The power and independence of the clergy run parallel with its
material endowment, which accordingly passes through the same
course of development. Its successive steps are reflected even in
the language that is employed, in the gradual loss of point
sustained by the phrase "to fill the hand," at all times used to
denote ordination. Originally it cannot have had any other
meaning than that of filling the hand with money or its
equivalent; we have seen that at one time the priest was
appointed by the owner of a sanctuary for a salary, and that,
without being thus dependent upon a particular employer, he could
not then live on the income derived from those who might employ
him sacrificially. But when the Levitical hereditary priesthood
arose in the later kingdom of Judah the hands of the priests were
no longer filled by another who had the right to appoint and to
dismiss, but they themselves at God's command "filled their own
hand," or rather they had done so in the days of Moses once for
all, as is said in Exodus xxxii. 26-29, an insertion
corresponding with the position of Deuteronomy. It is obvious
that such a statement, when carefully looked at, is absurd, but
is to be explained by the desire to protest against outside
interference. Even here the etymological sense is still
sufficiently felt to create an involuntary jar and leads to a
change of the construction; but finally all sense of it is lost,
and the expression becomes quite colourless: "to fill the hand "
means simply "to consecrate." In Ezekiel not only the priest but
also the altar has its "hand filled" (xliii. 26); in the
Priestly Code the abstract _milluim_ ["consecrations"] is chiefly
used, with subject and object left out, as the name of a mere
inaugural ceremony which lasts for several days (Leviticus viii. 33;
Exodus xxix. 34), essentially consists in the bringing of an
offering on the part of the person to be consecrated, and has no
longer even the remotest connection with actual filling of the
hand (2Chronicles xiii. 7; comp. xxix. 31). The verb, therefore,
now means simply the performance of this ceremony, and the subject
is quite indifferent (Leviticus xvi. 32, xxi. 10; Numbers iii. 3);
the installation does not depend upon the person who performs the
rite, but upon the rite itself, upon the unction, investiture,
and other formalities (Exodus xxix. 29).
This variation in the _usus Ioquendi_ is the echo of real changes
in the outuard condition of the clergy, which we must now proceed
to consider more in detail.
V.I.
V.I.1. Of the offerings, it was the custom in the earlier time to
dedicate a portion to the deity but to use the greater part in
sacred feasts, at which a priest, if present, was of course
allowed also in one way or another to participate. But he does
not appear to have had a legal claim to any definite dues of
flesh.
"Eli's sons were worthless persons, and cared not about
Jehovah, or about the priests' right and duty with the people.
When any man offered a sacrifice the servant of the priest came
(that is all we have here to represent the 22,000 Levites) while
the flesh was in seething, with a three-pronged flesh-hook in his
hand, and stuck it into the pan, or kettle, or caldron, or pot;
and all that the flesh-hook brought up the priest took. So they
did in Shiloh unto all the Israelites that came thither. Even
before the fat was burnt, the servant of the priest came and said
to the man that sacrificed: "Give flesh to roast for the priest;
he will not take sodden flesh of thee, but raw. And if the other
said to him: Let the fat first be burnt, and then take according
to thy soul's desire; then he would answer: Nay, but thou shalt
give it now; and if not, I will take it by force" (1Samuel ii. 12-16).
The tribute of raw portions of flesh before the burning
of the fat is here treated as a shameless demand which is fitted to
bring Jehovah's offering into contempt (ver. 17), and which has
the ruin of the sons of Eli as its merited reward. More tolerable
is it, though even that is an abuse, when the priests cause
boiled flesh to be brought them from the pot, though not seeking
out the best for themselves, but leaving the selection to chance;
they ought to wait and see what is given to them, or be contented
with an invitation to the banquet. On the other hand we have it
in Deuteronomy as "the priest's due from the people" (xviii. 3
= 1Samuel ii. 12) that he receives the shoulder and the two
cheeks and the maw of the slaughtered animal; and yet this is a
modest claim compared with what the sons of Aaron have in the
Priestly Code (Leviticus vii. 34),--the right leg and the breast.
The course of the development is plain; the Priestly Code became
law for Judaism. In sacrifice, ITS demands were those which were
regarded; but in order to fulfil all righteousness the precept of
Deuteronomy was also maintained, this being applied--against the
obvious meaning and certainly only as a result of later scrupulosity
of the scribes--not to sacrifices but to ordinary secular slaughterings,
from which also accordingly the priests received a portion, the
cheeks (according to Jerome on Malachi ii. 3), including the tongue,
the precept being thus harmonistically doubled. /1/ At an earlier
-- Footnote
1. Philo, De praem. sacerd., sec. 3. Josephus, Ant., iii. 9. 2;
iv. 4, 4.
-- Footnote
date the priests at Jerusalem received money from those who
employed them (Deuteronomy xviii. 8), but for this had the obligation
of maintaining the temple; from this one can discern that the
money was properly speaking paid to the sanctuary, and was only
conditionally delivered to its servitors. When they failed to
observe the condition, King Jehoash took the money also from them
(2Kings xii. 7 seq.).
The meal-offerings are in the Priestly Code a subordinate matter,
and the share that falls to the priests is here trifling compared
with what they receive of the other sacrifices. The meal, of
which only a handful is sprinkled upon the altar, the baked
bread, and the minha altogether are theirs entirely, so also the
sin and trespass offerings so frequently demanded, of which God
receives only the blood and the fat and the offerer nothing at
all (Ezekiel xliv. 29); of the burnt-offering at least the skin
falls to their lot, These perquisites, however, none of them in
their definite form demonstrably old, and some of them
demonstrably the reverse, may be presumed to have had their
analogues in the earlier period, so that they cannot be regarded
absolutely as augmentation of the priestly income. In Josiah's
time the mac,c,oth were among the principal means of support of
the priests (2Kings xxiii. 9); doubtless they came for the
most part from the minha. Instead of sin and trespass offerings,
which are still unknown to Deuteronomy, there were formerly sin
and trespass dues in the form of money payments to the
priests,--payments which cannot, however, have been so regular
(2Kings xii. 17). It is as if money payments were in the eye of
the law too profane; for atonement there must be shedding of blood.
That the skin of the holocaust, which cannot well be consumed on
the altar, should fall to the priest is so natural an arrangement,
that one will hardly be disposed to regard it as new, although
Ezekiel is silent about a due which was not quite worthless
(xliv. 28-31).
So far then as departures from earlier custom can be shown in the
sacrificial dues enjoined by the Priestly Code, they must not
indeed be treated as purely local differences, but neither are
they to be regarded as on the whole showing a serious raising of
the tariff. But in the Code the sacrificial dues are only a
subordinate part of the income of the priests. In Deuteronomy the
priests are entirely thrown upon the sacrifices; they live upon
them (xviii. 1) and upon invitations to the sacred banquets (xii.
I2, 18 seq.); if they are not exercising the priestly function
they must starve (1Samuel ii. 36). On the other hand, the
Aaronidae of the Priestly Code do not need to sacrifice at all,
and yet have means of support, for their chief revenue consists
of the rich dues which must be paid them from the products of
the soil.
V.I.2. The dues falling to the priests according to the law were all
originally offerings--the regular offerings which had to be brought
on the festivals; and these all originally were for sacred
banquets, of which the priests received nothing more than the
share which was generally customary. This is true in the first
instance of the male firstlings of cattle. As we have seen in the
chapter on the sacred feasts, these are sacrifices and sacrificial
meals, alike in the Jehovistic legislation and in the Jehovistic
narrative of the exodus and of Abel, as were all the offerings
brought by private individuals in the olden time. When in Exodus
xxii. 29 it is said that they must be given to JEHOVAH, this does
not mean that they must be given to THE PRIESTS; no such thing
is anywhere said in thc Book of the Covenant. Matters still stand
on essentially the same footing in Deuteronomy also: "THOU
SHALT SANCTIFY THEM UNTO JEHOVAH; thou shalt not plough with the
firstling of the bullock, nor shear the firstling of thy sheep;
THOU SHALT EAT IT BEFORE JEHOVAH year by year in the place which
He shall choose; and if there be any blemish therein, thou shalt
not OFFER IT TO JEHOVAH THY GOD" (Deuteronomy xv. 19, 20). To
sanctify to Jehovah, to eat before Jehovah, to offer to Jehovah,
are here three equivalent ideas. If now, in Numbers xviii. 15
seq., every first birth is assigned without circumlocution to the
priest, and a special paschal offering is appointed in addition,
this can only be understood as the last phase in the development,
partly because the idea of dues altogether is secondary to that
of offerings, and partly because the immense augmentation in the
income of the priests points to an increase of the hierocratic
power. Ezekiel does not yet reckon the firstlings among the
revenues of the clergy (xliv. 28-3I); the praxis of Judaism, on
the other hand, since Nehemiah x. 37, is regulated, as usual, in
accordance with the norm of the Priestly Code.
The tithe also is originally given to God, and treated just as the
other offerings are; that is to say, it is not appropriated by
the priests, but eaten by those who bring it in sacred banquets.
It does not occur in the Jehovistic legislation, but Jacob
dedicates it (Genesis xxviii. 22) to the God of Bethel, a place
where, although the whole story is a projection out of a later
time, it would hardly be in harmony with the conceptions of the
narrator to think of the presence of priests. The prophet Amos,
who probably represents much the same stage of the cultus as the
Jehovist does, says: "Come to Bethel to transgress, to Gilgal to
sin still more; and bring every morning your sacrifices, every
three days your tithes, and offer with bread pieces of flesh to the
flames, and proclaim free offerings aloud, for so ye like, ye
children of Israel" (Amos iv. 4 seq.). He ironically recommends
them to persevere in the efforts they have hitherto made in
honour of God, and to double them; to offer daily, instead of, as
was usual (1Samuel i.), yearly at the chief festival; to pay
tithes every three days, instead of, as was the custom, every
three years. It is clear that the tithe here holds rank with Zebah,
Toda, and Nedaba; it is a sacrifice of joy, and a splendid
element of the public cultus, no mere due to the priests. Now,
in this point also Deuteronomy has left the old custom, on the
whole, unchanged. According to xiv. 22 seq. the tithe of the
produce of the soil, or its equivalent in money, must be brought
year by year to the sanctuary, and there consumed before Jehovah
that is, as a sacrificial meal; only every third year it is not
to be offered in Jerusalem, but is to be given as alms to the
people of the locality who have no land, to which category the
Levites in particular belong. This last application is an
innovation, connected on the one hand with the abolition of the
sanctuaries, and on the other with the tendency of the
Deuteronomist to utilise festal mirth for humane ends. /1/
-- Footnote
1. Connection is, however, possible with some older custom, such as
must certainly be assumed for Amos iv. 4. Comp. Deuteronomy xxvi.
12, "the year of tithing."
-- Footnote
But this is a mere trifle compared with what we find in the Priestly
Code, where the whole tithe has become a mere due to be collected
by the Levites (Nehemiah x. 38 [37]) on behalf of the clergy,
whose endowment thereby is again very largely increased. Ezekiel
is silent on this point also (xliv. 18-31), but as the tithe is
demanded in Numbers (xviii. 21 seq.), so was it paid from the days
of Nehemiah (x. 38 [37] seq.) by the church of the second temple.
Later there was added over and above, so as to meet the divergent
requirement of Deuteronomy, the so-called second tithe, which usually
was consumed at Jerusalem, but in every third year was given to the
poor (so Deuteronomy xxvi. 12, LXX), and in the end the tithe for
the poor was paid separately over and above the first and second
(Tobit i. 7, 8; Jos., Ant., iv. 8, 22).
It is absolutely astounding that the tithe which in its proper
nature should apply only to products of definite measure, such
as corn and wine and oil (Deuteronomy xiv. 23), comes to be extended
in the Priestly Code to cattle also, so that besides the male
firstlings every tenth head of cattle and of sheep must also be
paid to the priests. This demand, however, is not yet met with in
Numbers xviii., nor even in Nehemiah x. 38, 39, but first occurs as a
novel in Lev. xxvii. 32 (1Samuel viii. 17). Whether it ever
came into the actual practice of Judaism seems doubtful; in
2Chronicles xxxi. 6 the tithe of cattle is indeed mentioned,
but on the other hand the firstlings are not; in the pre-rabbinical
literature no traces of it are discoverable,--especially not in
Philo, who knows only of the ordinary tithes due to the Levites,
and not of the tithes of cattle due to the priests (De praem.
sacerd. 6).
With the tithe of the fruit of the soil the first fruits are at
bottom identical; the latter were reduced to definite measure
later and through the influence of the former. This is no doubt
the reason why in the Jehovistic legislation tithe and first
fruits are not both demanded, but only a gift of the first and
best of corn, wine, and oil, left to the free discretion of the
offerer, which is conjoined with the firstling of cattle and sheep
(Exodus xxii. 28 [29]. xxiii. 19, xxxiv. 26). In a precisely
similar way the TITHE of the field stands conjoined with the
firstlings of cattle in Deuteronomy (xiv. 22, 23, xv. 19 seq.).
But also the _reshith_, usually translated first-fruits, occurs in
Deuteronomy,--as a payment of corn, wine, oil, and wool to the
priests (xviii. 4); a small portion, a basketful, thereof is
brought before the altar and dedicated with a significant liturgy
(xxvi. 1 seq.). It appears that it is taken from the tithe, as
might be inferred from xxvi. 12 seq. taken as the continuation
of vers. 1-11; in one passage, xxvi. 2, the more general
_usus loquendi_ reappears, according to which the _reshith_ means
the entire consecrated fruit, which as a whole is consumed by the
offerers before Jehovah, and of which the priests receive only a
portion. But in the Priestly Code not only is the entire tithe
demanded as a due of the clergy, the _reshith_ also is demanded in
addition (Numbers xviii. 12), and it is further multiplied,
inasmuch as it is demanded from the kneading-trough as well as
from the threshing-floor: in every leavening the _halla_ belongs
to Jehovah (xv. 20). Nor is this all; to the _reshith_ (xviii. 12)
are added the _bikkurim_ also (xviii. 13), as something
distinct. The distinction does not occur elsewhere (Exodus xxxiv.
26); prepared fruits alone are invariably spoken of, the yield
of the threshing-floor and the wine-press, of which first
produce--"the fulness and the overflow "--was to be consecrated.
The FAT of oil, wine, and corn is the main thing in Numbers xviii.
also, and is called _reshith_ (ver 12) or _terumah_ (ver. 27); but
the _bikkurim_ (ver. 13) seem to be a separate thing, and, if
this be really the case, must mean those raw fruits which have
ripened earliest. Judaism, here once more moulding itself
essentially in accordance with the tenor of the Priestly Code,
actually drew this distinction; from the publication of the Law
through Ezra the community pledged itself to bring up yearly the
_bikkurim_ to the house of Jehovah, and to deliver the _reshith_ into
the temple cells (Nehemiah x. 36 [35]). The former was a religious
solemnity, associated with processions, and the use of the ritual
in Deuteronomy xxvi.; the latter was rather a simple tax paid from
natural products,--a distinction which perhaps is connected with
the different expressions _they shall bring_ (Numbers xviii. 13) and
_they shall give_ (xviii. 12). The LXX keeps )APARXH and
PRWTOGENNHMATA strictly apart, as also do Philo (De praem. sacerd.
1, 2) and Josephus (Ant., iv. 4, 8, 22).
V.I.3. The amount which at last is required to be given is enormous.
What originally were alternatives are thrown together, what
originally was left free and undetermined becomes precisely
measured and prescribed. The priests receive all the sin and trespass
offerings, the greater share of the vegetable offerings, the hides
of the burnt offerings, the shoulder and breast of meat offerings.
Over and above are the firstlings, to which are added the tithes
and first-fruits in a duplicate form, in short, all _kodashim_,
which originally were demanded merely as ordinary meat offerings
(Deuteronomy xii. 26 = ver. 6, 7, and so on), and were
consumed at holy places and by consecrated guests indeed, but not
by the priest. And, notwithstanding all this, the clergy are not
even asked (as in Ezekiel is the prince, who there receives the
dues, xlv. 13 seq.) to defray the cost of public worship; for
this there is a poll-tax, which is not indeed enjoined in the body
of the Priestly Code, but which from the time of Nehemiah x. 33
[32] was paid at the rate of a third of a shekel, till a novel of
the law (Exodus xxx. 15) raised it to half a shekel.
V.II.
V.II.1. To the endowment of the clergy in the Priestly Code belong
finally the forty-eight cities assigned by Joshua in accordance
with the appointment of Moses (Numbers xxxv.; Josh. xxi.). The
tribes gave them up freely; the smaller giving few and the larger
more (Numbers xxxv. 8). The Aaronidae and the three families of
the Levites cast lots about them in four divisions; the sons of
Aaron get thirteen cities in Judah, the Levites ten in
Ephraim-Manasseh, thirteen in Galilee, and twelve in the territory
eastward of Jordan. It is not merely the right to inhabit, but,
in spite of all apologetic rationalism, the right of absolute
possession that they receive (Josh. xxi. 12), inclusive of a portion
of land two thousand ells square (square in the strictly literal
sense; Numbers xxxv. 5), which serves as public common.
The physical impracticability of such an arrangement has been
conclusively shown, after Gramberg, by Graf (Merx, Archiv, i.
p. 83). The 4 x 12 or the substituted 13+10+13+12 cities,
of which in spite of Numbers xxxv. 8 for the most part four belong
to each of the twelve tribes, are already sufficient to suggest a
suspicion of artificial construction; but the regulation that a
rectangular territory of two thousand ells square should be
measured off as pasture for the Levites around each city (which
at the same time is itself regarded only as a point; Numbers xxxv.
4) might, to speak with Graf, be very well carried out perhaps in
a South Russian steppe or in newly founded townships in the
western States of America, but not in a mountainous country like
Palestine, where territory that can be thus geometrically
portioned off does not exist, and where it is by no means left to
arbitrary legal enactments to determine what pieces of ground are
adapted for pasturage and what for tillage and gardening; there,
too, the cities were already in existence, the land was already
under cultivation, as the Israelites slowly conquered it in the
course of centuries. Besides, from the time of Joshua there is
not a historical trace of the existence of the Levitical cities.
Quite a number of them were in the days of the judges and down
to the early monarchy still in the hands of the Canaanites,--
Gibeon, Shechem, Gezer, Taanach; some perhaps may even have so
continued permanently. Those on the other hand which passed
into the possession of the Israelites at no time belonged
to the Levites. Shechem, Hebron, Ramoth, were the capital cities
of Ephraim, Judah, and Gilead; and Gibeon, Gezer, Heshbon were in
like manner important but by no means ecclesiastical towns. In
the Deuteronomic period the Levites were scattered throughout
Judah in such a manner that each locality had its own Levites or
Levite; nowhere did they live separated from the rest of the
world in compact masses together, for they made their living by
sacrificing for others, and without a community they could not
exercise their calling. Some indeed possessed land and heritage;
such were at an earlier period the Silonic family at
Gibeath-Phineas, Amaziah at Bethel, and Abiathar at Anathoth, and
at a later period Jeremiah, also at Anathoth. But Anathoth (for
example) was not on that account a priestly city in the sense of
Joshua xxi.; Jeremiah had his holding there as a citizen and not
as a priest, and he shared not with the priests but with the
people (xxxvii. 12). As a tribe Levi was distinguished from the
other tribes precisely by holding no land, and its members
joined themselves to the settled citizens and peasants, for the
most part as dependent inmates (Deuteronomy x. 9, xviii. 1).
Even after the exile, indeed, matters were not different in this
respect. "Ab excidio templi prioris sublatum est Levitis jus
suburbiorum," says R. Nachman (B. Sotah, 48b), and he is
borne out by the silence of Nehemiah x. The execution of the law
was probably postponed to the days of the Messiah; it was not in
truth within the power of man, and cannot be seriously demanded
in the Priestiy Code itself, which contemplates a purely ideal
Israel, with ideal boundaries, and leaves the sober reality so
far out of sight that on archaeological grounds it never once so
much as mentions Jerusalem, the historical capital of the priests.
The circumstance that these towns lay _in partibus infiidelium_
seems to make them unavailable as a means of fixing the antiquity
of the Priestly Code. It is possible with Bleek to explain the
transcendence of history as Mosaicity; such a view is not to be
argued against. But it is also possible with Noldeke to insist
that an invention so bold cannot possibly be imputed to the
spirit of the exilic and post-exilic time, which in everything
is only anxiously concerned to cleave to what is old and to
restore it; and such a contention deserves and admits of refutation.
It is not the case that the Jews had any profound respect for their
ancient history; rather they condemned the whole earlier
development, and allowed only the Mosaic time along with its
Davidic reflex to stand; in other words, not history but the
ideal. The theocratic ideal was from the exile onwards the centre
of all thought and effort, and it annihilated the sense for
objective truth, all regard and interest for the actual facts as
they had been handed down. It is well known that there never
have been more audacious history-makers than the Rabbins. But
Chronicles affords evidence sufficient that this evil propensity
goes back to a very early time, its root the dominating
influence of the Law, being the root of Judaism itself. Judaism
is just the right soil for such an artificial growth as the
forty-eight priestly and Levitical cities. It would hardly have
occurred to an author living in the monarchical period, when the
continuity of the older history was still unbroken, to look so
completely away from all the conditions of the then existing
reality; had he done so, he would have produced upon his
contemporaries the impression merely that he had scarcely all his
wits about him. But after the exile had annihilated the ancient
Israel, and violently and completely broken the old connection
with the ancient conditions, there was nothing to hinder from
planting and partitioning the _tabula rasa_ in thought at pleasure,
just as geographers are wont to do with their map as long as the
countries are unknown.
But, of course, no fancy is pure fancy; every imagination has
underlying it some elements of reality by which it can be laid
hold of, even should these only be certain prevailing notions of
a particular period. It is clear, if a proper territory is
assigned to the clergy, that the notion of the clerical tribe which
already had begun to strike root in Deuteronomy has here grown
and gathered strength to such a degree that even the last and
differentiating distinction is abolished which separates the
actual tribes from the Levites, viz. communal independence and
the degree of concentration which expresses itself in separate
settlements. For when we read, notwithstanding, in the Priestly
Code that Aaron and Levi are to have no lot nor inheritance in
Israel (Numbers xviii. 20, 23), this is merely a form of speech
taken over from Deuteronomy and at the same time an involuntary
concession to fact; what would the forty-eight cities have been,
had they actually existed, if not a lot, a territorial possession,
and that too a comparatively large one? The general basis which
serves as starting-point for the historical fiction being thus far
recognisable, we are able also to gain a closer view of its
concrete material. The priestly and Levitical cities stand in
close connection with the so-called cities of refuge. These are
also appointed in Deuteronomy (xix.), although not enumerated by
name (for Deuteronomy iv. 41-43 cannot be regarded as genuine).
Originally the altars were asylums (Exodus xxi. 14; 1Kings ii.
28), some in a higher degree than others (Exodus xxi. 13). In
order not to abolish the asylums also along with the altars, the
Deuteronomic legislator desired that certain holy places should
continue as places of refuge, primarily three for Judah, to which,
when the territory of the kingdom extended, three others were to
be afterwards added. The Priestly Code adopts the arrangement,
and specifies three definite cities on this side and three on the
other side of Jordan (Numbers xxxv.; Joshua xx.), four of which
are demonstrably famous old seats of worship,--all the three western
ones, and Ramoth, that is, Mizpah, of the eastern ones (Genesis
xxxi.; Judges xi. 11). But as all these asylums are at the same
time priestly and Levitical cities, it is an obvious conjecture
that these also in like manner arose out of old sanctuaries. We
need not suppose that there is more in this than an echo of the
general recollection that there were once in Israel many holy
places and residences of priesthoods; it is by no means
necessary to assert that each of the towns enumerated in Joshua
xxi. had actually been an ancient sanctuary. In many cases,
however, this also admits of being shown, /1/ although some of the
-- Footnote
1. In the cases of Hebron, Gibeon, Shechem, Ramoth, Mahanaim and
Tabor (Host v. 1) by historical data; in those of Bethshemesh,
Ashtaroth, Kadesh,, perhaps also Rimmon, by the names. Not even
here can one venture to credit the Priestly Code with consistent
fidelity to history. As for Hosea v. 1, 2, the original
meaning seems to be: "A snare have ye become for Mizpah, and an
outspread net upon Tabor, and the pit-fall of Shittim (#XT
H#+YM) have they made deep." Shittim as a camping-place under
Moses and Joshua must certainly have been a sanctuary, just like
Kadesh, Gilgal, and Shiloh; the prophet names these seats at
which in his opinion the worship was especially seductive and
soul-destroying; his reproach is levelled at the priests
most famous (or according to the later view, infamous) high
places, such as Bethel, Dan, Gilgal, and Beersheba are omitted,
probably of set purpose.
-- Footnote
The immediate starting-point, however, for this territorial
donation to the Levites is perhaps to be sought in Ezekiel,
in the picture of the future Israel which he draws at the close
of his book. He concerns himself there in a thorough-going
manner about the demarcation of the national and tribal
boundaries, and in doing so sets quite freely to work, taking,
so to speak, the yard measure in his hand. Leaving the land
eastward of Jordan wholly to the Saracens, he divides the
western portion into thirteen parallel transverse sections;
in the middle of the thirteenth (the rest of which is assigned
to the prince), lying between Judah and Benjamin, the twelve
tribes give up a square with a base line of 25,000 ells as a
sacred offering to Jehovah. This square is divided into three
parallelograms, 25,000 ells long, running east and west;
the southernmost of these, 5000 ells broad, includes the capital
with its territory; the middle one, 10,000 ells broad, contains
the temple and the priestly territory; the northernmost, also
10,000 ells broad, has the inheritance and the cities of the Levites. /1/
-- Footnote
1. For (S#RYM L#KT (xlv. 5), read, with the LXX, #(RYM L#BT
"to dwell within the gates." Compare a similar transposition of
letters in xiii. 3, LXX. The expression "gates" for "cities"
has its origin in Deuteronomy.
-- Footnote
Thus we have here also a surrender of land to the clergy on the
part of the tribes; the comparison with Josh. xxi. is not to be
put aside,--all the less, because nowhere else in the Old Testament
is anything similar met with. Now Ezekiel is quite transparent,
and requires no interpreter but himself. In order that the temple
may be protected in its sanctity in the best possible manner,
it is placed in the centre of the priestly territory, which in its
turn is covered by the city on the south, and by the Levites on the
north. At the same time the _personnel_ connected with the function
of worship is to dwell as much as possible apart on its own soil
and territory, which _shall serve them for separate houses to
sanctify them_, as is expressly remarked for the priests (xiv. 4),
and in an inferior degree holds good also, of course, for the Levites
beside them. Here everything starts from, and has its explanation in,
the temple. Its original is unmistakably the temple of Solomon;
its site is beside the capital, in the heart of the sacred centre
of the land between Judah and Benjamin; there the sons of Zadok
have their abode, and beside them are the Levites whom Josiah had
brought up from all the country to Jerusalem. Obviously the
motives are not here far to seek. In the Priestly Code, on the
other hand, which was not in a position to shape the future freely
out of the present, but was compelled to accept archaeological
restrictions, the motives are historically concealed and almost
paralysed. The result has remained, namely, the holding of
separate territory by the clergy, but the cause or the
purpose of it can no longer be recognised on account of the
sanctuary being now an abstract idea. Jerusalem and the temple,
which, properly speaking, occasioned the whole arrangement, are
buried in silence with a diligence which is in the highest degree
surprising; and on the other hand, in remembrance of the
priesthoods scattered everywhere among the high places of Israel
in earlier days, forty-eight fresh Levitical cities are created,
from which, however, their proper focus, a temple to wit, is
withheld only in the circumstance that precisely the thirteen
cities of Judah and Benjamin happen to fall to the lot of the sons
of Aaron, does the influence of Jerusalem unconsciously betray
itself.
V.II.2. Apart from this historical fiction, the other claims that
are made for the endowment of the clergy are, however exorbitant,
nevertheless practicable and seriously meant. So far as the
circumstances of their origin are concerned, two possibilities
present themselves. Either the priests demanded what they could
hope to obtain, in which case they were actually supreme over the
nation, or they set up claims which at the time were neither
justified nor even possible; in which case they were not indeed
quite sober, yet at the same time so sane prophetically, that
centuries afterwards the revenues they dreamed of became in
actuality theirs. Is it to be supposed that it was (say) Moses,
who encouraged his people as they were struggling for bare life
in the wilderness to concern themselves about a superabundantly
rich endowment of their clergy? Or is it believed that it was
in the period of the judges, when the individual tribes and
families of Israel, after having forced their way among the
Canaanites, had a hard fight to maintain their position, get
somehow settled in their new dwelling-places and surroundings,
that the thought first arose of exacting such taxes from a people
that was only beginning to grow into a national unity, for an end
that was altogether remote from its interest? What power could
then have been able in those days, when every man did what was
right in his own eyes, to compel the individual to pay? But
even when actually, under the pressure of circumstances, a
political organisation had arisen which embraced all the tribes,
it could hardly have occurred to the priests to utilise the
secular arm as a means for giving to themselves a place of
sovereignty; and still less could they have succeeded WITHOUT
the king on whom they were so completely dependent. In short,
the claims they make in the Law would in the pre-exilic period
have been regarded as utopian in the strict sense of that word;
they allow of explanation only by the circumstances which from
the beginning of the Chaldaean rule, and still more that of the
Persians, lent themselves to the formation of a hierocracy,
to which, as to the truly national and moreover divine authority,
the people gave voluntary obedience, and to which the Persians
also conceded rights they could not have granted to the family
of David. At the very beginning of the exile, Ezekiel begins
to augment the revenues of the priests (xliv. 28-30), yet he
still confines himself on the whole to the lines of Deuteronomy,
and makes no mention of tithes and firstlings. Of the demands
of the Priestly Code in their full extent we hear historically
in Nehemiah x. for the first time; there it is stated
that they were carried through by men who had the authority of
Artaxerxes behind them. This was the most difficult and at the
same time the most important part of the work Ezra and Nehemiah
had to do in introducing the Pentateuch as the law of the Jewish
Church; and that is the reason why it is so specially and
minutely spoken of. Here plainly lies the material basis of the
hierocracy from which the royal throne was ultimately reached.
For all these dues, apart from sacrificial perquisites, flowed into
a common coffer, and benefited those who had the control of this,
viz., the priestly aristocracy of Jerusalem, whom it helped to
rise to a truly princely position. The ordinary priests,
and especially the Levites, did not gain by all this wealth.
The latter indeed ought, according to law, to have had the tithes,
and to have handed over the tithes of these again to the sons
of Aaron, but as the general tendency of the time was to depress
the Levites, this legal revenue was also gradually withdrawn
from them and appropriated by the priests. Afterwards the chief
priests claimed the tithes for themselves alone, while their
inferior brethren had to suffer severe privation and even
hunger itself (Josephus, Ant., xx. 8, 8; 9, 2).
Upon the difference just stated between the later practice and
the Law, one argument more has recently been founded against
assigning the latter to the Babylonio-Persian period. "Another
testimony borne by tradition completely excludes the idea of
the Elohistic torah (i.e., the Priestly Code) having been
composed by Ezra. As is well known, it is the Elohistic torah
that carefully regulates the mutual relations of priests and
Levites, while Deuteronomy groups the two together without
bringing forward the distinction. It is the former that assigns
the tithes to the Levites, while requiring these in their turn to
hand over the tithe of their tithes as a due to the priests. Such
was also the practice (Nehemiah x. 38 seq.) soon after the exile
[i.e., a hundred years later; Nehemiah vii. 5]. But subsequently
the payment of the tithes to the Levites fell entirely into
disuse; these were rendered immediately and exclusively to the
priests, so that Jose ben Hanina actually confesses: "We do
not pay the tithes according to the command of God" (Sota, 47b).
But everywhere the Talmud refers this practice back to Ezra. Ezra
it was who punished the Levites by withdrawal of the tithes, and
that because they had not come out from Babylon (Jebam. 386b;
Chullin 11b). The point to be noted is that Ezra, according to
the testimony of tradition, superseded a precept of the Elohistic
torah, supporting himself in this perhaps by reference to the
Deuteronomic torah." So Delitzsch in the Zeitschr. fuer luth.
Theol., 1877, p. 448 seq. That Ezra is not the author of the
Priestly Code may readily be granted--only not on such an
argument as this. If the genuine historical tradition expressly
names Ezra as the man who introduced the Levites' tithe just as
prescribed by law (Nehemiah x. 38 seq.), what conscientious man can
attach any weight to the opposite assertion of the Talmud ?
But, even assuming that the divergence of practice from the legal
statute actually does go back to the time of Ezra, what would
follow from that against the post-exilic origin of the Priestly
Code? For this is what the question comes to, not to Ezra's
authorship, which is made the main point by a mere piece of
transparent controversial tactics. The demands of the Priestly
Code, which demonstrably were neither laid down, nor in any sense
acted on before the exile, attained the force of law one hundred
years after the return from Babylon (Nehemiah x.); the whole
taxation system of Judaism ever afterwards rested upon it;- -
shall this be held to have no meaning as against the trifling
circumstance that the tithe also was indeed paid to the clergy,
in full accordance with the Priestly Code, and inconsistently with
ancient custom, but paid to the higher, and not to the lower order?
In point of fact any other difference whatever between Jewish
practice and the Law might better have been adduced against the
thesis of Graf,--for example, the absence of Urim and Thummim (Nehemiah
vii. 65), or of the forty-eight Levitical cities, the church of
the returned exiles instead of that of the twelve tribes of
Israel, the second temple instead of the tabernacle, Ezra instead
of Moses, the sons of Zadok instead of the sons of Aaron,
the absence of the other marks of Mosaicity. For the position
of the Levites is the Achilles heel of the Priestly Code.
If the Levites at a later date were still further lowered beneath
the priests, and put into a worse position in favour of these,
this nevertheless presupposes the distinction between the two;
let it first then be shown that the distinction is known to
the genuine Old Testament, and that, in particular, it is
introduced by Ezekiel not as a new thing, but as of immemorial
antiquity. Or is the primary fact that the separation between
priests and Levites was set up only in the Priestly Code and
in Judaism, and that its genesis can be traced with confidence
from the time of Josiah downwards, a fact of less importance
than the secondary one that the distinction extended itself
somewhat further still in the subsequent development of
Judaism ?
B. HISTORY OF TRADITION.
PLEON (HMISU PANTOS-- Hesiod <Op. 40>