_High Priest_
For the benefit of those who ignorantly, if not deliberately by deceit,
misled to believe that the priest has any authority, which the truly
converted Christian could not exercise, the present chapter is offered
in the spirit of love without any fear of contradiction or dispute,
because the facts given here are well established upon the Scriptural
Truths and the reader may at all times maintain the proofs to disprove
refutable arguments of persons whose only purpose is to serve their own
individual interests.
The priest, one who officiates in secret offices, it is the definition
given in Webster's dictionary. And from the most authentic Biblical
concordances we derive the following information: The priest under the
law was a person consecrated and ordained of God, not only to teach the
people and pray for them, but also to offer up sacrifices for his own
sins and those of the people. The priesthood was not annexed to a
certain family, till after the promulgation of the law of Moses.
Before that time the first born of every family, the fathers, the kings,
the princes, were priests, born in their city and in their own homes.
Cain and Abel, Noah, Abraham and Job, Abimelech and Laban, Isaac and
Jacob, offered themselves their own sacrifices. In the solemnity of the
covenant that the Lord made with his people at the foot of Mount Sinai,
Moses performed the office of meditator, and young men were chosen from
among the children of Israel to perform the office of priests. But after
that the Lord had chosen the tribe of Levi to serve him in his
tabernacle, and that the priesthood was annexed to the family of Aaron,
then the right of offering sacrifices to God was reserved to the priests
alone of this family.
Duties of the priests: The priests were required to prove their descent
from Aaron, to be free from all bodily defect or blemish; must not be
observed mourning except for near relatives; must not marry a woman that
had been a harlot; or divorced, or profane. The priest's daughter who
committed whoredom was to be burned, as profaning her father. The
priests were to have the charge of the sanctuary and the altar, which
being once kindled the priest was always to keep it burning. In later
times, and upon extraordinary occasions, at least, they flayed the
burnt-offerings and killed the Passover. They were to receive the blood
of the burnt-offerings in basins and sprinkle it around about the altar,
arrange the wood and the fire, and to burn the parts of the sacrifices.
If the burnt sacrifices were of doves, the priest was to nip off the
head with the finger nail, squeeze out the blood on the edge of the
altar, pluck off the feathers, and throw them with the crop into the
ash-pit, divide down the wings, and then completely burn it. He was to
offer a lamb every morning and evening, and a double number on the
Sabbath, the burnt-offerings ordered at the beginning of months, and the
same on the feast of Unleavened Bread, and on the day of the First
Fruits; to receive the meat-offering of the offerer, bring it to the
altar, take of it a memorial, and burn it upon the altar; to sprinkle
the blood of the peace-offerings upon the altar around about, and then
to offer of it a burnt-offering; to offer the sin-offering for the sins
of a ruler or any of the common people; to eat the sin-offering at the
holy place; and the same way to offer offerings for all the kinds of sin
and the priest should eat these offerings at the holy place; to offer
for the purification of women after child-birth; to judge of the leprosy
in the human body or garments (it is remarkable that the Jewish race
from the beginning, has been all through the ages a heavy victim of
leprosy). The priest was to make the ointment of spices; to prepare the
water of separation; to act as assessor in judicial proceedings; to
encourage the army when going to battle, and probably to have charge of
the law.
The emoluments of the priests: The perquisites of the priests were many
and various, and as Philo calls them very rich, and this statement holds
good all the way down to the Christian priest who inherited most of the
virtues of his Jewish predecessors. Thus no wonder for the priests to
keep their people in dense ignorance of the historical originality of
the priesthood. And the high priest, besides all duties and privileges
already mentioned as common to him and the ordinary priest, he must not
marry a widow, nor a divorced woman, or a profane, or that had been a
harlot, but a virgin Israelitess. He must not eat anything that died of
itself, or was torn by beasts; must wash his hands and feet when he went
into the tabernacle to offer the mass. The high priest was the divinely
inspired judge and truly he was the supreme ruler till the time of
David, and again after the captivity. He would ask counsel of the Lord
if a new ruler was worthy or not and accordingly grant or regret the
appointment of the ruler. It is the privilege which the Pope derives
from Eleazar and trying to exercise this privilege against the rulers of
Europe for fifteen centuries became the menace in the progress of
humanity. The high priest had also unlimited power upon the funds of the
sanctuary. And it may be out of proportion in this book to give a
complete description of all the privileges and regalia of the high
priest, yet the reader could easily imagine the frivolities
unfortunately existing even today in the ceremonial dress of the high
priest, and to confirm this fact he only has to enter in the first
Russian or Greek or Roman Catholic church at any day of some special
celebration and there he cannot help but observe an imitation of the
lamentable vanity of a high priest of the old Jewish faith. And the
truth is visible to the naked eye. Would ever sincerity and priesthood
meet in one and the same person it would make the most paradox
phenomenon, and such exceptional occurrences are very rare in the
ecclesiastical horizon, for virtue and priesthood are the very logical
antithesis, and chemically speaking they are protogon matters not
yielding to adulteration. Between priesthood and Christ there is an
abyss of argument, but there is no bridge to join both sides. Priesthood
on one side in the most pharisaic manner imposing its superfluous
authority upon all mortals. And Jesus the Christ of God with his wounded
side, in the most emphatic manner, condemning the pharisaic scheme,
which is a continuation in the Greek--Russian--Roman Catholic church:
"For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on
man's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of
their fingers." And if the words of the blessed Christ himself speaking
in the 23d chapter of Matthew, have no effect upon the consciousness of
the priest, there is all vain to any other way trying to bring him into
the light of wisdom. In the history of all mankind there are three
distinct stages of priesthood, and in its two former stages it had been
a complete failure, in its present stage is falling so fast, and it is
condemned, already, by all reasoning minds, that it is only a matter of
time before the human race shall be free from these parasites. The
priest, of the Jewish faith, failed because he was inhuman, the priest
of the Greek idolatry failed, because he was a philosophical fraud; and
the priest of the present time, shall fail, because he is the very
opposing visible enemy of God's kingdom. The sacerdotal office of the
priest, is anti-christian.
Here we shall attempt to only describe one piece of the dress of the
high priest, the breast-plate (rationale); a gorget, ten inches square,
made of the same sort of cloth as the ephod, and doubled so as to form a
kind of pouch or bag, in which was to be put the urim and thummim, which
are also mentioned as is already known. The external part of this gorget
was set with four rows of precious stones; the first row, a serdious, a
topaz, and a carbuncle; the second, an emerald, a sapphire, and a
diamond; the third, a ligure, an agate, and an amethyst, and the fourth,
a beryl, an onyx and a jasper, set in a golden socket. Upon each of
these stones was to be engraven the name of one of the sons of Jacob. In
the ephod in which there was a space left open sufficiently large for
the admission of this pectoral, were four rings of gold, to which four
others at the four corners of the breast-plate corresponded; the two
lower rings of gold being fixed inside. It was confined to the ephod by
means of dark blue ribbons, which passed through these rings; and it was
also suspended from the onyx stones on the shoulder by chains of gold,
or rather cords of twisted gold thread, which were fastened at one end
to two other larger rings fixed in the upper corners of the pectoral,
and by the other end going around the onyx stones on the shoulders, and
returning and being fixed in the larger ring. And a splendid ornament
upon the breast was a winged scarabaeus, the emblem of the Sun, and the
unavoidable portion of the ceremonial dress peculiar to the high priest
was the miter, mitre or Cidaris, a head gear of gold and silver and
precious stones whose magnificence we would not dare to describe in
this work, but the reader may in his life be fortunate enough to see one
of these wonderful paraphernalia on the head of some of the now-a-days
self-styled representatives of Jesus Christ, who came to seek and save
the lost and he did not make of himself a show in these follies of the
old Jewish faith that proved a failure.
That the priests in Israel more than once by their indulgence went down
to idolatry, the old testament abounds in evidences, but I shall only
mention the incidents of Eli the high priest and his two sons, Hophni
and Phinehas. Josephus says, the high priest had also the very
idolatrous symbolical meanings of every part of his dress, which being
made of linen signified the earth; the blue color denoted the sky, being
like lightning in its pomegranate, and in the noise of its bells
resembling thunder. The ephod showed that God had made the universe of
four elements, the gold relating to the splendor by which all things are
enlightened, the breast-plate in the middle of the ephod resembled the
earth, which has the middle place in the world. The girdle signified the
sea, which goes around the world. The sardonyxes declared the sun and
moon. The twelve stones are the twelve months of signs of the zodiac.
The mitre is the heaven, because above all. The seven lamps upon the
golden candlesticks represent the seven planets, and so on every article
had a reference to some particle of the Egyptian Deities. But the time
came when man understood better God's plan of salvation. And divinely
inspired they fearlessly stopped all these idolatrous practises.
Who could dare say, at the beginning of the sixteenth century that God
could only through Jesus Christ save a soul without the necessity of a
priest? Yet today even the priest himself would not dare say, not in a
civilized community, that his presence is necessary for the forgiveness
of sin. But what of the millions of people that are drifting away from
God with the idea, that the priest is taking care of their souls? Am I
criticising the priest? God forbid, for I am not. There are good and bad
priests, as far as their personal character is concerned, as there are
good and bad professional Christians, I have met in my Christian
experience. But I will say, in the authority of the word of God, that
the man who diligently searcheth the Scriptures and sincerely read his
Bible and still he insists in holding his sacerdotal office and call
himself a priest, he is deceived or he is deceiving.
"Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedec." Christ is
the only priest, holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and
made higher than the heavens, who needeth not daily, as those high
priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the
people's; for this he did once, when he offered up himself.
The Church makes men high priests which have infirmity but the power of
God makes every man a high priest, who offers up himself to live and
work for the salvation of all. "Whosoever believeth in Him should not
perish, but have everlasting life." God's promises are true and the
reader has only to study the Epistle of Paul to the Hebrews, to be
convinced that the sacerdotal office of the priest sooner or later has
to go out of existence as the spirit of Christ spreads upon the hearts
of men and women and the knowledge of His salvation makes them "Priests
unto God and His Father" and thus establish God's kingdom upon the solid
foundations of love. Then shall they all be made unto kings and priests,
and they shall reign upon the earth. (Rev. 1-6, etc.)