Biblical Theology Bulletin: A Journal of Bible

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Self-Definition, Prestige, and Status of Priests Towards the End of the Second Temple Period
Johann Maier
Biblical Theology Bulletin: A Journal of Bible and Theology 1993; 23; 139
DOI: 10.1177/014610799302300402
The online version of this article can be found at:
http://btb.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/23/4/139

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Self-Definition, Prestige, and Status of Priests

Towards the End of the Second Temple Period
JOHANN MAIER
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 the
Mediterranean and the Middle East, facilitating the appraisal of its characteristics. The social implications and the economic
significance of the sanctuary are better understood and freed from the polemical dichotomy "house of prayer" vs. "robbers
den" derived from the Second Testament passages as in the clearing of the temple in Mk 11:2-18 and parallels. The history
of priesthood during the Second Jewish Commonwealth (see Encyclopedia Judaica [1971] 13, esp. 1084-86) was for the
most part the subject of First Testament studies. Consequently, the treatment ended with the Persian period, the later
phases not being covered by First Testament sources.
the

of cultic organization and particuForlarly ofdevelopment

the
reforms under Ezra and
priesthood,

and pro-Hellenistic reform and a wave of

favor of the ancient Torah order, a military
involvement of the Seleucids connected with violent
measures against the opposition, and the successful revolt
of the Maccabees.
But the restoration of the traditional cult in 164/ 163
B. C. E. under Judas Maccabee and the Hasmonean rule to
follow led to a new rift among the traditionalists. When
the Hasmoneans took over the office of the High Priest,
the Zadokites lost their traditional position and split into
several groups with extremely different orientations

pro-Seleucid
resistance in

espe-

cially Nehemiah seem to have been of decisive

significance. They had far-reaching consequences (Williamson ; Blenkinsopp). A second important phase was
probably reached around 200 B.C.E., when a new cultic
order emerged with the change of political power. The
Seleucids granted far-reaching concessions and privileges
to the priestly party, which supported the new government.

But such circumstances,

advantageous at first sight,

have been the cause of new inner
troubles. The alternative of a pro-Ptolemaic option remained a permanent political temptation, later on accompanied and furthered by a pro-Roman tendency, which,
however, finally ended in a confrontation with Rome.
Such questions of foreign policy were regularly combined
with inner quests, emerging exactly at the same time
under Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175-164 B.C.E.). During
his reign a revolutionary change occurred. The priestly
clan of the Zadokites (Olyan, Davies), which claimed its
descent from the first priest at the Temple of Solomon,
Zadok, held in post-exilic times the office of Head Priest
seem

in

reality

(Wacholder).
During all these disputes and changes certain issues
became especially important. One was the question of the

to

cult calendar. In Jerusalem a combined lunar-solar

calendar was in use, while oppositional groups (among
them the Qumran community) advocated a solar calendar. Architectural concepts concerning the sanctuary
were also subject to disputes, and a variety of plans for the
sanctuary were made. While some of them were realistic,
others were utopian-eschatological devices or idealized
descriptions of the First Temple. How realistic some
aspects of all these endeavors were is evident from the
magnificent building activities under Herod the Great. In
any case, certain architectural changes within the temple
correct

or High Priest as a hereditary privilege, evidently esteemed to be part of the traditional Torah order. After
175 B.C.E., during quarrels among the noble priestly
families at the Temple of Jerusalem, the parties addressed
the king. The High Priest was at that time practically the
political head of the Temple province of Judea and therefore of course responsible to the king. Antiochus IV,
always in need of money, took advantage of the situation
and sold the office to the respective candidate who was
ready to pay more taxes. The disastrous consequences are
well known: Civil War in Jerusalem/Judea, a kind of

during the 3rd to I st centuries gave rise to controverthey reflected differing views about the
demarcation of the areas of holiness (Maier, 1989), views
area

sies because

JOHANN MAIER is Professor of Jewish Studies and director of

the Martin Buber Institut at the University of Cologne in
Germany. His latest work is Zwischen den Testamenten:
Geschichte und Religion in der Zeit des zweiten Tempels, in the
new Echter Bibel series (Echter, 1990).

139
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140

which

able to evaluate in a more adequate

the basis of the Temple Scroll from Qumran

we are now

manner on

(Maier, 1985).
provide a certain amount of insufficiently rich to enable one to
write a continuous history of the temple and its priesthood. But even studies focusing on priesthood during the
last two centuries of the Second Temple are rare. Adolph
Buechler published an important contribution in 1895,
using post-biblical and rabbinic sources to describe the
While the

formation, they

sources

are

not

cultic situation in the decades before the year 70 C.E.

(Buechler). The rabbinic statements about the Second
Temple were certainly colored by later rabbinic views and
tendencies and exhibit polemical issues (Neusner), but
the system they describe and the majority of the details
are apparently based on old and reliable traditions, of
course primarily Pharisaic ones. The Qumran finds provided additional original material, and some studies on
topics concerning priesthood have already been published
(Werner-Moeller; Schiffmann: 1975, 1981, 1990;
Baumgarten; Schwartz). Also informative are certain
studies on the concept of priesthood in the Second Testament that treat the Jewish background as well, for
instance John M. Scholers Proleptic Priests.

Studies dealing with the organization and history of

priesthood have failed in most cases to establish a convincing link between such organizational history, social history, and inner religious development, especially the
theological world view and self-consciousness of the
priestly group. While some studies of this kind have been
written, they concentrate on the Pentateuchal priestly
source P-e.g., F. H. Gormans The Ideology of Ritual
(1990). It is only in recent years that publications have
appeared in which the concept of sacral space according
to priestly traditions and the cosmological symbolism of
cultic performances have been considered in more or less
adequate manner (Klimkeit; Cohn; Bokser). One recent
example 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 account
the social significance of cultic world views and Torah
theology.
In this connection

a remarkable difference in the

of
&dquo;Wirkungsgeschichte&dquo; the conceptions of holy space
and holy times should be noted. The bearing of &dquo;holy
space&dquo; on Jewish religiosity underwent a far-reaching
practical (yet not halakhic and theological) restriction
after the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E., as compared with the restricted practical importance of the
priestly and levitical group. Instead of the temple-focused
religiosity of the periods before 70 C.E., rooted in the
conception of sacred space, there emerged a religiosity
oriented primarily to holy times (prayer times, sabbaths,

and festivals), not dependent on holy area and cultic

functionaries but rooted in family life. And in this new
context also the ancient concept of an analogy and functional correspondence between the liturgy of Israel on
earth and the liturgy of the angels before the throne of
God in heaven survived in the temple. This development
was due to certain predispositions during the Second
Commonwealth (Green), when among laity the events of
worship connected with holy times led to a religious
practice not totally dependent on the concept of sacred
space, which focused on the temple of Jerusalem and also
included to a certain degree no practicable, utopian demands regarding individuals living in more distant places.

Priests within the Social Structure

of Israel
The important role of priests and Levites is already
evident in the traditional partition of Israels social macrostructure : ( 1 ) Priests (sons of Aaron), (2) Levites, and (3)
&dquo;Israel&dquo; (laity), an enumeration which includes a ranking
sequence. Statistically the priests were only a small group
(about 20,000 according to Flavius Josephus), and the
Levites were far more numerous; but the two groups taken
together constituted a minority of Israels population.
According to tradition, all of them were members of the
tribe of Levi, which had been chosen by God to perform
cultic service in place of the firstborn Israelites. In early

times, they were subject to a special protective function

of the society (or of the king), based on the argument that
the tribe of Levi did not have a territory of its own.
The history of priesthood and of the Levites before
the Babylonian exile was certainly rather complicated, but
this does not concern us here. The groups which constituted the post-exilic cultic personnel became already in
the early stages of this period a genealogically well defined
and privileged minority, thanks to the developing cultic
organization connected with the sanctuary of Jerusalem.
A main reason for their claim to cultic taxes and governmental protection was the aforementioned argument that
the tribe of Levi did not get a land lot of its own among
the territories of the tribes of Israel. And this was, along
with their engagement in cultic service, also an argument
for their exemption from public taxes. Thus the exclusion
of the tribe of Levi did not, of course, preclude the
possession of immovable property by families and individual priests or Levites; on the contrary, there existed

special cities for priests and Levites, and so certain towns

and villages were virtually in the hands of priests, for
instance Jericho (Schwartz, 1988/9: 23-48). All this contributed to a highly privileged status for at least the bulk
of these groups.

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141
In post-exilic times, and especially following the
reforms of Ezra and Nehemiah, this privileged position
developed into a dominant one. The province of Judea in
Hellenistic and Roman times was a temple state, and its
cult personnel were in charge of the temple, the cultic-religious and economically dominant institution. In any case,
during the late Second Temple period priests, along with
some rich laymen, constituted the upper class of the
province. This fact, however, did not prevent some
priests-for various reasons~rom being excluded from
such benefits and therefore prone to criticism and oppositional trends-as for instance towards the Zealots. The
disputes about membership depending on genealogical
proof were already concluded by this time, but this does
not mean that all priestly families enjoyed equal status and

prestige.

Priesthood and Political Power

The question of the appropriate constitution for
Israel found a clear answer in the priestly traditions of the
First Testament and in the post-biblical literature, accentuating in a specific way the Deuteronomic concept of
theocracy. According to this concept, Israels true king is
its God himself; therefore, a monarchy with a king of flesh
and blood was almost a kind of apostasy. The theocratically legitimate alternative was hierocratic rule, or, as
Flavius Josephus put it, aristocratic rule or the kind of
leadership recorded for the period of Moses and Joshua
or for the early Second Temple (Zadokite) period. This
hierocracy provided a government essentially controlled
by priests. Such concepts were, of course, developed
during the Persian period, when attempts at a Davidic
restoration failed and the &dquo;Head&dquo; (rosh) of the priests
became the &dquo;High Priest&dquo; (kohen gadoo, who ultimately
represented the province before the foreign ruler.
But the priestly claims to leadership in Israel as a
whole were, even in the late period, counterbalanced to a
certain extent by the Davidic political tradition with its
religious ideology. As reality did not favor the dynastic
claims, they remained almost totally restricted to theory,
described by rewriting the past as in the Deuteronomistic
and Chronstic histories, or to eschatological or apocalyptic
devices. The real position of the priesthood, on the contrary, remained stable as long as the temple itself existed.
But with the destruction of the temple in 70 C.E., the
social and political basis for their dominant status was
destroyed, and the priestly group was forced to yield to
the emerging rabbinic authority which had its basis in an
essentially lay society. Such tensions were already prevalent during the last centuries B.C. E. (Bar Ilan; Stone) and
certainly also had their roots in social causes. As the
dominant group, the priests formed part of a kind of

aristocracy, a social elite, while the pharisaic, protorabbinic circles were, as Max Weber and others have already
observed, primarily rooted in the urban middle class.
In political and social respects, such priestly claims
were represented by the position and function of the High
Priest. In a text attributed to Hecataeus of Abdera (about
300 B.C.E.) it is related that in place of a king the Israelites
were ruled by the High Priest, &dquo;and they believe that he
acts as a messenger/angelos to them of Gods commandments&dquo; (Stern, 1974: 26-28).
The High Priest appears in Qumran texts as mashlach Aharon, the &dquo;Anointed one of Aaron,&dquo; alongside and
in rank even ahead of the &dquo;Anointed one of Israel,&dquo; the
king-even ahead of the eschatological Davidic king at the
end of the days. During the Persian and Hellenistic periods, priests developed a theory of constitutional dualism,
integrating the old but politically outdated Davidic concept of royal rule with the current political power of the
High Priest. The Law of the king, as attested in Dt
17:14-16 and in the Temple Scroll, col. 56-60, acknowledged the monarchy as an institution which corresponds
to Gods will as far as the Torah provides defined regulations for it, but this excluded a monarchic, autocratic rule.

According to the Temple Scroll, the important

political and juridical decisions should lie within the competence of a council consisting of 12 priests, 12 Levites,
and the 12 lay princes of tribes (col. 57, 11-15). The
decision about an offensive war was, however, dependent
on the Urim and Tummin oracle, performed by the High
Priest. The full combination of both functions-that of
the High Priest and that of a ruler-by the Hasmoneans
remained an exception which had its causes in the challenges of the military situation and in the question of
political power, but even under direct Roman administration the High Priest remained a symbol with political
implications. It was not without good reason that Herod
the Great tried to diminish the importance of the High
Priests office by frequent new nominations, and the
Romans continued this practice, even guarding the High
Priests official garments. In view of the description of the
High Priest Simon in Sir S0:1-21 this preoccupation
seems understandable: the appearance of the High Priest
in his official garments represented, according to the
cultic tradition, a kind of theophany (in Sir 50:5-7 it is
compared to the appearance of a star of light, the full
moon, the sun, and the rainbow). This is reinforced by the
fact that Sir 50 places this event at the hekal of the temple
house, the High Priest returning and reappearing as from
the abode of the kabod inside. A similar impression is
conveyed in the Letter of Aristeas 96-99 (the Greek text
of 99 is difficult): the appearance of the High Priest
Eleazar in his ornate finery seems to represent an event
&dquo;in another world&dquo; (Hadas). Both texts employ the cultic

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142

motif of kabod, (Greek doxa) in this context. Nor should

one overlook the immediately preceding passage, Sir
S0:1-4, where the ruling qualities of the High Priest
Simon are praised and the activities mentioned correspond exactly to those of a king.
As a counterpart to speculative formulations regarding a future or eschatological Son of David in the sense of
an ideal king in the context of a Torah-govemed Utopia,
the priests developed a speculation of their own, describing Melkisedek, the (pre-Sinaitic!) typos of the priest of
Jerusalem, as a kind of heavenly representative with functions which in part correspond to the functions of an ideal
ruler (Horton; Kobelski).

Organization and

Functions

The tasks of the normal priestly office embraced

functions in various areas of different levels of sanctity and
with differing aims.
Inside the temple house the rituals regarding the
Shew Bread table, the incense altar, and the Menorah
required only a few priests in service. These rituals were
performed for the Divinity, for its &dquo;presence&dquo; in the Holy
of Holies, with no direct bearing on the public.
The complicated acts and performances of the sacrificial service in the court of priests concerning the various kinds of offerings on the altar required a larger number
of priests in service and rigid organization. An adequate
state of purity in each realm, the prescribed garments, and
the necessary preliminary rites of atonement for the officiating priests were, of course, necessary requisites for a
ritually correct and effective cult performance. The main
performances concerned the following activities:
(1) the daily regular offerings at fixed times each
morning and afternoon (Tamid-offerings).
(2) the specific additional morning offerings
(Musaf offerings) on Sabbaths and festivals. Such regular
sacrifices were conceived as offerings in the interest of the
society as a whole in order to maintain the cosmic order,
to ensure fertility and welfare, to atone for the people and
for the land; hence the governments, including foreign
ones, usually contributed to the expenses of this regular
cult.
(3) the non-regular sacrifices connected with situations and irregular duties of the individual or dependent
on his free choice. Only in such cases did an individual
layman take part, modestly, during the dedication of the
victim, laying his hand on the chosen animal victim, and
only in the case of a special sacrifice (zebach) did the
family participate in a more or less ritual manner, consuming the meat-after separating the share of the priests and
the 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 for

the collective group (Israel) and the land of Israel as the
holy area, or for the individual in the case of certain
transgressions and connected with the ceremonies revolving around the removal of a state of ritual impurity. The
sacrificial procedure itself did not require the laymans
participation; yet the people did respond and performed
acts of prostration, following signals and musical performances given by Levites from their
position on the stairs
leading to the portal of the inner court. The Levites, for
their part, were led by priestly signals given from positions
just inside the boundary of the priests court.
In sum, the sacrificial activities were manifold, and
the priestly revenues stemming from them were of substantial economic importance.

Authoritative Instruction
Oracles and ordeals were in this late period already
rather rare, as in general the applications of the &dquo;Torah&dquo;
increasingly replaced the ancient procedures of &dquo;asking
the Lord.&dquo; The cultic practice concerning the woman
suspected of adultery (Num 5) remained, and the
Urim/Tummin oracle of the High Priests seems to have
been practiced at certain periods; its political significance
consisted in a kind of control over the military activities
of the ruler. In addition, casting lots in cases in which no
decision could be reached because of lack of evidence or
criteria may have been common practice.
We know very little about the practice of Torah

reading during the temple service as directed to the

public; we do know that on certain solemn public occasions special readings were performed by the king and/or
the High Priest. Also, the later generalization of this
reading practice for purposes outside the temple and
alongside events of general political interest concerned
only Sabbaths and market days. The &dquo;Sitz im Leben&dquo; of
the public reading practice in its transitory stage, which
led to its generalization and usage at fixed liturgical times,
is still unknown, in spite of the tendencies in modern
research to indulge in anachronistic dating in connection
with the old Palestinian reading cycle.
Significant, however, is the lack of evidence of any
kind of generalized liturgical Torah reading in the Qumran
texts, documents of an isolated, sectarian community
under priestly auspices; also for the Samaritan community
no reading practice is attested. It seems that Torah readings at the temple were bound to the festival cycle and to
special events, but primarily directed to the public, and
that the Torah readings outside the temple imitated only
aspects and that their organization was based on a
totally different system (Monshouwer) from its beginnings employed within a social environment apart from
some

the temple.

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..
-

143

The

Degrees of Concentric Holy Space

Torah reading was perhaps one of the means to

demonstrate power, both by groups/institutions and in
front of groups or factions, as far as both sides pretended
to have the obligatory Torah traditions at their exclusive
disposal. As long as the temple existed, the reading from
the &dquo;holy&dquo; Torah scrolls proper remained restricted to the
respective sacred area, not accessible to laymen. Each
reading of this kind represented a demonstration of the
privilege to dispose of the sacred master exemplars of the
Torah. After the destruction of the temple, this effect lost
its persuasive power to the extent that it had been de-

pendent on the quality of holy space during the temple

period. The lay rabbinical authorities transposed the practice later definitively from sacred space to sacred times.
It is certainly not by chance, however, but due to historical
reasons that even in the rabbinic synagogal reading practice priests and (in the second place) Levites retained the
privilege of precedence to lay readers. These historical
roots

seem

cultic

one

to

have had

more

of a social character than

(in the sense of temple liturgy).

Jurisdiction was traditionally linked to the authority

of the &dquo;Torah. &dquo; As far as the priests maintained their claim

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144

of the Torah in principle and in the material

dispose of the master exemplars within the
sacred area of the sanctuary-they also claimed the privilege of officiating as judges, considering themselves far and
away the best informed experts (cf. Dt Z1:5). But this
attitude diminished the local and regional traditions and
practices, and the changes in political power lessened the
possibilities of successfully realizing the priestly claim.
That claim, at any rate, continued to be upheld concerning
difficult cases, which had to be decided by a central court
to

dispose

sense--~o

(Dt 17:8-13; 11 QTS 56, 1 ff.).

Before and after sacrificial procedures, and even
independently of them, instruction and advice formed an
important part of the normal duties of the cult personnel.
Because of the required number of persons, Levites certainly participated. Such activities basically comprised
Torah instruction (on regulations regarding the holy and
the profane, the pure and the impure), and the decisions
were acts of &dquo;binding and loosing,&dquo; of obligation or acquittal.
A great number of duties concerning cultic taxes had
be supervised and attended by priests and Levites. The
declarations about the fulfillment of such duties and the
validity of sacrifices and cultic acts also constituted acts
of &dquo;binding and loosing,&dquo; obliging, exempting, or acquitting. Such advising and declarative activities were not
restricted to matters of the sacrificial cult; many of them
had to be done independently of the temple and even
outside the &dquo;City of the Sanctuary.&dquo; Rival factions of
experts belonging to the various Jewish groups apparently
to

emerged early on.

The presence of the layman after the dedication of
the victim offered by him was irrelevant for the valid
performance of the sacrificial ritual itself, but in all cases
the layman involved had to address the cult officials and
was dependent on their competence. It was only in matters of law not linked to ritual acts that a lay authority
could emerge at the fringes of this hierocratically governed society. It may at first glance be surprising, therefore, that early Pharisaic-rabbinic traditions consisted
mainly of regulations regarding the pure and the impure
(Neusner, 1971; 1973), which had been so integral a part
of the priestly traditions. But there is an obvious reason
for this: as long as their existed Jewish law for the province, to be applied by Jewish authorities and not contradictory to superior foreign law, differences between the
trends and groups had to be demarcated by ritual prescriptions since they were not subject to foreign law. Nevertheless, the priestly establishment as part of the provincial
authority was still able to exercise its influence on all
groups which did not principally oppose the claims of the
Jerusalem cult. Thus the development of group-specific
ritual regulations corresponding to and more or less also

competing with those of the priestly caste, steadfastly

denied the

of an obliging tradition or revealed

from
their own concept of Torah (Philo,
regulations apart
other
included
traditions
as interpretations or addie.g.,
which
would
have
tions)
prevented the emergence of
these emancipating and rival tendencies.
The priestly blessing (cf. Num 6:24-26) concluded
certain ritual acts in the temple; e.g., it was the regular
conclusion to the Tamid offering ceremonies before the
public. It was especially this solemn appearance of an
officiating priest (or even High Priest) on a podium designed for this purpose and the pronouncing of the Name
of God (the tetragrammaton), which impressed the public deeply. It was not an integral part of the sacrificial
ritual, however, but an act directed to the lay &dquo;Israelites&dquo;
(Heineman: 124-25; 130-31 ), and therefore it too was
retained in the later synogogal liturgical practice. And as
with Torah reading, the priestly privilege of performing
this solemn act outlived the temple, having been already
transferred from sacred space to sacred time in connection
with events outside the temple (Hoenig).

authority

Organization
The organization of the priestly group was influenced by its functions, the basic unit here too being, of
course, the family, led by its patriarch. The number of
priestly families in a system increased in the course of the
centuries following the exile, and finally a system of
service was organized and fixed according to the number
of Sabbaths (weeks) in the respective calendar. The combined lunar/solar calendar, observed at Jerusalem during
the last centuries of the Second Temple, presupposed 24
priestly courses which served one week at the temple
twice 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 seven
years, with the seventh year reassuming the positions of
the first.
Every priest without blemish which would have
made him unfit for service had in principle a claim to
participate in the cultic functions. But the natural increase
in the number of priests was not necessarily balanced by
a corresponding increase in the number of the tasks during
service. We know from the Letter of Aristeas (92-95) and
from rabbinic sources that the ritual performance during.
the regular sacrificial service were strictly organized and
distributed by casting lots among a fixed number of priests
in service. Consequently, only a restricted number of
people in each family were able to participate in the
regular ritual and to take advantage of the special incomes
connected with them. The office of the head of each
course was, like the function of the head of a family,
certainly a hereditary one and bound to the most noble
family of the course; but according to one tradition the

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145
upper limit to the time of service as head of a course was
the age of fifty (IQM 11,4), which is not attested for the

function of the head of a family. The institution of these

courses was essentially based on family units, not totally

dependent

on

the

temple

and its central authorities in

Jerusalem.
The institution of the priestly courses therefore
survived the destruction of the temple in 70 C.E. Special
services for priestly courses and lay representatives in
Palestine were attested by inscriptions and by pieces of
synagogal poetry until the high Middle Ages.
Additional opportunities for participation were offered, of course, by the non-regular sacrificial acts, but
their distribution was more or less dependent on the
priestly administration of the temple.
So we have to reckon with priests who participated
regularly with their course in the performance of the daily
regular ritual, others who were excluded on the grounds
of ritual prescriptions, and some who were excluded for
other reasons. As only priests of a certain age (see Schiffmann, 1989: 13-15, 23-25, 49-S 1 ) were allowed to take
part in the active cult service, the young ones under thirty
and the old ones were left dependent on their families or
on other revenues.
A lot of the duties, however, were not bound to the
organization of the courses but concerned everyday life
regardless of place. This required an appropriate specialization for priests involved in such tasks, a professional skill
for which family traditions may have been decisive, and
of course skill and incomes were related to each other.
Unfortunately, we know practically nothing about
the organization of priestly revenues and their distribution, especially concerning those not directly connected
with the sacrificial service of the courses. They included
a considerable amount of goods: all adult Jews, including
those of the Diaspora, regularly contributed the halfshekel as a kind of temple tax; votive gifts, voluntary
donations, and other goods owed to the sanctuary certainly formed a notable part of the incomes. Of special
importance to the priests and their families were the
agricultural revenues in the form of first fruits, terumah,
challah, the priests part (one-tenth) of the tithes to the
Levites, fees for every slaughtered animal, and a certain
portion of the sheeps wool. There must have been a kind
of territorial allotment of the lay people to the Levitical
and priestly families entitled to such cultic taxes. Since
the distribution of such revenues was certainly of great
importance for the economic situation of priests and
Levites, we may assume that there were continual struggles among the priests about such issues. As a result, some
families were evidently better off than others.
There was an important difference between families
living outside Jerusalem and those living in the city. The

organization of the sanctuary required a number of priests

and Levites

continuously present and engaged

ministration. The most

in its

ad-

prominent post was of course that

of the High Priest, followed by several influential posts,

most of them held by families who specialized in administrative matters. It is obvious that the revenues of such
families by far exceeded the incomes of a normal member
of the priestly courses, for the sanctuary was the economic
center and a sort of bank for the entire province, and
virtually for Jewry as a whole. It was due to this economic
power concentrated in the hands of the high priestly
families that the Maccabees strove for the High Priesthood, for as political and military leaders they would have
in any case been dependent on this economic power.
Although struggles for political and economic power
played a prominent role in the history of the sanctuary
and its priesthood, the claims were presented as claims
according to the will of God, according to the Torah,
corresponding to an order believed to be based not only
on social but also on cosmic rules, being part of Gods plan
of creation. Thus the priestly establishment claimed to
represent divine justice. This also applies to the usual
priestly revenue as tithes, terumot and challot: as long as
cultic taxes were not delivered, everything remained a
kind of taboo, its consumption or utilization being regarded as a sacrilege, an embezzlement of goods owed to
God and his sanctuary (cf. Jub 11:13). Cultic organization
and ritual order were thus motivated by a special culticritual view of the world.

The Cultic World View

Particularistic and Universalistic Aspects

According to ancient Jewish sources, the whole of

Israel constituted a collective entity, chosen by God for
the realization of his will, revealed as the Torah. As a part
of this collective, the priests were of course included in
the whole, the regulations concerning cult and ritual also
forming an integral part of the Torah. But the priests
themselves emphasized the relationship in a peculiar way.
For them, the concept of election had the significance of
a special election restricted (1) to the place of worshipto the topos (temple) proper or to the &dquo;City of the
Sanctuary, &dquo; and (2) to the descendants of Levi and Aaron,
and within the priestly group sometimes even referring to
the election of Pinhas and Zadok and their descendants as
the leading priestly clan, the Zadokites. This point of view
presupposes a restriction, a narrower concept of election,
claiming for the priestly group a central role within Israel
and for Israel, corresponding to and competing with the
likewise restricted concept of election according to
Davidic dynasty theology. The general concept of the

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146

election of Israel as a whole seems to have been derived

from such older special concepts of election.
A second point of view led to a more extensive,
universal understanding of this exclusive group, transcending Israel and taking into account the world as a
whole. The monotheistic claim provided Jerusalems
sanctuary and priesthood with a function regarding the
whole of the world and mankind. Even more important
was the general ancient assumption that the temple and
temple cult represented the cosmos and its order, the
priestly function therefore not being principally dependent on the concept of Israels election but rooted in the
order of creation. Indeed, liturgical pieces for priestly,
non-public liturgy, most of them known to us only from
Qumran, demonstrate this fact convincingly: they contain
not even a trace of reference to salvific history, but a lot
of cosmological and creational motifs, while liturgical
pieces for public use are full of references to Gods history
in relation to Israel.
This had, of course, an effect on the self-consciousof the priests. They saw themselves as the pre-eminent part of Israel, as the elected among the elected. At
the same time they saw themselves as even more than that
because this concept of election merged with the concept
of gradually concentrated areas of holiness. The priests
believed further that their functions concerned the order
of the cosmos, of the creation, that they performed the
ritual acts according to laws preceding the revelation on
Mount Sinai, laws engraved on heavenly tablets and also
observed in heaven by the angelic priests in their service.
Priests in heaven-angels-and priests on earth were
consequently believed to perform the same functions
according to the same universal rules. The familiar designation angel for a priest had certainly not only the plain
meaning of &dquo;messenger&dquo; (Maier, 1989), but has to be
interpreted in the sense apparent in Mal 2:7: &dquo;For the lips
of a priest ought to preserve knowledge, and from his
mouth men should seek instruction because he is the
malak-messenger/angel (Septuagint: angels)-~f the
lord of Hosts.&dquo; The word malak (messenger/angel) was
correctly interpreted by the Targum as Meshammesh/minister, or by Rashi (1040-1105) as &dquo;a messenger
from above (=of God), for a malak is a messenger of God
mediating between him and Israel.&dquo; Among the deuterocanonical scriptures we should mention Tobit 8:1 S (where
the priests are not explicitly mentioned but rather presupposed) and the additions to Daniel 1 (the &dquo;Song of the
Three Children, 27-29, both texts combining the praise
of God by men, angels, and cosmic beings. The motifs of
heavenly and cosmic worship are both rooted in the basic
concept of the functional identity of human and superhuman ministering functionaries (see Suter).
ness

Qumran texts corroborate this concept of priest(4Q 494), the Shire ash-shabbat in particular contain a kind of dramatic/liturgical description of such
functional identity in service (Newsom), but it is unfortunately in a very poor state of preservation.
hood

Sacred Space
The tension between the priestly functions performed exclusively in Israel and for Israel and the priestly
function in a universalistic sense was balanced by the
concept of sacred space, dependent on the belief in Gods
presence in his sanctuary. The abode of Gods kabod
(Greek doaca) in the Holy of Holies of the temple was
regarded as the most holy place on earth, representing not
simply an earthly space but a mythologically conceived
space where heaven, earth, and underworld were believed
to come together. In any case, this part of the Sanctuary
was off limits to everybody except the High Priest in
service on Yom Kippur. The next degree and area of
holiness was represented by the Hekal, the temple hall
with the Menorah, the table for the Shew Bread and the
golden altar for the incense offerings. Only priests in
service who had to carry out the ritual performances
connected with these institutions were allowed to enter
the Hekal area. The court of priests around the temple
house with the altar for the sacrifices in front of it was off
limits not only to laity but also to priests not in service. A
narrow strip at the eastern end of the priests court was
accessible to Israelite (lay) men who had to offer a sacrifice. The lay public, if they were ritually clean and thus
allowed to enter the area of the sanctuary, remained
outside in the so-called &dquo;court of women&dquo;; they could not
see much of the ritual activity around the altar inside the
priests court. This architectural situation alone provides
sufficient proof of the rigid demarcation of the various
degrees of sacred space within the sanctuary, which as a
whole was situated inside a 500-square cubit area-hue
so-called &dquo;Mountain of the House.&dquo; Outside and around
it, Herod the Great constructed the large &dquo;court of the
Gentiles.&dquo; The Temple Scroll contains different, more
rigid demarcations in its plan for the idealized First Temple, which was to serve all the twelve tribes of Israel but
excluded the possibility of a &dquo;court of the Gentiles.&dquo;
The next sacred areas were, besides the war camp
which had its own similar quality of holiness, the &dquo;City of
the Sanctuary&dquo; with its two surrounding zones. Each
fortified city within the land of Israel and each house of
an Israelite constituted a sacred area of a still lower degree.
The largest area and the lowest degree within the whole
scheme was the Land of Israel itself, leaving the entire
outside world as profane and ritually unclean (for the early
stages of this concept see Wright). Thus the universal
function of the cult was in practice restricted to the Land
of Israel and its concentrated sacred areas (see also

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147

Josephus, De bello Judaico I, 25-26; Kelim I, 6-8; Num

R VII, 8; Halakot gedolot 75). This is a kind of territorial
parallel to the personalistic concept of election, according
which the Land of Israel is Gods territory, chosen for
his chosen people, and representing the area where the
Torah is valid in all its aspects and details, while outside
the Land of Israel a Jew lives basically &dquo;in exile&dquo; and cut
off from full Torah observance.
For the priests this system of concentrically graduated sacred areas meant an uncontestable privilege over
the laity. The priest in service, and in a special sense the
High Priest on Yom Kippur, was alone entitled to draw
very close to the abode of Gods presence, not only &dquo;to
come before the Lord, &dquo; but also &dquo;to stand/minister before
the Lord.
The abode of Gods presence was regarded as the
place of revelation kat exochen. Consequently the priest
in service, especially a priest in service inside the temple
building and most particularly of all the High Priest, was
supposed to capable at any time of receiving an auditory
or visual revelation. It is evident that with this basic
attitude priests were not very interested in speculations
and hopes concerning participation in the eschatological
events or in themes concerning the afterlife. They believed that, thanks to their participation in the temple
service, they shared the functions and wisdom of the
heavenly servants of God. But they were of course particularly concerned about, and sensitive to, any apparent
or real contestation of this topos and its functions, suspecting and fearing an assault on Gods &dquo;presence&dquo; and the
sacred order in general. Consequently, their reaction was
a stereotype: an accusation of an assault on &dquo;the topos and
the Torah. &dquo; It is perfectly understandable that the responsible priestly groups reacted nervously to eschatologically
motivated proclamations in the vicinity of the sanctuarythe more so as such proclamation also presupposed, together with the announcement of the last days, more
explicitly the destruction or replacement of the existing
temple. While such announcements formed part of a
traditional prophetic topos, as eschatological proclamations they were perceived as a challenge to the existing
sacred order, and consequently as a political problem and
threat as well.
to

&dquo;

Holiness and Ritual Purity

The concept of concentric graduated sacred areas
called for correspondingly graduated conditions regarding
the state of ritual purity on the part of the persons entering
such areas. A complicated system of ritual regulations
concerning purity and impurity and rites of purification
was therefore characteristic of the priests life, beginning
with the control of descent and the individuals fitness for
service. The concept of a functional identification with
the ministering angels in heaven during the performance

of the ritual, and the conviction that angels and demons

watching the holy place anyway, was a continuous
challenge to observe the regulations of purity and holiness
in order to maintain the communion with the heavenly
beings and to ensure the validity and effectiveness of the
performed rituals. But even outside the service, and outside Jerusalem, a priest was subject to regulations concerning the holy and the profane, the pure and impure,
and to specific laws concerning marriage.
Of far-reaching social consequences was the historically grounded opposition to any kind of active female
participation in cultic service. In pre-exilic times the
situation was not at all so absolute, but after the exile only
a few traces in polemical contexts remained of the various
cultic practices in which women played a role. The reason
for these severe restrictions was the strict rejection of all
kinds of fertility cults, which played a prominent role in
the popular religion of Old Israel. The strong effect of this
verdict through all the centuries of the history of Judaism
is due to its connection with the concept of ritual purity/impurity and holiness. Idolatry and sexual deviations
are traditionally linked in religious polemics, but the
Jewish ritual implications concerning purity and impurity
added a special quality which deprived women of any
chance to perform cultic tasks, except for the fact that
wives and daughters of priests shared some of the priestly
privileges concerning the &dquo;holy&dquo; revenues. It is remarkable
that in this matter the Church followed the example of
the &dquo;Old Covenant,&dquo; arguing more or less in the same
fashion.
were

Priestly Prerogatives and

Inner Jewish Conflicts
Cult Criticism
A fundamental opposition to the temple and the
sacrificial cult was rather rare in early times. An extreme
form of criticism is evident in the Qumran texts, which
regard the Jerusalem cult as invalid and unclean, not least
because of an allegedly erroneous cultic calendar. But this
implied no fundamental criticism of the cult itself, for the
Qumran people expected a restoration of the Jerusalem
cult according to their own standards, or the appearance
of the eschatological/heavenly sanctuary.
In most cases, critics focused only on certain customs or interpretations, using an alternative practice to
express in a demonstrative manner their different convictions. If we dont take into account the deeper, theological
motivations, we may see such criticisms or deviations as
rather superficial, as, e.g., in the Qumran text 4QMMT,
which lists a number of rather formal differences between
the Qumran group and the Jerusalem priests. Neverthe-

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148

less,
and

here

too

the effects

on

of Israels history
mentioned, the apparently

the

course

pathetically
beyond
superficial differences being regarded as incredibly imporare

and of historical and cosmic consequence.

Cultic rites were subject to public criticism, especially in cases where the laity was able to observe and
control the ritual actions-which was to a certain extent
the case at festivals. Indeed, a number of basic differences
between Sadducean and Pharisaic conceptions of the
ritual concerned such visible rites, which thus developed
into a kind of &dquo;shibboleth.&dquo;
More radical attitudes may have been provoked
among circles especially burdened by the cultic taxes and
with resentments caused by the priestly privileges
which-one must not forget-could be exercised by
force, using the power of the provincial administration of
the Temple state of Judea. To express a fundamentally
negative attitude, it was necessary to develop a kind of
counter theology corresponding to the significance of the
cultic theology itself. In other words, it was necessary to
denounce the existing cultic institutions as having been
invented against Gods will or having been perverted in
the course of their history.
tant

&dquo;Scriptures of the Sanctuary&dquo; and

&dquo;Holy Scriptures&dquo;
A question of power at stake in the disputes between
Sadducees and Pharisees was, as has already been pointed
out, not least the availability and disposal of sacred texts.
The Holy Scriptures are called, in Hebrew, kitbe
haqqodesh, literally: &dquo;Scriptures of holiness,&dquo; in the sense
of &dquo;Scriptures of the sanctuary.&dquo; Holy things were of
course not accessible to the laity, jus as the inner areas of
the sanctuary were off limits to them. During the Second
Temple period, the holy sample scrolls of the Torah were
apparently in the hands of the priests, and the lay groups
were dependent on them for reliable scriptural information. This was of particular relevance in connection with
the priests claim to a monopoly in administering the
juridical system. Still, about 200 B.C.E. Ben Sira (Olyan,
1987) was able to assert in his book that God &dquo;rendered
in his commandments to him [the priest] the final decision concerning law and judgement, to teach the prescriptions to His people and to enlighten with His laws the sons
of Israel&dquo; (54:17; see Olyan, 1987). And according to Jub
45:16, Jacob transmitted all his books to Levi.
In 121QTS 56, 1-10 we find the authority of the
Torah and the authority of the priest explicitly equated,
and those disobedient to priests threatened with capital
punishment. The term torah itself denoted in ancient
times priestly instruction concerning concrete ritual questions, and it later centuries a close relationship persisted
between priest and Torah. Mal 2:7 confirms this explicitly
(as has already been pointed out): &dquo;For the lips of a priest

to preserve knowledge, and from his mouth men

should seek torah/instruction-because he is the
malak-messenger/angel [Septuagint; angelos] of the
Lord of Hosts.&dquo; The idea that the Torah was revealed by
angels, mentioned in a polemical and negative sense in the
Second Testament (Gal 3;17; Acts 7:53; Heb 2:2), may
have its origin in a concept with a positive sense based on
this priestly prerogative, presupposing the functional
identity of priests and angels also during instruction.

ought

The introduction of the corpus of the Prophets,

which never achieved the same quality of obliging revelation as the Torah, was certainly initiated, not by the
priests, but by laymen who favored the eschatological
interpretation of the Deuteronomistic view of history.
And it is evident from rabbinical sources that the books
of the third part of the Hebrew Bible (Ketubim/Hagiographa)-excepting only the Psalter, as allegedly composed by the prophet-king and poet David- were
acknowledged as Kitbe haqqodesh only during the Talmudic era. The introduction of a second and finally a third
corpus of biblical scriptures was part of a struggle for
emancipation from the priestly monopoly concerning the
Torah in the Temple. Another symptom of this struggle
was the ongoing Pharisaic-rabbinic endeavor to lower the
degree of the required ritual purity for handling the
scriptures. These partisans claimed that the scrolls defiled
only the hands-not more- and that they rendered
terumah unfit for consummation.

Priestly families apparently claimed to possess Torah scrolls of authoritative quality even after 70 C.E., and
they used this fact as an argument in their struggle for
authority and power. It was not in vain that the rabbis
sought to exclude all scrolls of non-rabbinic origin from
synogogal use-an aim in which they were eventually
successful. The central issue at that time was not the
correctness of the biblical text, but the attainment of
power.

Cult Theology and Its Application

in Sectarian Theologies
The Temple of Jerusalem, the unique cultic center
for post-exilic Judaism, was of course also a center of
cultural and spiritual traditions. Priests and Levites were
evidently the leading forces in the development of religious thought during this period, and in the course of its
splitting into diverging and opposing groups such basic
traditions were transformed and supplemented to serve
the interests and convictions of the respective new groups.
The popularization of such traditions had already been
carried out by the Levites, who not only occupied posts
within the cultic organizations but from early times on
were also active in public administration and education.
The presence of priestly theological traditions is therefore

..

...

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149
not in every

case

linked

to

priests

proper

as

their

trans-

mitters.

Confronted with the priestly claims, lay movements

developed specific concepts advocating their own interests. Each of them generalized certain priestly/levitical
concepts and practices as well as some fundamental to its
own special group, which claimed to represent Israel.
Priestly members of such groups may have played a
decisive role in the development of sectarian theologies.
This is true in a fundamental sense concerning the Qumran community, whereas the Second Testament includes
examples for it only in certain traditions. At least the
author of the Letter to the Hebrews was a man well versed

cultic-priestly theology.
Of particular interest, however, is the development
in the Qumran community. It was led by Zadokite priests
who regarded the cult in Jerusalem as invalid and unfit to
atone for the people and the land. Consequently, they
replaced the sacrificial function of atonement with leading
a peculiar way of life within an elite community, called
yachad. This also found its expression in metaphors according to which the Zadokite priests of the community
represented the Holy of Holies and the rest of the community the hall of the temple. In practice, this meant that
the members of the yachad regarded themselves as priests
in service and therefore they had to observe all regulations
in

valid for priests in service at the sanctuary: to remain

during service in a state of adequate ritual purity, to
abstain from alcohol and sexual intercourse, and to observe the rules concerning their food as holy, fit only for
consumption by priests in service in the respective holy
area. But basically this community expected the restoration of the correct cult in Jerusalem and regarded the
temple there as defiled. One consequence of this selfdefinition of the yachad was participation in the wisdom
and knowledge of the heavenly ones. The device of replacing the temple with a community of holy ones is seen also
in Christian contexts, but with a different motivation and
with different aims.

Priests felt themselves to be mediators and messengers

between the realm of normal human beings and the upper
world. Even a kind of identity with angelic functions was
presupposed, as we have seen, and as the sacred areas of
the temple were believed to be guarded by angels and
demons, the priest in service certainly saw himself as one
of them. Jub 30:18-20 expresses this notion, putting the
following words into the mouth of an angel: &dquo;Levis descendants were chosen for the priesthood and as Levites
to serve before the Lord as we do for all time&dquo; (Vanderkam : 198).

Philo also ascribed more than

Non-Priests

The priests, therefore, saw an enormous and unbridgeable gap between their status and that of common
men. Both groups were well defined by descent, and this
was the cause of their respective social
behavior. Priests were certainly tempted not to care much
about the laity except concerning the fulfillment of ritual
duties. Josephus wrote (Bellum II, 166) that the Sadducees did not care for the masses and behaved like an
exclusive aristocratic group. They were indeed an elite
group, but as far as the members were priests, their
attitude was more ritualistic than aristocratic.

presupposition

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M.

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Ancient

an

adequate

assessment

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M.

Pp.

575-86.

Baumgarten, J.

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L.

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