucidation of which Fr.
Y. Hummeiauer (1899) has devoted a special treatise, can still
Dnly he regarded as imaginary.
3840
 PRIEST'
Arabian sidin than the Rihin.' T h e whole structure
of Hebrew society at the time of the conquest was
almost precisely that of a federation of Arab tribes, and
the religious ordinances are scarcely distinguishable from
those of Arabia, save only that the great deliverance of
the Exodus, and the period when Moses, sitting in judg-
ment at the sanctuary of Kadesh, had for a whole
generation impressed the sovereignty of Y a h d on all
the tribes, had created an idea of unity between the
scattered settlements in Canaan such as the Arabs before
Mohammed never had. Neither in civil nor in religious
life, however, was this ideal unity expressed in fixed
institutions. T h e old individualism of the Semitic
nomad held its ground. Thus the firstlings, first-fruits,
and vows are still the free gift of the individual which
no human authority exacts, and every householder
presents and consumes with his circle in a sacrificial
feast without priestly aid.
I t is thus that Gideon (Judg. 6 1 7 3 ) and Manoah (Judg. 13 19)
offer sacrifice, with the express approval of Yahwe, or rather of
his Mal',ik. As in Arabia, the ordinary sanctuary is still a
sacred stone (n?xp=nosb) set u p under the open heaven, and
here the hlood of the victim is poured out as an offering to God
(see ~ ~ A ~ S E BandA H cp Is.14 34 2 s.
23 16J).
The priest has no place in this ritual ; he is not the
minister of an altar,2 but the guardian of a temple, such
as was already found here and there in the land for the
custody of sacred images and palladia or other conse-
crated things (the ark at Shiloh, I S. 3 3 ; images in
Micah's temple, Judg. 17 5 ; Goliath's sword lying be-
hind the ' ephod ' or plated image at Nob [see NOB],
I S. 2110 ; no doubt also money, as in the Canaanite
temple at Shechem. Judg. 94). Such treasures required
a gnardian; that they were occasionally liable to be
stolen is shown by the story, just referred to, of the
images in Micah's temple.
Above all, wherever there was a temple there was
an oracle, a kind of sacred lot, just as in Arabia
( I S. 1441 e),
which could only be drawn where there
was an ' ephod ' and a priest ( I S. 14 18, @ ; 2 3 6 3 307).
T h e Hebrews had already possessed a tent-temple and
oracle of this kind in the wilderness (Ex. 3 3 7 3 ) . of
which Moses was the priest and Joshua the aedituus,
and ever since that time the judgment of God through
the priest at the sanctuary had a greater weight than
the word of a seer, and was the ultimate solution of
every controversy and claim ( I S. 2 2 5 Ex. 22 7 5 , where
for AV's 'judge, ' 'judges,' read ' God ' 3). T h e temple
at SHILOH,where the ark was preserved, was the lineal
descendant of the Mosaic sanctuary-for it was not the
place but the palladium and its oracle that were the
essential thing-and its priests claimed kin with Moses
himself. In the divided state of the nation, indeed,
1 This appears even in the words used as synonyms for
'priest,' n l w q low, which exactly correspond to the AI.
sadin and &&b. That the name of 103 was borrowed from the
Canaanites appears certain, for out of the multiplicity of words
for soothsayers and the like common to Hebrew arid Arabic
(either formed from a common root or expressing exactly
the same idea: '$W. 'an+; lJn, @ a h ; ?!n, nul, &zi;
OD?, cp isiiksrirn) the Hebrews and the Canaanites have chosen
the same one tomean a priest. That they did so independentlyis
in view of the great difference in character between old Hehre;
and Canaanite priesthoods, inconceivable. Besides p b Hebrew
has the word lpb (pl. O'!pp), which, however, is hardly applied
to riests of the national religion (see C HEMARIM ).
?For the opposite view cannot be urged the etymology of the
word Kahen as if, possibly derived from p,it meant from the first
'one who served God a t the altar' (Baudissin, 269) or even one
who sets in order (['X) the offering (so, for example, Ewald).
I t is not clear from I S. 2 15 whether even a t Shiloh the priest
had anything to do with sacrifice, whether those who burned
the fat were the worshippers themselves or some subordinate
ministers of the temple.
3 [ E x . 21 6 to which WRS also refers perhaps does not belong
to this connection ; for O > f i j K there possibly denotes the ancestral
irnaxe: see Schwally, Leben nach dem Toa'e, 38f: ; and cp
further, Smend, Rel.-gesch.Pl 77, n. 3.1
123 3841
PRIEST
this sanctuary was hardly visited from beyond Mount
Ephraim ; and every man (or tribe) that cared to provide
the necessary apparatus (ephod, teraphim, etc.) and
hire a priest might have a temple and oracle of his own
at which to consult Yahw&(Judg. 1 7 5 ) ; but there was
hardly another sanctuary of equal dignity.
The priest of Shiloh is a much greater person than Micah's
priest Jonathan : a t the great feasts he sits enthroned by the
doorway, preserving decorum among the worshippers : he has
certain legal dues, and if he is disposed to exact more no one
ventures to resist ( I S. 2 IZ& : see SBOT[Heb.]). The priestly
position of the family survived the fall of Shiloh and the captivity
of the ark, aiid it was members of this house who consulted
Yahw& for the early kings until Solonion deposed Abiathar.
Indeed, though priesthood was not yet tied to one
family, so that Micah's son, or Eleazar of Kirjath-
jearim ( I S. 7 I), or Samuel, and perhaps by preference
firstborn sons in general1 (cp also Ex. 24 5 ) , could all
be priests, a Levite-that is, a man of Moses' tribe-
was already preferred for the office elsewhere than at
Shiloh (Judg. 1713, see M ICAH i., 2 ) , and such a priest
naturally handed down his place to his posterity (Judg.
1830).
Ultimately, indeed, as sanctuaries were multiplied,
and the priests all over the land came to form one well-
marked class, ' Levite' and legitimate
6. Development priest became equivalent expressions
of Israelitic (see L EVITES ). Rut between the
priesthood priesthood of Eli at Shiloh, or Jonathan
under the
at Dan, and the priesthood of the
monarchy. Levites as described in Dt. 338 fi,
there lies a period of the inner history of which we know
almost nothing. It appears that the various priestly
colleges regarded themselves as one order, that they had
common traditions of law and ritual which were traced
back to Moses, and common interests which had not
been vindicated without a struggle (Dt. 3311). The
kingship had not deprived them of their functions as
fountains of divine judgment. On the contrary, the
decisions of the sanctuary had grown up into a body of
sacred law, which the priests administered according to
a traditional precedent ; and when in consequence of the
Deuteronomic legislation all sanctuaries except that of
Jerusalem were suppressed, the more important judicial
cases at least came up for decision before the priesthood
of Jerusalem (Dt. 178f.). According to Semitic ideas
the declaration of law is quite a distinct function from
the enforcing of it, and the royal executive came into no
collision with the purely declaratory functions of the
priests. Priestly functions, on the contrary, must have
grown in importance with the unification and progress of
the nation, and in all probability the consolidation of the
priesthood into one class went hand in hand with a con-
solidation of legal tradition. Moreover, this work must
have been well done, for, though the general corruption
of society at the beginning of the Assyrian period was
nowhere more conspicuous than at the sanctuaries and
among the priesthood (cp, e.g., Micah 3 I I ) , the invective
of Hos. 4 equally with the eulogium of Dt. 33 (the author
of which was. we may safely conjecture, himself a priest)
proves that the position which the later priests abused
had been won by ancestors who earned the respect of
the nation as worthy representatives of a divine Torah.
The ritual functions of the priesthood still appear in
Dt. 33 as secondary to that of declaring the sentence of
God : but they were no longer insignificant. With the
prosperity of the nation, and especially through the
absorption of the Canaanites and of their holy places,
ritual had become much more elaborate, and in royal
sanctuaries at least there were regular public offerings
maintained by the king and presented by the priests
(cp z K. 1615). Private sacrifices, too, could hardly be
offered without some priestly aid now that ritual was
more complex ; at the same time we find Elijah sacri-
ficing with his own hand ( I K. 1833), asalso does Elisha
1 So Baudissin, 267 ; on the other side, on the alleged priest-
hood of David's sons (2 S. S 181, see also Cheyne, in Ex-os.,
1899, pp. 453-457, also h f I N I S T E R [CHIEF].
3842
 PRIEST
(I K. 1921). T h e provision of Dt. 18 as to the priestly
dues is certainly ancient, and shows that besides the
tribute of firstfruits and the like the priests had a fee in
kind for each sacrifice, as we find to have been the case
among the Phcenicians, according to the sacrificial tariff
of Marseilles. Their judicial functions also brought
profit to the priests, fines being exacted for certain
offences and paid to them ( z K. 12 17 Hos. 48 Am. 28) ;
they also, as we learn from Micah‘s reproach ( ~ I I ) ,
exacted payment for imparting the Torah. The greater
priestly offices were therefore in every respect very im-
portant places, and the priests of the royal sanctuaries
were among the grandees of the realm. As such they
were on the other hand largely dependent on the kings
(cp I S. 235 Am. 7 1 3 2 K. 1 2 5 8 1 6 1 1 8 ) ,and this close
dependence on the monarchy was actually the cause of
different development in the cases of the Israelitic and
Judaic priesthood. Whilst in thenorthern kingdom the
priesthood became involved in the fall of a dynasty
( 2 K. ~ O I I ) ,in Judah it gradually rose with the stability
of the royal house to an ever-increasing stability of its
own (see specially the story of Jehoiada in 2 K. 1148).
T h e great priests seem to have had the patronage of
the minor sacred offices, which were often miserable
enough,’ the petty priest depending largely on what
‘customers’ he could find ( 2 K. 127 [8] Dt. 188). That
at least the greater offices were hereditary was almost a
matter of course as society was then constituted. This
is already seen in the case of the family of Eli, which,
to judge by the name of his son Phinehas ( I S. 419),
probably traced its descent to Phinehas b. Eleazar (Josh.
2 2 1 3 8 2433), as also in the case of the sons of Zadok,
who succeeded to the royal priesthood in Jerusalem after
the fall of Abiathar. There is not the slightest trace,
however, of an hereditary hierarchy officiating by divine
right, siichas there wasafter theexile. Thesonsof Zadok,
the priests of the royal chapel, were the king’s servants
as absolutely as any other great officers of the state ;
they owed their place to the fiat of king Solomon, and the
royal will was supreme in all matters of cultus ; indeed
the monarchs of Judah, like those of Israel ( I K. 1233)
and of other nations, did sacrifice in person when they
chose down to the time of the captivity ( I K. 9 2 5 2 K.
16 12f. ; cp z Ch. 2 6 1 6 8 Jer. 3021). And as the sons
of Zadok had no divine right as against the kings, so
too they had no claim to be more legitimate than the
priests of the local sanctuaries, who also were reckoned
to the tribe which, in the seventh century B. c., was recog-
nised as having been divinely set apart as Yahwe‘s
ministers in the days of Moses (Dt. 108 181J).
That a t the same time there must have been certain gradations
of rank among the sons of Zadok even in the re exilic period,
a t least during the later monarchy, is self-evi&nt. One pries;
stands a t their head (Kahin R E - Y ~ s A 2, ~K: 25 ;8, or simply ‘the
K8h8nn,2 K. 128 I O ; the name ‘high priest, however, occurs
first, it would seem, in Haggai). Next to him the K8hin mish-
n d (2 K 25 18)3 holds the second place. The existence of definite
special offices is indicated by such designations as those of apri&id
mi& or chief overseer in the temple (Jer. 20 1) or of the ‘keepers
of the threshold’ (2 K. 234). On the other hand, the expression
ziknFhnk-kcihZnim,‘ theeldersofthepriests’(2 K. 19 2 Jer. 19 I),
points to a gradation of the Zadokites according to their several
families.4
The steps which prepared the way for the post-exilic
hierarchy, the destruction of the northern sanctuaries
and priesthoods by the Assyrians, the
to;ards Steps
the polemic of the spiritual prophets against
post-exilic the corruptions of popular worship, which
hierarchy. issued in the reformation of Josiah, the
suppression of the provincial shrines of
Judah, and the transference of their ministers to
Jerusalem. the successful resistance of the sons of Zadok
to the proposal to share the sanctuary on equal terms
1 See I S. 2 36, a passage written after the hereditary dignity
of the sons of Zadok a t Jerusalem was well established. See
E LI .
2[Or hak-kahsn ha-rcish? (cp 2 Ch. 31 IO). The preceding
word ends in n.1
3 So read also in 2 K. 23 4 [or in each case k. ham-nzishnch?]
4 C p v. Hoonacker, 215.
3843
PRIEST
with these newcomers, and the theoretical justification
of the degradation of the provincials to the position of
mere servants in the temple supplied by Ezekiel soon after
the captivity, are explained elsewhere (see L EVITES ),
and only one or two points call for additional remark
here.
It is instructive to observe how differently the pro-
phets of the eighth century speak of the judicial o r
‘ teaching’ functions of the priests and of the ritual of
the great sanctuaries. For the ritual they have nothing
but condemnation ; but the ‘ teaching ’ they acknowledge
as part of the divine order of the state, while they complain
that the priests have prostituted their office for lucre.
In point of fact, the one rested on old Hebrew tradition,
the other had taken shape mainly under Canaanite
influence, and in most of its features was little more
than the crassest nature-worship. In this respect there
was no distinction between the temple of Zion and
other shrines, or rather it was just in the greatest
sanctuary with the most stately ritual that foreign
influences had most play, as we see alike in the original
institutions of Solomon and in the innovations of Ahaz
(Z K. 16108 2 3 1 1 8 ) .
The Canaanite influence on the later organisation of the
temple is clearly seen in the association of temple prophets with
the temple priests under the control of the chief priest, which is
often referred to by Jeremiah: even the viler ministers of
sensual worship, the male and female prostitutes of the Phoenician
tem les had found a place on M i Zion, and were only removed
by PosiAh’s reformation.1 So too the more complex sacrificial
ritual which was now in force is kanifestly not inde endent of
the Phoenician ritual as we know it from the Mars& tahlei
All this necessarily tended to make the ritual ministry of the
priests more important than it had been in old times ; hut it was
i n the dark days of Assyrian tyranny, in the reign of Manasseh
when the sense of divine wrath lay heavy on the people, whei
the old ways of seeking Yahwe‘s favour had failed and new and
more powerful means of atonement were eagerly sought for
(Micah 6 6 J 2 K. 21 ; and cp MOLECH), that sacrificial functions
reached their full importance.
In the time of Josiah altar service and not the function
of ’ teaching’ had become the essential thing in priest-
hood (Dt. 108 187) ; the ‘ teaching,’ indeed, is not
forgotten (Jer. 2 8 1818 Ezek. 726), but by the time of
Ezekiel it also has mainly to do with ritual, with the
distinction between holy and profane, clean and nn-
clean, with the statutory observances at festivals and
the like (Ezek. 4 4 ~ 3 J ) . What the priestly Torah was
in the exilic period can he seen from the collection of
laws in Lev. 17-26 (LEVITICUS, 5s 13-23),which includes
many moral precepts, but regards them, equally with
ritual precepts, from the point of view of the mainten-
ance of national holiness. The sacrificial ritual of
the Priestly Code (see S ACRIFICE ) is governed by the
same principle. T h e holiness of Israel centres in
the sanctuary, and round the sanctuary stand the
priests, who alone can approach the most holy things
without profanation, and who are the guardians of
Israel’s sanctity, partly by protecting the one meeting-
place of God and man from profane contact, and
partly as the mediators of the continual atoning rites by
which breaches of holiness are expiated. In P it is the
sons of Aaron alone who bear the priestly office. How
these stand related to the sons of Zadok mentioned
above is an excessively puzzling question to which a
conclusive answer is. in the silence of the sources,
perhaps impossible. It is probable, however, that the
two expressions are not merely different designations
for the same class of persons; the new name seems
rather to denote a more comprehensive category, so
that Aaron includes Zadok.2
W e know as a fact that Ezra’s band included not only priests
of the sons of E l e z a r (to whom the Zadokites traced their
descent, I Ch. 6 38) hut also sons of Ithamar (EzraSzJ), not to
mention that Chronicles a t a later date assigns eight out of the
1 2 K. 237; cp Dt. 23 18, where ‘dogs’=the later Galli. See
Doc, $ 3 : I DOLATRY , B 6 ; and cp Driver, ad Ioc.
2 Cp Kuenen, Ges. A6h. 488, where, influenced by the further
investigations of Oort and Vogelstein, he modifies his previously
published view.
3844
 PRIEST
twenty-four orders of priests to the sons of Ithamar (I Ch. 244).
But whom we are to understand by the sons of Ithamar-
whether they are the priests of Anathoth, the descendants of
the deposed Abiathar ( I K. 2 2 6 ~ 3 ,as Vogelstein (pp. 8-12)
supposes, or whether others also are to be reckoned along with
these (Kuenen, +9oJ)-niust he left undecided. We must
content ourselves with saying-and the evidence warrants at
least so much as this-that apparently, as against the attitude
of excluiiveness shown by Ezekiel towards all non-Zadokites,
the pressure of circumstances during the exile and perhaps also
the prospect of a restoration led to a compromise which conceded
to some, though not to all priestly families attached to sanctuaries
outside of Jerusalem, the rights assigned to them in D (Kuenen,
489). That over and above this the Zadokites subsequently
sought to secure certain special privileges for themselves may
perhaps be gathered from such an interpolation as that in Nu.
25 10.13, and the equation Zadokites=Sadducees would seem
definitely to prove it.
Still more difficult is the question how, in such a
compromise, Aaron came to have the role of common
ancestor when previously it had been only, or a t least
chiefly, the priests of the northern kingdom who had
regarded him as their genealogical head (cp on the
other hand Ex. 32, a passage of Judaic origin). A
noteworthy attempt a t a solution of this problem is
offered in Oort's treatise De Auronieden, where he oes
back to the immigration of this class of p r i e s a d f
Northern Israel who had betaken themselves &&p
Josiahs reformation to Jerusalem, and here after some
friction had gradually amalgamated with the sons of
Zad0k.l
The bases of priestly power under this system are the
unity of the altar, its inaccessibility to laymen and to
,. Importance of the inferior ministers of the sanctu-
the post-exilic ary, and the specific atoning function
of the blood of priestly sacrifices.
priesthood.
All these things were unknown in
old Israel ; the altars were man,, they were open to
laymen, and the atoning function of the priest was
judicial, not sacrificial. So fundamental a change as
lies between Hosea and the Priestly Code was possible
only in the general dissolution of the old life of
Israel produced by the Assyrians and by the prophets ;
and indeed, the new order did not take shape as a
system till the exile had made a hbulu rusa of all old
institutions ; but it was undoubtedly the legitimate and
consistent outcome of the latest development of the
temple worship at Jerusalem before the exile. It was
meant also to give expression to the demands of the
prophets for spiritual service and national holiness ; hut
this it did not accomplish so successfully ; the ideas of
the prophets could not be realised under any ritual
system, but only in a new dispensation-(Jer. 3 1 p f l ) ,
when priestly Torah and priestly atonement should be
no longer required. Nevertheless, the concentration
of all ritual a t a single point, and the practical exclusion
of laymen from active participation in it-for the old
sacrificial feast had now shrunk into entire insignificance
in comparison with the stated priestly holocausts and
atoning rites 2-lent powerful assistance to the growth
of a new and higher type of personal religion, the
religion which found its social expression not in material
acts of oblation but in the language of the psalms. In
the best times of the old kingdom the priests had
shared the place of the prophets as the religious leaders
of the nation ; under the second temple they represented
the unprogressive traditional side of religion, and the
leaders of thought were the psalmists and the scribes,
who spoke much more directly to the piety of the
nation.
On the other hand, the material influence of the
priests was greater than it had ever been before; the
temple was the only visible centre of national life in the
ages of servitude to foreign power, and the priests were
the only great national functionaries, who drew to
themselves all the sacred dues as a matter of right and
even appropriated the tithes paid of old to the king.
1 See Kuenen's criticism on this and cp AARON.
2 Compare the impression which the ritual produced ou the
Greeks (see Bernays, T&op/rasfus, 85, riix)
3845
PRIEST
The great priests had always belonged to the ruling
class ; but the Zadokites were now the only hereditary
aristocracy, and the high priest, who now stands forth
above his brethren with a prominence unknown to the
times of the first temple, is the one legitimate head of
the theocratic state, as well as its sole representative in
the highest acts of religion.
When the high priest stood at the altar in all his rincely
state, when he poured out the libation amidst the glare of
trumpets, and the singers lifted up their voice and all the people
fell prostrate in prayer till he descended and raised his hands in
blessing, the slaves of the Greek or the Persian. forgot for a
moment their bondage and knew that the day of thelr redemption
was near (Ecclus. 50). The high priest at such a moment seemed
to embody all the glory of the nation, as the kings had done of
old, and when the time came to strike a successful blow for
freedom it was a priestly house that led the nation to the
victory which united in one person the functions of high priest
and prince. From the f o u n d y q of the Hasmonean state to
the time of Herod the history o he high-priesthood merges in
the political history of the B t i o n ; from Herod onward the
priestly aristocracy of the Sadducees lost its chief hold over the
nation and expired in vain controversy with the Pharisees
(See ISRAEL, 5 83.)
T h e influence of the Hebrew priesthood on the
thought and organisation of Christendom was the
influence not of a living institution,
8. Influence of for it hardly began till after the fall of
the Hebrew the temple, hut of the theory embodied
priesthood in the later parts of the Pentateuch.
upon Christian Two points in this theory were laid
thought. hold of-the doctrine of priestly medi-
ation and the system of priestly hierarchy. T h e first
forms the text of the principal argument in the Epistle
to the Hebrews, in which the author easily demonstrates
the inadequacy of the mediation and atoning rites of
the OT, and builds upon this demonstration the doctrine
of the effectual high-priesthood of Christ, who, in his
sacrifice of himself. truly 'led his people to God,' not
leaving them outside as he entered the heavenly
sanctuary, but taking them with him into spiritual
nearness to the throne of grace. This argument leaves
no room for a special priesthood in the Christian church;
even in the writings of Cyprian, it is not the notion of
priestly mediation but that of priestly power that is
insisted on. Church office is a copy of the old hierarchy.
Now among the Jews, as we have seen, the hierarchy
proper has for its necessary condition the destruction of
the state and the bondage of Israel to a foreign prince,
so that spiritual power is the only basis left for a
national aristocracy. The same conditions have pro-
duced similar spiritual aristocracies again and again in
the East, in more modern times, a c d even in antiquity
more than one Oriental priesthood took a line of
development similar to that which we have traced in
Judaea.
Thus the hereditary priests of Kozah (KO& were the chief
dignitaries in Idumrea at the time of the Jewish conquest of
the country (Jos. Ant. xv. 7g), and the high priest of Hierapolis
wore the princely purple and crown like the high priest of the
Jews (De Dea S+-iu, 42). The kingly insignia of the high
priest of the sun at Emesa are described by Herodian (v. 3 31,
in connection with the history of Elagabalus, whose elevation to
the Roman purple was mainly due to the extraordinary local
influence of his sacerdotal place. Other examples of priestly
princes are given by Strabo in speaking of Pessinus (567) and
Olhe (672).1
As there was no such hierarchy in the West, it is plain
that, if the idea of Christian priesthood was influenced
by living institutions as well as by the OT, that influence
must be sought in the East (cp Lightfoot, PhiZippiuns.
261). The further development of the notion of
Christian priesthood lies beyond the scope of the
present article. Cp MINTSTKY.
Wellhausen, Prof.(2-4) (~883, 1886, 1895 : in Gesch. Isr.(l)
[1878], Chap. IV. : Die Priester und Leviten': the Adzreolu-
gzesofNowack (1894)audofRenzinger(18943-
9. Literature. Baudissin, Die Geschicht? des Alttestnmenf-
lichen Priesfertumes (1885) contains a very
comprehensive collection of facts, but is weak in its method.
Along with Oort's 'de Aaronieden' (Th. T18 [18841 2 8 9 3 3 5 )
and H. Vogelstein's Dev Kamgf zwischen Priestern und
______
1 See also Mommsen, H i s f .of Rome, ET4 150.
3816
 PRINCE
Leviten seit den T e e n Ezeckiels (1889) it is reviewed by
Kuenen in his keen critical essay o n the history of the
priests of Yabwe and the age of priestly law, Th. T 24 (raw)
1-42, translated into German in Budde’s Gesunrrnelte Ahhand-
lungen ZUY 6ibl. Wissenschaft von A . Kuenen (1894), 465.5~.
Cp also references to priests in O T I C (index s v.).
The critical view of which the foregoing artkie is an exposition
has recently been met with an uncompromising opposition by
van Hoonacker in L e Sacevdoce Livitigue dans la loi et dam
lltisfoire des Ffihrenx (1899), a work which shows great
thoroughness of treatment and martery of its subject, and bears
ample witness to the author’sacuteness and power of combination
as well as to h i confidence in the thesis he has taken up,
but at the same time displays radical defects of method.
Cp Bandissin’sreview in TLZ,1899, 359.363. Van Hoonacker
has two premise? which are fundamental and render it im-
possible for those who do not share them to accompany the
author in his arguments or adopt his conclusions ; the one is
that there was but one sanctuary from the first, the other that
Chronicles describes pre-exilic conditions, not those of the time
of its composition. On the history of the priesthood in the later
period see especially Schiirer, GVIP)124, (3J 2 224-305.
W. R. S.-A. B .
PRINCE. 1. 7’229 nligfd (HrOYMENOC): root
meaning, to be high, conspicuous (cp 7X, in front).
NligLd is used of the ‘ governor ’ of the palace (Azrikam),
2 Ch. 287 (7)yodp~vos 700 O ~ K O V : oirovbpos would have
been better ; c p I K. 46 1 6 9 ; on the position of this
officer see Is. 2221J) ; of the chief of the temple
( I Ch. 9 11 z Ch. 31 13) ; of PASHHUR (qip,
Jer. 201) ; of the ‘leader of the Aaronites’ ( I Ch. 1227;
Jehoiada) ; of the keeper of the sacred treasury ( I Ch.
26 24 ; Shehuel) ; of the chief of a tribe ( z Ch. 1911;
Zebadiah) ; of the a captains ’ of the army ( I Ch. 13 I
2 Ch. 3221) ; of the eldest son of the king (2 Ch. 1 1 2 2 ,
\I W ~ ;Y Abijah. son of Rehoboam) ; of the king himself,
e.g., Saul (AV ‘captain,’ I S. 916, etc.) ; of the high
priest. i.11 vwn, ‘ t h e (an?) anointed, the ( a ? ) prince’
(Dan. 9 2 5 ; see RV), n’ip 1.23, unless Ptolemy Philo-
metor is meant (Dan. 11 2 2 ) ; see MESSIAH. In Ps.
76 13, the plur. 0*1’13, EV ‘ princes ’ 11 Y’IN b 3 ’ m , ‘ kings
of the earth.’
2. ~ 3 i 7 1 ,nriji’ ; lit. one lifted u p (hodpevos, d+?yyol;-
. T
~ E V O S ,&pxwv). Used of a Canaanitish prince, Gen. 342
( & p x w v ) ; of princes of Ishmael (Gen. 1720 [PI) ; of
Abraham (Gen. 23 6 [ P I ) ; vaguely, of a secular
authority (Ex. 2228[27], RV ‘ a ruler’) ; of the king
( I K. 1134) ; of Zernbbabel (Ezra 1 8 ) .
A favonrite word with Ezekiel (e.g. 727 121012 2112[17],
3013 3424 4 5 7 8 4 6 2 8 ) who has no’place in his picture of
Israel for a king, but dnly for a prince with very limited
functions (see E ZEKIEL ii., s 23), and with P, especially of the
tribal princes (Nu. 7 I I ~ 34 . ISH.,more fully n!p$l ’t+
‘princes of the assembly’ [see ASSEMBLY], Ex. 1722 Nu. 4 34).
P also uses it of the heads of families (Nu. 3 24 30 35), and of the
highest tribal prince of the Levites (a.32 ’ cp I Ch. 7 40): &‘&I’
was also the official title of the president bf the Sanhedrin. See
G OVERNMENT, 5 31 ; ISRAEL, 5 81 ; SYNEDRIUM.
3. ik, jar, corresponding to Ass. kiariaru, ‘king’ (see
K I N G ), a word used of nearly all degrees of chiefdom
or wardenship. I t is applied to the chief baker of the
Pharaoh (Gen. 4016), to the chief butler ( ~ O Z ) to , the
‘ruler over the cattle’ (476), to the keeper of the prison
( 3 9 2 1 ) , to the taskmaster of the Israelites (Ex. 111).
to the ‘ prince of the eunuchs ’ (Dan. 1 7 ) .
Further to prefects, civil or military, of very limited or very
extensive Authority ;Zehul, the ‘ ruler of Shechem’(Jndg.1030); employed as a legal punishment, and it is not until the
‘Amon, the governor of the city’ ( I K. 2226); nij*qqn ’v, ‘pm;
fects of the provinces ( I K. 2015); niwy,, ‘w, Decurion
(Ex. 1821); n*tg,cn ’v, ‘ a captain of fifty, T W ~ I C ~ V T ~ ~ XofO captives,
( z K. 1 19) ; niNn ‘w, captains (judges) over hundreds (Dt. 1 15);
over a thousand (1 S. 183), over many thousands (T Ch. 15 2 5 ) ;
>3inn*rnn’w, ‘captain over half of the chariots of war’
(I K.16 9); 5 - n a, ~ ‘captain of the host ’ (2 S.24 2) ; general- but this kindof treatment may have been rare. Solomon’s
in-chief, ~ 3 ’w~ (ippx~urpinlyos,
n Gen. 21 22 I s. 12 9) ; hence policy in I K. 2 is represented as being exceptionally
used-after niH3s God of hosts-of God himself
(Dan. 8 11). It occurs by itselfin the stat. ahsol. as a parallel
to ‘judge ’ ; ‘ who has made thee a prince [ i w l and a judge over
us?’(Ex.2rq),to ‘elder’(EzralOs), to ‘counsellor’(Ezra8~5)~ below, 5 2 [II]), which, in the case of David‘s concubines
to ‘king’(Hos. 34).
The same term is applied to courtiers and high
officers-e.g., those of Egypt (Gen. 1215 Is. 191113). and
of Persia (Esth. 1 3 2 18 69 [where @ gives the technical
term +ihor, see FRIEND]), also to the merchant-princes
3847
PRISON
of Tyre (Is. 239). The priests are called mp ’a,chiefs.
or princes, of the sanctuary ( I Ch. 255, but not Is. 4328 ;
see SBOT, ad Zoc.), and the chief priests again are
called ~ ~ ’v 3(2 Ch. 3 3 6 1 4 ) . T h e word came to be
used also of guardian-angels of nations-e.g., of Persia
(Dan. I O I ~ ~ of O )Greece
, (Dan. 1020), of Israel ( I O z i ) ,
Michael ‘ the great prince’ (12 I ) , the chief princes
(1013). wiwn l w , ‘ t h e Prince of Princes’ ; God (825;
c p d in Dt. 328). The use of i w as guardian-angel
(Esau, etc. ) is retained in the Midrash ; but the word is
also applied in the Talmud to ‘ a hero a t the table, a
mighty drinker’ (Nidd. 16,etc.). T h e fem. in$,jdrlih,
Princess, occurs (I) of Solomon’s wives, I K. 1 1 3 , ( 2 )
of ladies of the court, Esth. 118 RV (AV ‘ ladies ’), ( 3 )
as a general term of dignity, Lam. 11 (nii*?g? ’r,nt jl
0:iel ’”1) ; cp the proper name S ARAH.
4. y?!, nlidid (from m;,which in Hithp. signifies
* to volunteer, to offer spontaneously’), generous, noble-
minded, noble by birth ( I S. 28 Ps. 4710 1 0 7 4 0 1138
1 1 8 9 Prov. 257. etc.). This word is the converse of
the preceding; nrigfd means primarily a chief, and
derivatively what is morally noble, excellent (Prov. 8 6) ;
nlidfd means primarily what is morally noble, and
derivatively one who is noble by birth or position.
5. piywnH, ‘ahafdurjun, RV ‘satrap.’ See PERSIA, SATRAP.
6. 1JD. srigrin, see D EPUTY, I.
7. 79~1,ndsik, see D UKE , 2.
8. pnnyD, #urtincim, see NOBLES.
9. ]*rp, k+n, see C APTAIN , 6.
IO, 11. 072i 137x7, m6rZ6&a, ru66iim, see RAE.
12. &w, &iZzS; see C A P T A ~g N ~
; ARMY ; LORD, 6 .
13, 14. 11.1, rZz2n (Judg. 5 3 Is. 40 23, etc.) ; also (17>, mdz8n
(Prov. 14 28 t), rmt meaning, gravity ; cp Ass. mzzunu [Prince,
JBL 16 175$]. See REZON.
15. o*inwn, &a~nzannim,Ps. 68 31 1321. For crit. emend. see
Duhm and Che. ad lor.
16. bpxov. Cp RULER.
17. &px?y6s (4. 6% & i s , EV ‘prince of life,’ RV? ‘;tuthor.,’
Acts 3 15 ; cp ap;yqybs La; ownip, Acts 5 31 ;
a w q p i a s , Heh. 2 I O ; njs rriareos ipp$v,
C APTAIN, 15.
Heb.a%T? 2:
18. +yep& (Mt. 2 6 I[ Mic. 5 I 121, M T nlln‘ ’d7H?; C6 i v
~ c h r d u i v’Iov8a [BAQI, hut Mt. iv rois Ijyep6urv Iovaa, i.c.,
‘*‘?el??). See D UKE , I.
PRINCIPALITIES ( ~ p x d i ) , Rom. 838 Eph. 3x0
6 12 Col. 116 2 IO 15.;cp I Cor. 15 24 Eph. 121, where ‘all rule,’
retained in RV, should certainly be ‘every principality.’ See
A NGEL, 5 1.
PRISCA ( n p l c ~ so ~ ;T i . W H in Rom. 1 6 3 I Cor.
I6 19 z Tim. 4 ~ g ) , or, in the diminutive. Priscilla
( ~ ~ I c K I A A AActs1821826
; T i . W H ) , thewifeofAQUILA
Cq.v.1. In Acts 181826 Rom. 163, Priscilla is mentioned
before Aquila. Her importance is well pointed out by
Harnack in his ingenious essay on authorship, etc., of
Hebrews (see H EBREWS [EPISTLE], a d $ % ) ; cp also
id. Lied. d. beiden Recensionen d. Gesch. d. Prisca u. d.
AquiZa in Act. Ap. l81-r7 (1899).
PRISON. The references in the O T are too meagre
to enable u s to give any satisfactory account of early
1, References. Jewish methods of restraint. As among
the Greeks, imprisonment was seldom
post-exilic age that it enters into the judicial system (Ez.
726. Rib1.-Aram.) ; see L AW , 5 12. On the treatment
~ see W A R .
Shimei, if not confined within fourwalls, was practically
a prisoner within the bounds of Jerusalem ( I K. 2 36f: ) ;
generous by the narrator. A confinement of a more or
less close nature is expressed by the term rnihmir (see
n.?, 2 S. 203 E V ‘ward’), and Simeon (Gem
4219 EV ‘prison,‘cp 4224 33) was hardly severe: ‘sur-
1 Aparallel case is that of Livia (Tac. Ann. 2 44), the youngest
child of Germanicusand Agrippina, who in Suetonius (Claud. I )
is called Livilla.
3848
 PRISON
veillance ’ or ‘ safeguard ’ (similar to the treatment of a
hostage) may be the best rendering. On the other
hand, a confinement of a more rigorous nature would
he exercised in the case of the man who broke the
sabbath (Nu. 1 5 3 4 ) , and the blaspheming Danite (Lev.
24 I,), both of whom are placed in ward ’ (EV, ip@m),
pending Yahwk’s decision. Similarly the officers of
Pharaoh who have fallen under his displeasure are put
‘in ward‘ as a temporary measure ; the sequel is
familiar (Gen. 40 E).
In the time of the monarchy a place for the safe-
keeping of undesirable persons might often be required.
Of such a kind was the Philistine ‘ house of the captiws ’
at Gaza (Judg. 1621). As an ordinary precaution
Jeremiah was confined in the ‘ court of the guard ’ in
the king’s house,’ where, however, he was free to
conduct his business (Jer. 32). Probably this court was
under the control of a military official, and was set apart
for the highest class of offenders, or members of the
royal household, just as in Gen. 4O3f: the Pharaoh’s
officers are under the care of the ‘ captain of the guard ’
(o*nx+srib).2 On the other hand the yt~ n.? (Gen.
3 9 2 1 8 J, see 5 2 [ 9 ] ) was apparently the common
prison, the keeper of which is called i n ~ n - 1 iw. Far
more rigorous was the treatment of Jeremiah when
confined in the house of Jonathan the scribe (Jer. 37 15.
cp z). s o b ) , which had been converted into a prison-house
(&>-nq, § z 181). Whether the miry pit into which he
was cast (Jer. 38 6) was really i n the ‘ court of the guard ’
may be questioned.3 T h e a pit’ (cp 2 [SI) was the
place for the meanest of prisoners (Ex. 1229, cp Gen.
40 156 41 14), hut at the same time the readiest means
of imprisonment (cp Gen. 3 7 2 4 ) . For appliances for
further restricting personal freedom see C HAINS ,
C OLLAR , S TOCKS, and 5 2 ( 7 ) below.
The references to prisons in the N T need little ex-
planation. T h e probability is that the prisons were con-
structed on the Greek and Roman plan (cp Smith,
Rich, Dict. CZuss. Ant.,s.a. ‘ Carcer ’). The a public
ward’ of Acts 518 (RV) would then answer to the
custodia communis of the Roman prison, whilst the
‘inner prison’ (i6. l 6 2 3 ) , like the caycer interiov or
rodur, would (as the context actually shows) be for the
worst cases, and was possibly a cell underneath the
custodia communis (cp illustr. in Rich, s . w . ) .
For the allusion in Acts 1266 cp Jos. Ant. xviii. 6 7
[Agrippa]. also Acts 28 16 (?), and see C HAINS , 2 (end).
There are fifteen distinct Hebrew and Greek terms to
2. Terms. be noticed :-
I. ngp, wraffZrdt (lit. I place of guarding ’), in
Jer. 3 2 ~ 8 r a N e h . 3 2 5 etc.,
, ‘court oftheprison’(RV ‘guard’),
apparently the same as the ‘D l@ Neh.1239, ‘prison-gate’
(RV ‘gate of the guard’). T h e cognate Aram. N n i m is used
i n Tg., Gen. 403 4 42 19 for ??en.
2. lJDp, mas@r (\/close, shut up), used generally in Is. 24 22
(with liO), and figuratively in Ps. 142 7 [81, and Is. 42 7 (11 n*J
, 8 below). C p v ] ~ ofn the compulsory seclusion of the
~ $ 3 cp
leper (Lev. 13 5), l?D, ‘cage’ (see L ION, 5 5 end), and n l l D D
‘prisons’ (?)in the Panammu inscr. of Zenjirli ([I. 4, 8).
3. icy, ‘&er (drestrain, e.g., with force 2 K. 17 4 Jer. 33 I
etc.), IS. 53 E, AV ‘ prison,’ R V preferably ‘oppression.’
4. ;ipnp, ptkasa/l&%i/l,Is. 61 I AV ‘ opening of the prison,’
R V preferably supplies the last three words in italics ; hut the
literal meaning of b requires P’TY rather than D ‘ T D H (I1 P W W )
which, in turn, suggests the emendation ninnng (loosing) ; c p
Che. 1s.P) (Che. SBOT reads n p o*nyh).
1 But the ‘gate of the guard’ (Neh. 12 39) seems to have been
near the temple. Here, too, were the stocks(?) mentioned in
Jer. 2 0 2 (see 0 2 [73).
2 Cp 0 2 (0) below. We may perhaps compare the private
prison (erga&zrlrmr) on the Roman farms.
3 It is obscurely described as the ‘pit of Melchijah’ (a. 6) ; in
v. X I it is apparently under the treasury ( i r i ~ nwhich
, CVWQ
[not Q w . 1 om., is perhaps for irnn). T h e text is probably
corrupt ; c p 38 I (Pashhur b. Malchijah) 76 (gate of Benjamin)
with the names in 20 ~ f :
3849
PROCONSUL
5. iraE?n’2, lit. ‘house of bondage,’ Jer. 37 15, c p 3
O”IrD[HI? Judg, 1621 25 (Kre), Eccl. 4 14, lit. ‘house of the
bound [ones]’ ; cp ]’TDY, ‘imprisonment ’ (Aram. Ezra 7 26) a n d
~ a y air,‘
, prisoner ’ or ‘captive,’ Ps. 79 11 102 20 [ Z I ] ; the verb
ip? like S r b does not necessarily imply the use of chains or
fetters.
6. i i x T n q 62th ha6-6dr, lit. ‘ place of the pit’ (see C ONDUIT ,
8 I (I), col. ?,Si), E V ‘dungeon,’ in Ex. 12 29 and in a n obscure
and probably corrupt passage, Jer. 37 16 ( nr’mn la glossP1, see
CeL1.s). 0,bsewe that in v. 15f. there are four distinct terms
for ‘ prison.
7. n?>m? n q 62th ham-mahpe%efh, 2 Ch. 16 IO prison- ‘
house,’ but in accordance with the E V rendering of Jer. 20 2 J ,
2926 ‘house of the stocks” (so RVmg.). T h e meaning of the
root suggests a pnnishment compelling a croo4ed or distorted
posture (HDB), and Nn5.J of the Tg. is, according to the GPmXrZ
on Sanh. 816, a cramped vault not high enough for the criminal
t o stand in freely. See STOCKS. I t is perhaps not too hold, on
the strength o f Tg. ‘ ~ ( p r o p e r l y aprison, c p Ribl. Aram. nm, ‘ h e
bound,’ Dan. 3 2 0 &, apparently also a n Ass. word, see Ges.
Lex.(lal),to read 8ngyyj J, ‘house of binding ‘=prison.
8. n.2, 62th RdZe‘, lit. ‘house of restraint’ ( J N h , ‘re-
~ ~ 32 2, and Ass. d i t ki-[or KiZ-Ifz’),I K. 22 27 (=. Ch.
s t r a i n , ’ Jer.
1826). 2 K. 174, etc., pl. Is. 4222, twice ~ 1 5 3( K r . ~ 3 5 3 ’ ~ ) J e r .
37 4 52 31 ; cp ’3 7713, ‘prison-garb,’ 2 K. 25 29= Jer. 52 33.
9. ?>D? n‘x, 62th Bas-s&ar (0 roundness? as though ‘round
tower,’ c p Ass. siru ‘enclosure,’ s a a w ‘ r i n g ’ ; Sam. has
i n D , with which c p Ass. si/rirtrr ‘ enclosure,’ Syr. sZsa/larta
‘citadel, palace’), the ‘prison’ (EV) into which Joseph was cast
upon a false charge (J, Gen. 39 20-23, RJE 403 5). According
to E, on the other hand, Joseph was no prisoner, but the head-
servant of the captain of the guard (Gen. 37 36 40), with whom
offending officials in Pharaoh’s court were placed ‘in ward
(40 4 41 IO). It is not likely that the servant of a private Egyptian
(Joseph’s position in 39 J) would he set with the Pharaoh’s
officers, and the words in 39 20 identifying the inDn n.3 with the
place where the kiug’s servants were bound may, therefore, be
redactional. A servant accused of the crime alleged in J’s
narrative would certainly have heen put to death. J’s story is
quite out of place, and evidently secondary compared with E’s
soher narrative. T h e passages in 40 156 41 14 (RJE), which refer
back to J’s narrative, and are admittedly redactional, use the
word 6 d r (cp no. 6 above), in which case the dungeon (bar) was
a particular cell in the i n ~ nn q ; cp Jer. 386 (5 I above).
IO. nip?q-n’x? 6Pth-hap-pikirdrZh(lit. place of over-seeing),
Jer. 52 ~ r , . c puse of verb in Jer. 37 21, and perhaps n!p 5Y3
Jer. 37 13 ( E V ‘captain of the ward,’=captain of the prison’?),
aud ipsn;l i y w Neb. 3 31 (prison gate?).
11. lr$n n-B GEth mi&nZv, E V ‘prison house,’ Gen.4219,
etc.. see above (8 I).
T h e N T term; a;e :
12. Geupc~onjio”, Mt. 1 1 2 (of Machzrus), Acts521 23 1626;
cp 6eupqh<AA ‘jailer,’ Acts 16 23 27 36.
13. o k q p a , a euphemistic term, Acts127 (RV ‘cell’), but in
4
EI. no. 15 is used.
14. n j p v u ~ s Acts
, 4 3 ‘ in hold,’hut R V ‘ward,’ & v p . 8qpou~’p
518 ‘ i n the common prison,’ RV ‘public ward,’ but in w . 19 22
no. 15 is used and in w.2 1 23 no. 12.
r5. +vAaxG a very common term answering to the Heh.
mifmZr, of a’prison, Mt. 1 4 IO Lk. 3 so(Macbaxus) Acts 16 z s f i
(but in a. 26 no. IZ), in Rev. 182 twice (AV ‘hold ’ ‘cage,’ R V
‘hold,’ and mg. ‘prison ’) in RV, I Macc. 9 53, and E V ib. 13 1 2
14 3 ‘ward.’ S . A . C.
PROCHORUS (npoxopoc, Ti.WH]), one of the
seven * deacons ’ (Acts 6 5 ) t .
H e is mentioned in the lists of the ‘Seventy’ given by the
Pseudo-Dorotheus, and according t o Pseudo-Hippolytus uas
Bishop of Nicomedia. For an account of the Acts ofProchonrs,
which have a wide currency in the Greek church, see Lipsin\,
Apokr. Ap.-Gesch. 1355-408. According to this apocryphal and
very late source, Prochorus was a companion and helper of the
apostle John for many years through a great variety of wander-
ings and adventures, and ultimately suffered martyrdom a t
Jerusalem. Pseudo-Hippolytus speaks of him a s ‘the first that
departed.’
PROCONSUL, the official designation of the governor
of a senatorial province under the Empire. T h e word
is literally rendered in Greek by dvOLmros, for which
AV gives ‘deputy,’ but RV ‘ proconsul.’ On the refer-
ence in Acts 137f. (Sergius Paulus) see C YPRUS, § 4 ;
on that in Actsl81a (Gallio) see A CHAIA and G A L L I O ;
on that in Acts1938 see EPHESUS, col. 1303, n. I.
1 According to Jos. Kimhi, however, not for the feet, hut for the
neck or head. T h e Pesh. NniTn in Jer. 20 2f: may here mean
a n outhouse (but see Payne Smith, Thes. col. 1205).
3850
 PROCURATOR
PROCURATOR ,in Jos.
(EIT~TPO~OC Ant. xx. 6 z
r$
-- 1321
- - etc.) was the specific title of the Roman
I
1. application governor of Judaea, who is called in
the N T by the more general title
of title.
.-
H r € M (-d-N- (See
, G OVERNOR , I < ) . The
title procurator was employed under the early' empire
to denote various officials, or rather officials of various
degrees of power, for all were alike in respect of the
fact that primarily the word connoted a collector or
controller of revenue, public or private; in time the
procurator's competence extended to other departments
of administration.
The title has three main applications. (I) T h e pro-
curuturfisci, an officer in Caesarian provinces analogous
to the questor of senatorial provinces, though he is
found in these latter also (Tac. Ann. 41j), his functions
gradually encroaching upon those of both the quaestor
and the governor (pvoconsuZ) ; even in the C a x u i a n
provinces the procurator acquired practical indepen-
dence of the Zegutus proprcztore governing the province,
and in any case acted as an effective check upoil him
(cp Tac. Ann. 1260 1432). ( 2 ) Certain of the minor
or specially circumstanced Caesarian provinces were
administered wholly by procurators-e.g. Rhaetia,
Vindelicia, Noricum, and JudEa, as also Cappadocia
from the time of Tiberius to that of Vespasian. In
course of time these were brought under the general
imperial system. Under Claudius the powers of the
procurators were largely increased, and even if it is not
quite true that Judaea was the only province (save Egypt,
whose case was peculiar) thus organised under Augustus
(cp Hirschfeld, Unters. 288), the great provinces of
Thrace and the two Maretaniae were placed by Claudius
under the rule of procurators. The procurators of the
two classes above described were drawn as a rule from
the eqnestrian order (cp Jos. B/ ii. 8 I ; Strabo, 840),
but some even of the procuratorial governors were,
under Claudius, freedmen-eg., Felix, procurator of
Judaea (Suet. CZuud. 28)-and this was in general the
case with (3) that large class of imperial procurators
supervising the private estates of the emperor in Italy
or the provinces, or charged with various administrative
departments in Italy (e.g.,procurutor aquarum, pro-
curator ud ripus, Tiberis, and many others).
T h e procurator of the highest class, governing a
province, possessed as a matter of course the civil and
criminal jurisdiction belonging to any
2.
referencee. provincial governor, but he appears to
- ~
have been Dartlv resDonsible to the
nearest Zegutus (governor of a Caesarian province).l
. Ezek. 2816 (EV) ; the king of Tyre ' cast as profane
T h e exact limits of this responsibility and subordination
cannot be drawn, and perhaps were actually left pur-
posely vague ; the deposition of Pilate by Vitellius (Jos.
Ant. xviii. 42 ; Tac. Ann. 632) and of Cumanus by
Ummidius Quadratus (Jos. A n t . xx. 6 3 ; Tac. A n n .
1 2 5 4 ) was by virtue of special commission entrusted to
the superior governor, and can hardly stand good as
a measure of his supervising authority.
It is certain that the procurator of Judaea had troops
(auxiliary, not legionary) under his orders (Mk. 1516),
their quarters being within the p r d o r i u m or old palace
of Herod, which was also the residence of the procurator
when he visited Jerusalem as a precautionary measure
during the national festivals (cp Mt. 2727 Mk. 15 16 Jn.
1828 33 199 Acts 2131f.). The ordinary headquarters
of both the governor and the forces w-as at Caesarea on
the coast, where also the Herodian palace was the
procurator's residence (Acts 2335, Pv TOrpuiTwpiy TOO
'Hpi8ou).
The extent of the procurator's judicial authority is
indicated clearly in the NT. Over provincials it was
1 See Tac. Ann. 12 j4, and cp the expression of Jos. Ant.
xvii. 13 5 - N 3 551 (+ 61 'Apxdbov x i p a s &ro~eA& ~ p o m e p q -
Plipov) with B/ ii. 8 I [$ 1171 (cis ;rapxiav m p ~ y p a -
Beimp
$eiuqs), in both the reference being to Judxa (cp Ant. xix. 9 2
XX. 1I).
385'
PROPHET, FALSE
absolute-Le., without right of appeal-as is seen in
the case of Jesus (Jos. BJ ii. 81, /.&pi TOG K T E ~ V W
6Eouuiav. Cp Id. Ant. xx. 1I 5 z BJ ii. 1 3 z). The
release of a prisoner at the Feast of the Passover (Mt.
2715Mk. 156 Jn. 1839) must have been authorised, and
in fact enjoined (cp Lk. 23 r7, ' For of necessity he must
release ') by special edict of the emperor ; but the N T
is the only evidence for the custom in Judaea. T h e case
of Paul shows that the procurator's power of life and
death extended even to Roman citizens in his province
(subject to the right of the accused to demand that
the case should be referred to the emperor [Acts 25111
and the right to appeal to the same authority against
a capital sentence of the procurator). I n Judaea even
under the direct rule of the Romans, the Sanhedrin
still enjoyed to a large extent the right of legislating
and of administering the law. And although the
right of the imperial authorities to interfere in these
matters was never formally surrendered (as it was in
the case of the so-called ' free cities ' ), the peculiar
difficulties of government in Palestine made the practical
effect of that right of little moment. Even Roman
citizens were in some respects admittedly within the
requirements of Jewish law-e.g. , citizenship could not
save from execution the Gentile found trespassing upon
the inner court of the Temple (Jos. E/ vi. 24 ; cp Acts
2128 246). It still remained, however, an essential
requirement that a death sentence of the Sanhedrin must
he confirmed by the procurator, a requirement which
practically guaranteed a right of appeal from the national
council to the emperor's vicegerent (cp Acts 25 IO ' I
stand at Caesar's judgment seat '). The case of Jesus
is a striking example of this principle (Jn. 1831). It is
of conrse obvious that the limits of Roman toleration
in Judaea as elsewhere would vary with the personal
character of the governor. W. J. W.
PROFANE. Four words are rendered ' profane ' in
AV or RV.
I. in, 454 Ezek. 2226, etc. ; see COMMON.
2. %,!
& r i Z i Z , Lev. 21714. fem. (EV), Ezek. 2130 [zj]
34 ' Profaned ' is better. A woman who has lost
[3g].
her honour, and a prince deprived of the insignia of his
rank, can be so designated. AV in Ezek. follows 6
(pep+) ; but Cornill rightly adopts the sense estab-
lished for 'hn in Lev. 217 14: 'Disgraced through
wickedness,' however, is a forced expression ; ' dis-
honoured prince' is a probable emendati0n.l RV
'deadly wounded wicked one, prince of Israel.' So
[deprived of his sacred character] out of the mountain
of God' (cp C HERUB , 2 ; P ARADISE , 5 3). SSn.
&iZZ&!, ' to profane,' occurs often.
3. qJ!, &in@h, Is. 916 [IT] 106 R V ; I$, &6neph.
'profaneness,' Is. 3216 RV. See H YPOCRITE .
4 p.!p.)~Xos, I Tim. 19 Heb. 1216. ' T h e word de-
scribes a character which recognises nothing as higher
than earth, for whom there is nothing sacred' (West-
cott). Cp ESAU. It is also used of the tasteless
(Gnostic ? ) oriental religious stories current in the post-
Pauline age ( I Tim. 47 ; cp 620 2 Tim. 216). The
verb p~,6qX6win Mt. 125 Acts 246.
PROFESSION (o,uoAoyla), I Tim. 612. See CON-
FESSION, § 4.
P R 0 GN 0 S T I C A T 0 R S, MONTHLY (P'&f'?\tI)
~gyill), 1s. 4713. See STARS, § 5.
PROPERTY. For laws relating to property seeLAW
AND J USTICE , $5 1 5 8
PROPHET, FALSE. See P ROPHETIC L IT ., § 2 2 8 ,
and for 'the false prophet,' Rev. 1613 1920 2010.
( Y E ~ ~ O ~ ~ O @ H T Hcp
C ANTICHRIST,
). 5 4. col. 180.
1 s>c (Che.) instead of p;?$5: (Carnill):9w~and7D are
sometimes confounded.
3852