77 CHAPTER VI. The Integrity of Life, Perfection of Body, and Purity of Family, required in the Aaronic Priests. HAVING now, we trust, sufficiently described the rites and ceremonies by which the Aaronic priests were consecrated to the priesthood, we proceed to shew the integrity of life, perfection of body, and purity of family required in the priests. For as the rites enjoined on the Jews were of the most select description, so there was a very particular selection of the ministers by whom those rites were to be performed. It was deemed unlawful for any one to exercise the sacred functions who answered to any of the following characters: An idolater, a stranger, one distinguished by any corporeal deformity, uncircumcised, unclean, purified by ablution and officiating on the day of 'his purification, without expiation, mourning, a ‘drunkard, destitute of garments, overloaded with garments, having torn garments, with long hair, ' with unwashed hands or feet, sitting, having any 'thing placed between his feet and the ground, having any thing placed between his hand and the sacred vessels, using his left hand instead of his right. All such persons are forbidden to officiate: "if they officiate, they pollute the solemnities; except those who have had long hair, worn tattered gar ments, or offered a victim to any strange God through inadvertence; whose ministry, if they had ' already officiated, was considered as legitimate.' This is the statement of Maimonides,* the particulars of which we are now to examine. * In Biath Hamikdash, c. 9. II.-1. He says, that every one was degraded from the priesthood, who had worshipped any strange god. The Jews conclude this from the vision of Ezekiel, which represents the priests who had been guilty of idolatry as evidently deprived of the priesthood, and their subsequent conversion to God as available no further than to procure them permission to execute some inferior offices.* The same punishment was inflicted, even for a smaller crime, by Josiah; who entirely removed from the altar those priests who had offered sacrifices to the true God in the high places.† On which Grotius remarks; Other crimes, followed by penitence, did not remove the guilty from the sacerdotal function: idola* try, and worship in an unlawful place, were punish⚫ed by deposition.' 2. Nor could the sacerdotal office be lawfully sustained, except by the descendants of Aaron. All others, in reference to this office, the Jews call strangers; and death was the punishment denounced against any stranger who should intrude into it. Hence there were registers kept of the whole sacerdotal race. Hence, as Maimonides tells us, every one's family was examined before he could be admitted into the priesthood. 'The great Sanhedrim sit ' in the room Gazeth, and their daily business is to 'judge of the families and blemishes of the priests. 'Every priest, whose family is found not to belong to the priesthood, clothing himself with a mourning garment, and covering his head with a mourning veil, immediately walks out of the sanctuary. But he whose family is deemed legitimate and his body per'fect, immediately putting on the white vestments, * Ezek. xliv. 10-13. +HI Kings xxiii. 9. ‡ Numb. iii. 10. goes away and ministers with his brethren, the priests of the same family. He that is pronounced 'descended from a legitimate family, but yet is de"formed by any corporeal blemish, sits in the wood room and separates all the wormed wood from the rest, that it may not be brought to the altar. He partakes of the sacred food, however, with his fa'ther's family. For of such it is said;*" He shall "eat the bread of his God, both of the most holy and of the holy."† To preserve the priesthood also from any disgrace, great caution was always to be used in the marriage of the priests. The high priest was not allowed even to marry a widow; and the common priests were forbidden to marry any woman that was unchaste, or divorced, or profane :‡ to which the Jewish doctors add, a widow rejected by the brother of a deceased husband; deeming such a woman equally disgraced with those who had been divorced. It is also to be inferred from the statement of Ezekiel in his divine vision, that no widow was to be married even to a common priest, unless she had been the wife of a priest before. If any priest, unlawfully married, refused to put away his wife, he was pu Levit. xxi. 22. + Maimon. in Biath Hamikdash, c. vi. Vid. etiam Misnam in Middoth, c. 5. § Ezek. xliv. 22. Levit. xxi. 7. 14. Most of the Jews consider n which we render a harlot, as signifying every woman who had been defiled by any man, and whom it was not lawful to marry, and likewise every female of foreign race: they understand ♫ which is generally rendered profane, as denoting a female begotten either by the high priest on a widow, or by a common priest on a harlot, or a woman divorced from a former husband. Maimon, in Isur. Bia. c. 18, 19. K. Solomon ad Lev. 21. But others, with rather more simplicity, understand to mean a known harlot, and a woman of suspected chastity; such as female slaves, captives, and inn-keepers. Joseph, Antiq. L. iii. c. 10. nished by a removal from the sacred ministry. 6 'A priest connected in an unlawful marriage does not officiate,' says Maimonides, till by a solemn pro'mise made according to the judgment of others, an engagement of inviolable obligation, he has pledged ' himself before the Sanhedrim, that he will not per⚫sist in this sin. Then he officiates, goes home, and puts away every unlawful wife." 3. That no one disfigured by any corporeal deformity should ever exercise the sacerdotal functions, was expressly provided in the scriptures. "Whosoever he be of thy seed in their generations, that "hath any blemish, let him not approach to offer the "bread of his God: a blind man, or a lame, or he "that hath a flat nose, or any thing superfluous, or CC a man that is broken footed, or broken handed, or "crookbacked, or a dwarf, or that hath a blemish "in his eye, or be scurvy, &c." The blemishes which disqualified for the sacerdotal office are not limited by the Jews to those which are enumerated in this law, but are extended to all others which resemble these, and of which Maimonides reckons up a hundred and forty. Priests are defiled,' he says, not only by the blemishes mentioned in the law, but 'also by all others whatsoever visible in the body. 'Wherefore it is said, "No man that hath a blemish"§ ' in any part whatsoever. The blemishes specified in the law are proposed as examples of the rest.'|| 4. They were also to be excluded from the altars, who had not been circumcised. The same rule was applicable to uncircumcision and to foreign extraction. Respecting foreign extraction God declares by * Biath Hamikdash, c. 6. § Levit, xxi. 21. Levit. xxi. 17, &c. Il Ibid. c. 6. Ezekiel: "No stranger, uncircumcised in heart, or " uncircumcised in flesh, shall enter into my sanc 5. Access to the altars was also prohibited to those who were defiled by any ceremonial impurity. For while those priests who were disfigured by corporeal deformity, though they were allowed to eat of the holy things, were not permitted to perform any of the sacred offices, much less could the sacerdotal functions be lawfully performed by such as were unclean, to whom the participation of the holy things was forbidden. Of impurity, Maimonides informs us, there were in all eleven sources; among which the greatest impurity was occasioned by a human corpse, which not only defiled persons who touched it, but immediately polluted all who entered the tent in which it lay, to such a degree as to communicate the impurity to every thing that they touched. And for this reason it was enjoined by the law, that the high priest should "not defile himself for his father "or for his mother," and that of the other priests there should "none be defiled but for his mother, "and for his father, and for his son, and for his daughter, and for his brother, and for his sister, a virgin which had no husband;" and that when they mourned, they were to use no external ceremonies, "neither to make baldness upon their head, nor to shave off the corner of their beard, nor to "make any cuttings in their flesh."|| + Levit. xxxii. 4. * Ezek. xliv. 9. Immunditia reptilium, immunditia morticini, immunditia cadaveris humani, immunditia ex semine ejecto orta, immunditia aquæ piacularis, immunditia victimarum piacularium, immunditia viri fluxione affecti, immunditia fœminæ fluxione laborantis, immunditia fœminæ menstruatæ, immunditia puerperæ, et immunditia lepræ. Præf. ad Mikvaoth in Misna. § Numb. xix. 14. 22. Levit, xxi. 1-3. 5. 11. G |