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DOI: 10.1177/014610799302300402 1993; 23; 139 Biblical Theology Bulletin: A Journal of Bible and Theology

Johann Maier Self-Definition, Prestige, and Status of Priests Towards the End of the Second Temple Period

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139

Self-Definition, Prestige, and Status of PriestsTowards the End of the Second Temple Period

JOHANN MAIER

JOHANN MAIER is Professor of Jewish Studies and director ofthe Martin Buber Institut at the University of Cologne inGermany. His latest work is Zwischen den Testamenten:Geschichte und Religion in der Zeit des zweiten Tempels, in thenew Echter Bibel series (Echter, 1990).

Abstract

Comparative studies of priesthood (James, Sabourin) and especially some recent publications on priesthood in Egypt(Vittmann) and in Mesopotamia (Menzel) have opened up new perspectives on Israelite/Jewish priesthood in theMediterranean and the Middle East, facilitating the appraisal of its characteristics. The social implications and the economicsignificance of the sanctuary are better understood and freed from the polemical dichotomy "house of prayer" vs. "robbersden" derived from the Second Testament passages as in the clearing of the temple in Mk 11:2-18 and parallels. The historyof priesthood during the Second Jewish Commonwealth (see Encyclopedia Judaica [1971] 13, esp. 1084-86) was for themost part the subject of First Testament studies. Consequently, the treatment ended with the Persian period, the laterphases not being covered by First Testament sources.

For the development of cultic organization and particu-larly of priesthood, the reforms under Ezra and espe-cially Nehemiah seem to have been of decisivesignificance. They had far-reaching consequences (Wil-liamson ; Blenkinsopp). A second important phase wasprobably reached around 200 B.C.E., when a new culticorder emerged with the change of political power. TheSeleucids granted far-reaching concessions and privilegesto the priestly party, which supported the new govern-ment.

But such circumstances, advantageous at first sight,seem in reality to have been the cause of new innertroubles. The alternative of a pro-Ptolemaic option re-mained a permanent political temptation, later on accom-panied and furthered by a pro-Roman tendency, which,however, finally ended in a confrontation with Rome.Such questions of foreign policy were regularly combinedwith inner quests, emerging exactly at the same timeunder Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175-164 B.C.E.). Duringhis reign a revolutionary change occurred. The priestlyclan of the Zadokites (Olyan, Davies), which claimed itsdescent from the first priest at the Temple of Solomon,Zadok, held in post-exilic times the office of Head Priestor High Priest as a hereditary privilege, evidently es-teemed to be part of the traditional Torah order. After175 B.C.E., during quarrels among the noble priestlyfamilies at the Temple of Jerusalem, the parties addressedthe king. The High Priest was at that time practically thepolitical head of the Temple province of Judea and there-fore of course responsible to the king. Antiochus IV,always in need of money, took advantage of the situationand sold the office to the respective candidate who wasready to pay more taxes. The disastrous consequences arewell known: Civil War in Jerusalem/Judea, a kind of

pro-Seleucid and pro-Hellenistic reform and a wave ofresistance in favor of the ancient Torah order, a militaryinvolvement of the Seleucids connected with violentmeasures against the opposition, and the successful revoltof the Maccabees.

But the restoration of the traditional cult in 164/ 163B. C. E. under Judas Maccabee and the Hasmonean rule tofollow led to a new rift among the traditionalists. Whenthe Hasmoneans took over the office of the High Priest,the Zadokites lost their traditional position and split intoseveral groups with extremely different orientations(Wacholder).

During all these disputes and changes certain issuesbecame especially important. One was the question of thecorrect cult calendar. In Jerusalem a combined lunar-solarcalendar was in use, while oppositional groups (amongthem the Qumran community) advocated a solar calen-dar. Architectural concepts concerning the sanctuarywere also subject to disputes, and a variety of plans for thesanctuary were made. While some of them were realistic,others were utopian-eschatological devices or idealizeddescriptions of the First Temple. How realistic someaspects of all these endeavors were is evident from themagnificent building activities under Herod the Great. Inany case, certain architectural changes within the templearea during the 3rd to I st centuries gave rise to controver-sies because they reflected differing views about thedemarcation of the areas of holiness (Maier, 1989), views

JOHANN MAIER is Professor of Jewish Studies and director ofthe Martin Buber Institut at the University of Cologne inGermany. His latest work is Zwischen den Testamenten:Geschichte und Religion in der Zeit des zweiten Tempels, in thenew Echter Bibel series (Echter, 1990).


140

which we are now able to evaluate in a more adequatemanner on the basis of the Temple Scroll from Qumran(Maier, 1985).

While the sources provide a certain amount of in-formation, they are not sufficiently rich to enable one towrite a continuous history of the temple and its priest-hood. But even studies focusing on priesthood during thelast two centuries of the Second Temple are rare. AdolphBuechler published an important contribution in 1895,using post-biblical and rabbinic sources to describe thecultic situation in the decades before the year 70 C.E.(Buechler). The rabbinic statements about the SecondTemple were certainly colored by later rabbinic views andtendencies and exhibit polemical issues (Neusner), butthe system they describe and the majority of the detailsare apparently based on old and reliable traditions, ofcourse primarily Pharisaic ones. The Qumran finds pro-vided additional original material, and some studies ontopics concerning priesthood have already been published(Werner-Moeller; Schiffmann: 1975, 1981, 1990;Baumgarten; Schwartz). Also informative are certainstudies on the concept of priesthood in the Second Tes-tament that treat the Jewish background as well, forinstance John M. Scholers Proleptic Priests.

Studies dealing with the organization and history ofpriesthood have failed in most cases to establish a convinc-ing link between such organizational history, social his-tory, and inner religious development, especially thetheological world view and self-consciousness of thepriestly group. While some studies of this kind have beenwritten, they concentrate on the Pentateuchal priestlysource P-e.g., F. H. Gormans The Ideology of Ritual(1990). It is only in recent years that publications haveappeared in which the concept of sacral space accordingto priestly traditions and the cosmological symbolism ofcultic performances have been considered in more or lessadequate manner (Klimkeit; Cohn; Bokser). One recentexample worth mentioning is J. N. Lightstones Society,the Sacred, and Scriptures in Ancient Judaism from 1988(Lightstone), one of the few studies that take into accountthe social significance of cultic world views and Torahtheology.

In this connection a remarkable difference in the&dquo;Wirkungsgeschichte&dquo; of the conceptions of holy spaceand holy times should be noted. The bearing of &dquo;holyspace&dquo; on Jewish religiosity underwent a far-reachingpractical (yet not halakhic and theological) restrictionafter the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E., as com-pared with the restricted practical importance of thepriestly and levitical group. Instead of the temple-focusedreligiosity of the periods before 70 C.E., rooted in theconception of sacred space, there emerged a religiosityoriented primarily to holy times (prayer times, sabbaths,

and festivals), not dependent on holy area and culticfunctionaries but rooted in family life. And in this newcontext also the ancient concept of an analogy and func-tional correspondence between the liturgy of Israel onearth and the liturgy of the angels before the throne ofGod in heaven survived in the temple. This developmentwas due to certain predispositions during the SecondCommonwealth (Green), when among laity the events ofworship connected with holy times led to a religiouspractice not totally dependent on the concept of sacredspace, which focused on the temple of Jerusalem and alsoincluded to a certain degree no practicable, utopian de-mands regarding individuals living in more distant places.

Priests within the Social Structureof Israel

The important role of priests and Levites is alreadyevident in the traditional partition of Israels social macro-structure : ( 1 ) Priests (sons of Aaron), (2) Levites, and (3)&dquo;Israel&dquo; (laity), an enumeration which includes a rankingsequence. Statistically the priests were only a small group(about 20,000 according to Flavius Josephus), and theLevites were far more numerous; but the two groups takentogether constituted a minority of Israels population.According to tradition, all of them were members of thetribe of Levi, which had been chosen by God to performcultic service in place of the firstborn Israelites. In earlytimes, they were subject to a special protective functionof the society (or of the king), based on the argument thatthe tribe of Levi did not have a territory of its own.

The history of priesthood and of the Levites beforethe Babylonian exile was certainly rather complicated, butthis does not concern us here. The groups which consti-tuted the post-exilic cultic personnel became already inthe early stages of this period a genealogically well definedand privileged minority, thanks to the developing culticorganization connected with the sanctuary of Jerusalem.A main reason for their claim to cultic taxes and govern-mental protection was the aforementioned argument thatthe tribe of Levi did not get a land lot of its own amongthe territories of the tribes of Israel. And this was, alongwith their engagement in cultic service, also an argumentfor their exemption from public taxes. Thus the exclusionof the tribe of Levi did not, of course, preclude thepossession of immovable property by families and individ-ual priests or Levites; on the contrary, there existedspecial cities for priests and Levites, and so certain townsand villages were virtually in the hands of priests, forinstance Jericho (Schwartz, 1988/9: 23-48). All this con-tributed to a highly privileged status for at least the bulkof these groups.


141

In post-exilic times, and especially following thereforms of Ezra and Nehemiah, this privileged positiondeveloped into a dominant one. The province of Judea inHellenistic and Roman times was a temple state, and itscult personnel were in charge of the temple, the cultic-re-ligious and economically dominant institution. In any case,during the late Second Temple period priests, along withsome rich laymen, constituted the upper class of theprovince. This fact, however, did not prevent somepriests-for various reasons~rom being excluded fromsuch benefits and therefore prone to criticism and oppo-sitional trends-as for instance towards the Zealots. Thedisputes about membership depending on genealogicalproof were already concluded by this time, but this doesnot mean that all priestly families enjoyed equal status andprestige.

Priesthood and Political Power

The question of the appropriate constitution forIsrael found a clear answer in the priestly traditions of theFirst Testament and in the post-biblical literature, accen-tuating in a specific way the Deuteronomic concept oftheocracy. According to this concept, Israels true king isits God himself; therefore, a monarchy with a king of fleshand blood was almost a kind of apostasy. The theocrati-cally legitimate alternative was hierocratic rule, or, asFlavius Josephus put it, aristocratic rule or the kind ofleadership recorded for the period of Moses and Joshuaor for the early Second Temple (Zadokite) period. Thishierocracy provided a government essentially controlledby priests. Such concepts were, of course, developedduring the Persian period, when attempts at a Davidicrestoration failed and the &dquo;Head&dquo; (rosh) of the priestsbecame the &dquo;High Priest&dquo; (kohen gadoo, who ultimatelyrepresented the province before the foreign ruler.

But the priestly claims to leadership in Israel as awhole were, even in the late period, counterbalanced to acertain extent by the Davidic political tradition with itsreligious ideology. As reality did not favor the dynasticclaims, they remained almost totally restricted to theory,described by rewriting the past as in the Deuteronomisticand Chronstic histories, or to eschatological or apocalypticdevices. The real position of the priesthood, on the con-trary, remained stable as long as the temple itself existed.But with the destruction of the temple in 70 C.E., thesocial and political basis for their dominant status wasdestroyed, and the priestly group was forced to yield tothe emerging rabbinic authority which had its basis in anessentially lay society. Such tensions were already preva-lent during the last centuries B.C. E. (Bar Ilan; Stone) andcertainly also had their roots in social causes. As thedominant group, the priests formed part of a kind of

aristocracy, a social elite, while the pharisaic, protorab-binic circles were, as Max Weber and others have alreadyobserved, primarily rooted in the urban middle class.

In political and social respects, such priestly claimswere represented by the position and function of the HighPriest. In a text attributed to Hecataeus of Abdera (about300 B.C.E.) it is related that in place of a king the Israeliteswere ruled by the High Priest, &dquo;and they believe that heacts as a messenger/angelos to them of Gods command-ments&dquo; (Stern, 1974: 26-28).

The High Priest appears in Qumran texts as mash-lach Aharon, the &dquo;Anointed one of Aaron,&dquo; alongside andin rank even ahead of the &dquo;Anointed one of Israel,&dquo; theking-even ahead of the eschatological Davidic king at theend of the days. During the Persian and Hellenistic peri-ods, priests developed a theory of constitutional dualism,integrating the old but politically outdated Davidic con-cept of royal rule with the current political power of theHigh Priest. The Law of the king, as attested in Dt17:14-16 and in the Temple Scroll, col. 56-60, acknow-ledged the monarchy as an institution which correspondsto Gods will as far as the Torah provides defined regula-tions for it, but this excluded a monarchic, autocratic rule.

According to the Temple Scroll, the importantpolitical and juridical decisions should lie within the com-petence of a council consisting of 12 priests, 12 Levites,and the 12 lay princes of tribes (col. 57, 11-15). Thedecision about an offensive war was, however, dependenton the Urim and Tummin oracle, performed by the HighPriest. The full combination of both functions-that ofthe High Priest and that of a ruler-by the Hasmoneansremained an exception which had its causes in the chal-lenges of the military situation and in the question ofpolitical power, but even under direct Roman administra-tion the High Priest remained a symbol with politicalimplications. It was not without good reason that Herodthe Great tried to diminish the importance of the HighPriests office by frequent new nominations, and theRomans continued this practice, even guarding the HighPriests official garments. In view of the description of theHigh Priest Simon in Sir S0:1-21 this preoccupationseems understandable: the appearance of the High Priestin his official garments represented, according to thecultic tradition, a kind of theophany (in Sir 50:5-7 it iscompared to the appearance of a star of light, the fullmoon, the sun, and the rainbow). This is reinforced by thefact that Sir 50 places this event at the hekal of the templehouse, the High Priest returning and reappearing as fromthe abode of the kabod inside. A similar impression isconveyed in the Letter of Aristeas 96-99 (the Greek textof 99 is difficult): the appearance of the High PriestEleazar in his ornate finery seems to represent an event&dquo;in another world&dquo; (Hadas). Both texts employ the cultic


142

motif of kabod, (Greek doxa) in this context. Nor shouldone overlook the immediately preceding passage, SirS0:1-4, where the ruling qualities of the High PriestSimon are praised and the activities mentioned corre-spond exactly to those of a king.

As a counterpart to speculative formulations regard-ing a future or eschatological Son of David in the sense ofan ideal king in the context of a Torah-govemed Utopia,the priests developed a speculation of their own, describ-ing Melkisedek, the (pre-Sinaitic!) typos of the priest ofJerusalem, as a kind of heavenly representative with func-tions which in part correspond to the functions of an idealruler (Horton; Kobelski).

Organization and FunctionsThe tasks of the normal priestly office embraced

functions in various areas of different levels of sanctity andwith differing aims.

Inside the temple house the rituals regarding theShew Bread table, the incense altar, and the Menorahrequired only a few priests in service. These rituals wereperformed for the Divinity, for its &dquo;presence&dquo; in the Holyof Holies, with no direct bearing on the public.

The complicated acts and performances of the sac-rificial service in the court of priests concerning the vari-ous kinds of offerings on the altar required a larger numberof priests in service and rigid organization. An adequatestate of purity in each realm, the prescribed garments, andthe necessary preliminary rites of atonement for the offi-ciating priests were, of course, necessary requisites for aritually correct and effective cult performance. The mainperformances concerned the following activities:

(1) the daily regular offerings at fixed times eachmorning and afternoon (Tamid-offerings).

(2) the specific additional morning offerings(Musaf offerings) on Sabbaths and festivals. Such regularsacrifices were conceived as offerings in the interest of thesociety as a whole in order to maintain the cosmic order,to ensure fertility and welfare, to atone for the people andfor the land; hence the governments, including foreignones, usually contributed to the expenses of this regularcult.

(3) the non-regular sacrifices connected with situ-ations and irregular duties of the individual or dependenton his free choice. Only in such cases did an individuallayman take part, modestly, during the dedication of thevictim, laying his hand on the chosen animal victim, andonly in the case of a special sacrifice (zebach) did thefamily participate in a more or less ritual manner, consum-ing the meat-after separating the share of the priests andthe Levites-during a cultic meal; but this had, of course,to be done in the outer temple court.

(4) the sacrifices aimed primarily at atonement forthe collective group (Israel) and the land of Israel as theholy area, or for the individual in the case of certaintransgressions and connected with the ceremonies revolv-ing around the removal of a state of ritual impurity. Thesacrificial procedure itself did not require the laymansparticipation; yet the people did respond and performedacts of prostration, following signals and musical perform-ances given by Levites from their position on the stairsleading to the portal of the inner court. The Levites, fortheir part, were led by priestly signals given from positionsjust inside the boundary of the priests court.

In sum, the sacrificial activities were manifold, andthe priestly revenues stemming from them were of sub-stantial economic importance.Authoritative Instruction

Oracles and ordeals were in this late period alreadyrather rare, as in general the applications of the &dquo;Torah&dquo;increasingly replaced the ancient procedures of &dquo;askingthe Lord.&dquo; The cultic practice concerning the womansuspected of adultery (Num 5) remained, and theUrim/Tummin oracle of the High Priests seems to havebeen practiced at certain periods; its political significanceconsisted in a kind of control over the military activitiesof the ruler. In addition, casting lots in cases in which nodecision could be reached because of lack of evidence orcriteria may have been common practice.

We know very little about the practice of Torahreading during the temple service as directed to thepublic; we do know that on certain solemn public occa-sions special readings were performed by the king and/orthe High Priest. Also, the later generalization of thisreading practice for purposes outside the temple andalongside events of general political interest concernedonly Sabbaths and market days. The &dquo;Sitz im Leben&dquo; ofthe public reading practice in its transitory stage, whichled to its generalization and usage at fixed liturgical times,is still unknown, in spite of the tendencies in modernresearch to indulge in anachronistic dating in connectionwith the old Palestinian reading cycle.

Significant, however, is the lack of evidence of anykind of generalized liturgical Torah reading in the Qumrantexts, documents of an isolated, sectarian communityunder priestly auspices; also for the Samaritan communityno reading practice is attested. It seems that Torah read-ings at the temple were bound to the festival cycle and tospecial events, but primarily directed to the public, andthat the Torah readings outside the temple imitated onlysome aspects and that their organization was based on atotally different system (Monshouwer) from its begin-nings employed within a social environment apart fromthe temple. .. -


143

The Degrees of Concentric Holy Space

Torah reading was perhaps one of the means todemonstrate power, both by groups/institutions and infront of groups or factions, as far as both sides pretendedto have the obligatory Torah traditions at their exclusivedisposal. As long as the temple existed, the reading fromthe &dquo;holy&dquo; Torah scrolls proper remained restricted to therespective sacred area, not accessible to laymen. Eachreading of this kind represented a demonstration of theprivilege to dispose of the sacred master exemplars of theTorah. After the destruction of the temple, this effect lostits persuasive power to the extent that it had been de-

pendent on the quality of holy space during the templeperiod. The lay rabbinical authorities transposed the prac-tice later definitively from sacred space to sacred times.It is certainly not by chance, however, but due to historicalreasons that even in the rabbinic synagogal reading prac-tice priests and (in the second place) Levites retained theprivilege of precedence to lay readers. These historicalroots seem to have had more of a social character than acultic one (in the sense of temple liturgy).

Jurisdiction was traditionally linked to the authorityof the &dquo;Torah. &dquo; As far as the priests maintained their claim


144

to dispose of the Torah in principle and in the materialsense--~o dispose of the master exemplars within thesacred area of the sanctuary-they also claimed the privi-lege of officiating as judges, considering themselves far andaway the best informed experts (cf. Dt Z1:5). But thisattitude diminished the local and regional traditions andpractices, and the changes in political power lessened thepossibilities of successfully realizing the priestly claim.That claim, at any rate, continued to be upheld concerningdifficult cases, which had to be decided by a central court(Dt 17:8-13; 11 QTS 56, 1 ff.).

Before and after sacrificial procedures, and evenindependently of them, instruction and advice formed animportant part of the normal duties of the cult personnel.Because of the required number of persons, Levites cer-tainly participated. Such activities basically comprisedTorah instruction (on regulations regarding the holy andthe profane, the pure and the impure), and the decisionswere acts of &dquo;binding and loosing,&dquo; of obligation or acquit-tal.

A great number of duties concerning cultic taxes hadto be supervised and attended by priests and Levites. Thedeclarations about the fulfillment of such duties and thevalidity of sacrifices and cultic acts also constituted actsof &dquo;binding and loosing,&dquo; obliging, exempting, or acquit-ting. Such advising and declarative activities were notrestricted to matters of the sacrificial cult; many of themhad to be done independently of the temple and evenoutside the &dquo;City of the Sanctuary.&dquo; Rival factions ofexperts belonging to the various Jewish groups apparentlyemerged early on.

The presence of the layman after the dedication ofthe victim offered by him was irrelevant for the validperformance of the sacrificial ritual itself, but in all casesthe layman involved had to address the cult officials andwas dependent on their competence. It was only in mat-ters of law not linked to ritual acts that a lay authoritycould emerge at the fringes of this hierocratically gov-erned society. It may at first glance be surprising, there-fore, that early Pharisaic-rabbinic traditions consistedmainly of regulations regarding the pure and the impure(Neusner, 1971; 1973), which had been so integral a partof the priestly traditions. But there is an obvious reasonfor this: as long as their existed Jewish law for the prov-ince, to be applied by Jewish authorities and not contra-dictory to superior foreign law, differences between thetrends and groups had to be demarcated by ritual prescrip-tions since they were not subject to foreign law. Never-theless, the priestly establishment as part of the provincialauthority was still able to exercise its influence on allgroups which did not principally oppose the claims of theJerusalem cult. Thus the development of group-specificritual regulations corresponding to and more or less also

competing with those of the priestly caste, steadfastlydenied the authority of an obliging tradition or revealedregulations apart from their own concept of Torah (Philo,e.g., included other traditions as interpretations or addi-tions) which would have prevented the emergence ofthese emancipating and rival tendencies.

The priestly blessing (cf. Num 6:24-26) concludedcertain ritual acts in the temple; e.g., it was the regularconclusion to the Tamid offering ceremonies before thepublic. It was especially this solemn appearance of anofficiating priest (or even High Priest) on a podium de-signed for this purpose and the pronouncing of the Nameof God (the tetragrammaton), which impressed the pub-lic deeply. It was not an integral part of the sacrificialritual, however, but an act directed to the lay &dquo;Israelites&dquo;(Heineman: 124-25; 130-31 ), and therefore it too wasretained in the later synogogal liturgical practice. And aswith Torah reading, the priestly privilege of performingthis solemn act outlived the temple, having been alreadytransferred from sacred space to sacred time in connectionwith events outside the temple (Hoenig).Organization

The organization of the priestly group was influ-enced by its functions, the basic unit here too being, ofcourse, the family, led by its patriarch. The number ofpriestly families in a system increased in the course of thecenturies following the exile, and finally a system ofservice was organized and fixed according to the numberof Sabbaths (weeks) in the respective calendar. The com-bined lunar/solar calendar, observed at Jerusalem duringthe last centuries of the Second Temple, presupposed 24priestly courses which served one week at the templetwice a year, and the solar calendar referred to in Jubilees,1 Enoch and some Qumran texts presupposed 26 courses(Milik, 1976: 62-G5). The courses formed a cycle of sevenyears, with the seventh year reassuming the positions ofthe first.

Every priest without blemish which would havemade him unfit for service had in principle a claim toparticipate in the cultic functions. But the natural increasein the number of priests was not necessarily balanced bya corresponding increase in the number of the tasks duringservice. We know from the Letter of Aristeas (92-95) andfrom rabbinic sources that the ritual performance during.the regular sacrificial service were strictly organized anddistributed by casting lots among a fixed number of priestsin service. Consequently, only a restricted number ofpeople in each family were able to participate in theregular ritual and to take advantage of the special incomesconnected with them. The office of the head of eachcourse was, like the function of the head of a family,certainly a hereditary one and bound to the most noblefamily of the course; but according to one tradition the


145

upper limit to the time of service as head of a course wasthe age of fifty (IQM 11,4), which is not attested for thefunction of the head of a family. The institution of thesecourses was essentially based on family units, not totallydependent on the temple and its central authorities inJerusalem.

The institution of the priestly courses thereforesurvived the destruction of the temple in 70 C.E. Specialservices for priestly courses and lay representatives inPalestine were attested by inscriptions and by pieces ofsynagogal poetry until the high Middle Ages.

Additional opportunities for participation were of-fered, of course, by the non-regular sacrificial acts, buttheir distribution was more or less dependent on thepriestly administration of the temple.

So we have to reckon with priests who participatedregularly with their course in the performance of the dailyregular ritual, others who were excluded on the groundsof ritual prescriptions, and some who were excluded forother reasons. As only priests of a certain age (see Schiff-mann, 1989: 13-15, 23-25, 49-S 1 ) were allowed to takepart in the active cult service, the young ones under thirtyand the old ones were left dependent on their families oron other revenues.

A lot of the duties, however, were not bound to theorganization of the courses but concerned everyday liferegardless of place. This required an appropriate speciali-zation for priests involved in such tasks, a professional skillfor which family traditions may have been decisive, andof course skill and incomes were related to each other.

Unfortunately, we know practically nothing aboutthe organization of priestly revenues and their distribu-tion, especially concerning those not directly connectedwith the sacrificial service of the courses. They includeda considerable amount of goods: all adult Jews, includingthose of the Diaspora, regularly contributed the half-shekel as a kind of temple tax; votive gifts, voluntarydonations, and other goods owed to the sanctuary cer-tainly formed a notable part of the incomes. Of specialimportance to the priests and their families were theagricultural revenues in the form of first fruits, terumah,challah, the priests part (one-tenth) of the tithes to theLevites, fees for every slaughtered animal, and a certainportion of the sheeps wool. There must have been a kindof territorial allotment of the lay people to the Leviticaland priestly families entitled to such cultic taxes. Sincethe distribution of such revenues was certainly of greatimportance for the economic situation of priests andLevites, we may assume that there were continual strug-gles among the priests about such issues. As a result, somefamilies were evidently better off than others.

There was an important difference between familiesliving outside Jerusalem and those living in the city. The

organization of the sanctuary required a number of priestsand Levites continuously present and engaged in its ad-ministration. The most prominent post was of course thatof the High Priest, followed by several influential posts,most of them held by families who specialized in admin-istrative matters. It is obvious that the revenues of suchfamilies by far exceeded the incomes of a normal memberof the priestly courses, for the sanctuary was the economiccenter and a sort of bank for the entire province, andvirtually for Jewry as a whole. It was due to this economicpower concentrated in the hands of the high priestlyfamilies that the Maccabees strove for the High Priest-hood, for as political and military leaders they would havein any case been dependent on this economic power.Although struggles for political and economic powerplayed a prominent role in the history of the sanctuaryand its priesthood, the claims were presented as claimsaccording to the will of God, according to the Torah,corresponding to an order believed to be based not onlyon social but also on cosmic rules, being part of Gods planof creation. Thus the priestly establishment claimed torepresent divine justice. This also applies to the usualpriestly revenue as tithes, terumot and challot: as long ascultic taxes were not delivered, everything remained akind of taboo, its consumption or utilization being re-garded as a sacrilege, an embezzlement of goods owed toGod and his sanctuary (cf. Jub 11:13). Cultic organizationand ritual order were thus motivated by a special cultic-ritual view of the world.

The Cultic World View

Particularistic and Universalistic Aspects

According to ancient Jewish sources, the whole ofIsrael constituted a collective entity, chosen by God forthe realization of his will, revealed as the Torah. As a partof this collective, the priests were of course included inthe whole, the regulations concerning cult and ritual alsoforming an integral part of the Torah. But the prieststhemselves emphasized the relationship in a peculiar way.For them, the concept of election had the significance ofa special election restricted (1) to the place of worship-to the topos (temple) proper or to the &dquo;City of theSanctuary, &dquo; and (2) to the descendants of Levi and Aaron,and within the priestly group sometimes even referring tothe election of Pinhas and Zadok and their descendants asthe leading priestly clan, the Zadokites. This point of viewpresupposes a restriction, a narrower concept of election,claiming for the priestly group a central role within Israeland for Israel, corresponding to and competing with thelikewise restricted concept of election according toDavidic dynasty theology. The general concept of the


146

election of Israel as a whole seems to have been derivedfrom such older special concepts of election.

A second point of view led to a more extensive,universal understanding of this exclusive group, tran-scending Israel and taking into account the world as awhole. The monotheistic claim provided Jerusalemssanctuary and priesthood with a function regarding thewhole of the world and mankind. Even more importantwas the general ancient assumption that the temple andtemple cult represented the cosmos and its order, thepriestly function therefore not being principally depend-ent on the concept of Israels election but rooted in theorder of creation. Indeed, liturgical pieces for priestly,non-public liturgy, most of them known to us only fromQumran, demonstrate this fact convincingly: they containnot even a trace of reference to salvific history, but a lotof cosmological and creational motifs, while liturgicalpieces for public use are full of references to Gods historyin relation to Israel.

This had, of course, an effect on the self-conscious-ness of the priests. They saw themselves as the pre-emi-nent part of Israel, as the elected among the elected. Atthe same time they saw themselves as even more than thatbecause this concept of election merged with the conceptof gradually concentrated areas of holiness. The priestsbelieved further that their functions concerned the orderof the cosmos, of the creation, that they performed theritual acts according to laws preceding the revelation onMount Sinai, laws engraved on heavenly tablets and alsoobserved in heaven by the angelic priests in their service.Priests in heaven-angels-and priests on earth wereconsequently believed to perform the same functionsaccording to the same universal rules. The familiar desig-nation angel for a priest had certainly not only the plainmeaning of &dquo;messenger&dquo; (Maier, 1989), but has to beinterpreted in the sense apparent in Mal 2:7: &dquo;For the lipsof a priest ought to preserve knowledge, and from hismouth men should seek instruction because he is themalak-messenger/angel (Septuagint: angels)-~f thelord of Hosts.&dquo; The word malak (messenger/angel) wascorrectly interpreted by the Targum as Mesham-mesh/minister, or by Rashi (1040-1105) as &dquo;a messengerfrom above (=of God), for a malak is a messenger of Godmediating between him and Israel.&dquo; Among the deutero-canonical scriptures we should mention Tobit 8:1 S (wherethe priests are not explicitly mentioned but rather presup-posed) and the additions to Daniel 1 (the &dquo;Song of theThree Children, 27-29, both texts combining the praiseof God by men, angels, and cosmic beings. The motifs ofheavenly and cosmic worship are both rooted in the basicconcept of the functional identity of human and superhu-man ministering functionaries (see Suter).

Qumran texts corroborate this concept of priest-hood (4Q 494), the Shire ash-shabbat in particular con-tain a kind of dramatic/liturgical description of suchfunctional identity in service (Newsom), but it is unfor-tunately in a very poor state of preservation.Sacred Space

The tension between the priestly functions per-formed exclusively in Israel and for Israel and the priestlyfunction in a universalistic sense was balanced by theconcept of sacred space, dependent on the belief in Godspresence in his sanctuary. The abode of Gods kabod(Greek doaca) in the Holy of Holies of the temple wasregarded as the most holy place on earth, representing notsimply an earthly space but a mythologically conceivedspace where heaven, earth, and underworld were believedto come together. In any case, this part of the Sanctuarywas off limits to everybody except the High Priest inservice on Yom Kippur. The next degree and area ofholiness was represented by the Hekal, the temple hallwith the Menorah, the table for the Shew Bread and thegolden altar for the incense offerings. Only priests inservice who had to carry out the ritual performancesconnected with these institutions were allowed to enterthe Hekal area. The court of priests around the templehouse with the altar for the sacrifices in front of it was offlimits not only to laity but also to priests not in service. Anarrow strip at the eastern end of the priests court wasaccessible to Israelite (lay) men who had to offer a sacri-fice. The lay public, if they were ritually clean and thusallowed to enter the area of the sanctuary, remainedoutside in the so-called &dquo;court of women&dquo;; they could notsee much of the ritual activity around the altar inside thepriests court. This architectural situation alone providessufficient proof of the rigid demarcation of the variousdegrees of sacred space within the sanctuary, which as awhole was situated inside a 500-square cubit area-hueso-called &dquo;Mountain of the House.&dquo; Outside and aroundit, Herod the Great constructed the large &dquo;court of theGentiles.&dquo; The Temple Scroll contains different, morerigid demarcations in its plan for the idealized First Tem-ple, which was to serve all the twelve tribes of Israel butexcluded the possibility of a &dquo;court of the Gentiles.&dquo;

The next sacred areas were, besides the war campwhich had its own similar quality of holiness, the &dquo;City ofthe Sanctuary&dquo; with its two surrounding zones. Eachfortified city within the land of Israel and each house ofan Israelite constituted a sacred area of a still lower degree.The largest area and the lowest degree within the wholescheme was the Land of Israel itself, leaving the entireoutside world as profane and ritually unclean (for the earlystages of this concept see Wright). Thus the universalfunction of the cult was in practice restricted to the Landof Israel and its concentrated sacred areas (see also


147

Josephus, De bello Judaico I, 25-26; Kelim I, 6-8; NumR VII, 8; Halakot gedolot 75). This is a kind of territorialparallel to the personalistic concept of election, accordingto which the Land of Israel is Gods territory, chosen forhis chosen people, and representing the area where theTorah is valid in all its aspects and details, while outsidethe Land of Israel a Jew lives basically &dquo;in exile&dquo; and cutoff from full Torah observance.

For the priests this system of concentrically gradu-ated sacred areas meant an uncontestable privilege overthe laity. The priest in service, and in a special sense theHigh Priest on Yom Kippur, was alone entitled to drawvery close to the abode of Gods presence, not only &dquo;tocome before the Lord, &dquo; but also &dquo;to stand/minister beforethe Lord. &dquo;

The abode of Gods presence was regarded as theplace of revelation kat exochen. Consequently the priestin service, especially a priest in service inside the templebuilding and most particularly of all the High Priest, wassupposed to capable at any time of receiving an auditoryor visual revelation. It is evident that with this basicattitude priests were not very interested in speculationsand hopes concerning participation in the eschatologicalevents or in themes concerning the afterlife. They be-lieved that, thanks to their participation in the templeservice, they shared the functions and wisdom of theheavenly servants of God. But they were of course par-ticularly concerned about, and sensitive to, any apparentor real contestation of this topos and its functions, suspect-ing and fearing an assault on Gods &dquo;presence&dquo; and thesacred order in general. Consequently, their reaction wasa stereotype: an accusation of an assault on &dquo;the topos andthe Torah. &dquo; It is perfectly understandable that the respon-sible priestly groups reacted nervously to eschatologicallymotivated proclamations in the vicinity of the sanctuary-the more so as such proclamation also presupposed, to-gether with the announcement of the last days, moreexplicitly the destruction or replacement of the existingtemple. While such announcements formed part of atraditional prophetic topos, as eschatological proclama-tions they were perceived as a challenge to the existingsacred order, and consequently as a political problem andthreat as well.

Holiness and Ritual PurityThe concept of concentric graduated sacred areas

called for correspondingly graduated conditions regardingthe state of ritual purity on the part of the persons enteringsuch areas. A complicated system of ritual regulationsconcerning purity and impurity and rites of purificationwas therefore characteristic of the priests life, beginningwith the control of descent and the individuals fitness forservice. The concept of a functional identification withthe ministering angels in heaven during the performance

of the ritual, and the conviction that angels and demonswere watching the holy place anyway, was a continuouschallenge to observe the regulations of purity and holinessin order to maintain the communion with the heavenlybeings and to ensure the validity and effectiveness of theperformed rituals. But even outside the service, and out-side Jerusalem, a priest was subject to regulations con-cerning the holy and the profane, the pure and impure,and to specific laws concerning marriage.

Of far-reaching social consequences was the histori-cally grounded opposition to any kind of active femaleparticipation in cultic service. In pre-exilic times thesituation was not at all so absolute, but after the exile onlya few traces in polemical contexts remained of the variouscultic practices in which women played a role. The reasonfor these severe restrictions was the strict rejection of allkinds of fertility cults, which played a prominent role inthe popular religion of Old Israel. The strong effect of thisverdict through all the centuries of the history of Judaismis due to its connection with the concept of ritual pu-rity/impurity and holiness. Idolatry and sexual deviationsare traditionally linked in religious polemics, but theJewish ritual implications concerning purity and impurityadded a special quality which deprived women of anychance to perform cultic tasks, except for the fact thatwives and daughters of priests shared some of the priestlyprivileges concerning the &dquo;holy&dquo; revenues. It is remarkablethat in this matter the Church followed the example ofthe &dquo;Old Covenant,&dquo; arguing more or less in the samefashion.

Priestly Prerogatives andInner Jewish Conflicts

Cult CriticismA fundamental opposition to the temple and the

sacrificial cult was rather rare in early times. An extremeform of criticism is evident in the Qumran texts, whichregard the Jerusalem cult as invalid and unclean, not leastbecause of an allegedly erroneous cultic calendar. But thisimplied no fundamental criticism of the cult itself, for theQumran people expected a restoration of the Jerusalemcult according to their own standards, or the appearanceof the eschatological/heavenly sanctuary.

In most cases, critics focused only on certain cus-toms or interpretations, using an alternative practice toexpress in a demonstrative manner their different convic-tions. If we dont take into account the deeper, theologicalmotivations, we may see such criticisms or deviations asrather superficial, as, e.g., in the Qumran text 4QMMT,which lists a number of rather formal differences betweenthe Qumran group and the Jerusalem priests. Neverthe-


148

less, here too the effects on the course of Israels historyand beyond are pathetically mentioned, the apparentlysuperficial differences being regarded as incredibly impor-tant and of historical and cosmic consequence.

Cultic rites were subject to public criticism, espe-cially in cases where the laity was able to observe andcontrol the ritual actions-which was to a certain extentthe case at festivals. Indeed, a number of basic differencesbetween Sadducean and Pharisaic conceptions of theritual concerned such visible rites, which thus developedinto a kind of &dquo;shibboleth.&dquo;

More radical attitudes may have been provokedamong circles especially burdened by the cultic taxes andwith resentments caused by the priestly privilegeswhich-one must not forget-could be exercised byforce, using the power of the provincial administration ofthe Temple state of Judea. To express a fundamentallynegative attitude, it was necessary to develop a kind ofcounter theology corresponding to the significance of thecultic theology itself. In other words, it was necessary todenounce the existing cultic institutions as having beeninvented against Gods will or having been perverted inthe course of their history.&dquo;Scriptures of the Sanctuary&dquo; and&dquo;Holy Scriptures&dquo;

A question of power at stake in the disputes betweenSadducees and Pharisees was, as has already been pointedout, not least the availability and disposal of sacred texts.The Holy Scriptures are called, in Hebrew, kitbehaqqodesh, literally: &dquo;Scriptures of holiness,&dquo; in the senseof &dquo;Scriptures of the sanctuary.&dquo; Holy things were ofcourse not accessible to the laity, jus as the inner areas ofthe sanctuary were off limits to them. During the SecondTemple period, the holy sample scrolls of the Torah wereapparently in the hands of the priests, and the lay groupswere dependent on them for reliable scriptural informa-tion. This was of particular relevance in connection withthe priests claim to a monopoly in administering thejuridical system. Still, about 200 B.C.E. Ben Sira (Olyan,1987) was able to assert in his book that God &dquo;renderedin his commandments to him [the priest] the final deci-sion concerning law and judgement, to teach the prescrip-tions to His people and to enlighten with His laws the sonsof Israel&dquo; (54:17; see Olyan, 1987). And according to Jub45:16, Jacob transmitted all his books to Levi.

In 121QTS 56, 1-10 we find the authority of theTorah and the authority of the priest explicitly equated,and those disobedient to priests threatened with capitalpunishment. The term torah itself denoted in ancienttimes priestly instruction concerning concrete ritual ques-tions, and it later centuries a close relationship persistedbetween priest and Torah. Mal 2:7 confirms this explicitly(as has already been pointed out): &dquo;For the lips of a priest

a ..

... .

ought to preserve knowledge, and from his mouth menshould seek torah/instruction-because he is themalak-messenger/angel [Septuagint; angelos] of theLord of Hosts.&dquo; The idea that the Torah was revealed byangels, mentioned in a polemical and negative sense in theSecond Testament (Gal 3;17; Acts 7:53; Heb 2:2), mayhave its origin in a concept with a positive sense based onthis priestly prerogative, presupposing the functionalidentity of priests and angels also during instruction.

The introduction of the corpus of the Prophets,which never achieved the same quality of obliging revela-tion as the Torah, was certainly initiated, not by thepriests, but by laymen who favored the eschatologicalinterpretation of the Deuteronomistic view of history.And it is evident from rabbinical sources that the booksof the third part of the Hebrew Bible (Ketubim/Hagiog-rapha)-excepting only the Psalter, as allegedly com-posed by the prophet-king and poet David- wereacknowledged as Kitbe haqqodesh only during the Talmu-dic era. The introduction of a second and finally a thirdcorpus of biblical scriptures was part of a struggle foremancipation from the priestly monopoly concerning theTorah in the Temple. Another symptom of this strugglewas the ongoing Pharisaic-rabbinic endeavor to lower thedegree of the required ritual purity for handling thescriptures. These partisans claimed that the scrolls defiledonly the hands-not more- and that they renderedterumah unfit for consummation.

Priestly families apparently claimed to possess To-rah scrolls of authoritative quality even after 70 C.E., andthey used this fact as an argument in their struggle forauthority and power. It was not in vain that the rabbissought to exclude all scrolls of non-rabbinic origin fromsynogogal use-an aim in which they were eventuallysuccessful. The central issue at that time was not thecorrectness of the biblical text, but the attainment ofpower.

Cult Theology and Its Applicationin Sectarian Theologies

The Temple of Jerusalem, the unique cultic centerfor post-exilic Judaism, was of course also a center ofcultural and spiritual traditions. Priests and Levites wereevidently the leading forces in the development of relig-ious thought during this period, and in the course of itssplitting into diverging and opposing groups such basictraditions were transformed and supplemented to servethe interests and convictions of the respective new groups.The popularization of such traditions had already beencarried out by the Levites, who not only occupied postswithin the cultic organizations but from early times onwere also active in public administration and education.The presence of priestly theological traditions is therefore


149

not in every case linked to priests proper as their trans-mitters.

Confronted with the priestly claims, lay movementsdeveloped specific concepts advocating their own inter-ests. Each of them generalized certain priestly/leviticalconcepts and practices as well as some fundamental to itsown special group, which claimed to represent Israel.Priestly members of such groups may have played adecisive role in the development of sectarian theologies.This is true in a fundamental sense concerning the Qum-ran community, whereas the Second Testament includesexamples for it only in certain traditions. At least theauthor of the Letter to the Hebrews was a man well versedin cultic-priestly theology.

Of particular interest, however, is the developmentin the Qumran community. It was led by Zadokite priestswho regarded the cult in Jerusalem as invalid and unfit toatone for the people and the land. Consequently, theyreplaced the sacrificial function of atonement with leadinga peculiar way of life within an elite community, calledyachad. This also found its expression in metaphors ac-cording to which the Zadokite priests of the communityrepresented the Holy of Holies and the rest of the com-munity the hall of the temple. In practice, this meant thatthe members of the yachad regarded themselves as priestsin service and therefore they had to observe all regulationsvalid for priests in service at the sanctuary: to remainduring service in a state of adequate ritual purity, toabstain from alcohol and sexual intercourse, and to ob-serve the rules concerning their food as holy, fit only forconsumption by priests in service in the respective holyarea. But basically this community expected the restora-tion of the correct cult in Jerusalem and regarded thetemple there as defiled. One consequence of this self-definition of the yachad was participation in the wisdomand knowledge of the heavenly ones. The device of replac-ing the temple with a community of holy ones is seen alsoin Christian contexts, but with a different motivation andwith different aims.

Prestige and Relationshipto Non-Priests

For an adequate assessment of priestly self-con-sciousness, one must bear in mind the special cultic com-prehension of sacred space and ritual function. The priestin service was the only human being entitled to approachGods &dquo;presence. The phrase to come before Gods coun-tenance, used in a general sense to denote visits to thetemple, was nothing but a hold-over from earlier times,when the cultic concepts were not yet as developed asduring the later periods. Literally, it could be applied onlyto priests, particularly to the High Priest on Yom Kippur.

Priests felt themselves to be mediators and messengersbetween the realm of normal human beings and the upperworld. Even a kind of identity with angelic functions waspresupposed, as we have seen, and as the sacred areas ofthe temple were believed to be guarded by angels anddemons, the priest in service certainly saw himself as oneof them. Jub 30:18-20 expresses this notion, putting thefollowing words into the mouth of an angel: &dquo;Levis de-scendants were chosen for the priesthood and as Levitesto serve before the Lord as we do for all time&dquo; (Van-derkam : 198).

Philo also ascribed more than mere human qualitiesto priests (see On the Special Laws, I, 114-16). Theconcept itself seems to be rather old. Sir 45:6-8 containsa compendium of priestly qualities and functions, de-scribed in the ordination of Aaron by Moses. Anotherexample (with peculiar emphases) is found in Jub 32, aswell as elsewhere in that book, which frequently refers tothe tribe of Levi (cf. 8:36; 13:25). So it is not surprisingto find in the sources-e.g., Sir 7:29-the fear of the Lordparalleled with the esteem of his priestly servants.

The priests, therefore, saw an enormous and un-bridgeable gap between their status and that of commonmen. Both groups were well defined by descent, and thispresupposition was the cause of their respective socialbehavior. Priests were certainly tempted not to care muchabout the laity except concerning the fulfillment of ritualduties. Josephus wrote (Bellum II, 166) that the Sad-ducees did not care for the masses and behaved like anexclusive aristocratic group. They were indeed an elitegroup, but as far as the members were priests, theirattitude was more ritualistic than aristocratic.

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Documents

1993 Maier StatusPriests-SecondTemple