one of them. Kindly disposed people sometimes contributed to their support. Witness Elisha's feeding a hundred men with the twenty loaves of the man from Baal-shalishah (iv. 42-44). Sometimes they eked out their subsistence by gathering wild vegetation, as we see in the incident when there was "death in the pot " (iv. 38-41).

This system of communities was evidently widespread and influential. Doubtless they had somewhat of the character of schools for personal education; but they were rather houses of reform, centres of religious and patriotic movement. Their members were especially obnoxious to the Baalite party in Israelitish politics. They promoted the overthrow of Joram and the accession of Jehu (2 Ki. ix. 1-12). Their political attitude is one of the most significant things about them. We shall return to this in another chapter. Meanwhile we may fix in mind the fact that the work of the sons of the prophets is represented to have been analogous to that of our Young Men's Christian Associations, or of some of our organizations for reform or for good citizenship, rather than to that of our schools or colleges or seminaries.

The "college" in Jerusalem, where, according to the King James translation, the prophetess Huldah dwelt (2 Ki. xxii. 14; 2 Chron. xxxiv. 22), is simply an instance of the uncertain meaning of a word.

III. We turn to a third topic, the so-called prophetic order.

Much stress is laid on this by some writers. Most denominations of Christians hold that the Christian ministry is an order of men who have "taken orders" in the sense of being set apart by ordination. The Anglican and Roman churches hold

"Holy orders"

that the ministry exists in three different orders; namely, bishops and priests and deacons. In a sense something like this many speak of the two orders of the ministry under the Old Covenant; namely, the priestly order and the prophetic order.

Is this a proper use of language? Are we to think of the prophet as belonging to an order? Was he an ordained man, like a Jewish priest or a Christian minister? In other words, are we to think of the priests and the prophets as two orders of Israelitish clergymen ? These questions must be answered by examining the facts.

1. First, it is probably true that there was an unbroken succession of prophets from Samuel to Malachi -perhaps from Abraham to Malachi-in The prophets the sense that Israel was never during that a succession time wholly without true living prophets or prophetic This is probable, though it cannot at every point

be proved.

The prophets not a sacer

dotal order

2. But, secondly, the prophets were not a sacerdotal order, holding definite relations to the priestly order. They were not a priesthood, or a section of the priesthood, or a body analogous to the priesthood. In this the usage of Israel differed from that of other peoples. In Egypt, for example, the prophets were a class in the priesthood. Mr. George Rawlinson tells us that they ranked next to the highpriests, and that they

"were generally presidents of the temples, had the management of the sacred revenues, were bound to commit to memory the contents of the ten sacerdotal books" (History of Egypt, I, 447).

Similar representations are made in such a novel as the Uarda of Ebers; and more minute and accurate statements may be found in later Egyptological works.

And what was true of the prophets of Egypt has been true of those of other countries. In Israel, however, the case was different. We have no account of any priestly functions regularly exercised by the prophets as prophets; and none of any official relations between the priestly body and the prophetic body.

It is true that some prophets were also priests, Zadok and Jeremiah and Ezra, for example. That is to say, a priest might become a prophet, as might any one else. Further, in certain instances, a prophet, without being a priest, may have been commissioned to perform priestly acts. We are told that Moses was so commissioned, officiating as priest in the original setting apart of Aaron to the priesthood (Lev. viii. 15-30). It is commonly alleged that Samuel performed priestly acts, but the records do not sustain the allegation.1 There is no trace of any defined sacerdotal rights or duties regularly devolving upon the prophets. The prophet, as such, was not a priest. The two offices were entirely different.2 3. It is probable, thirdly, that the prophetic ranks

1 Certainly, it is said that Samuel offered sacrifices (1 Sam. vii. 9, xvi. 2, and other places). But this would be said of any person who brought a sacrifice for offering, even if he employed a priest to sprinkle the blood and to perform all the other priestly functions in the case. In particular, a public man is said to offer sacrifices when he causes them to be offered by the proper officiating priests. The record is capable of this interpretation in every case where it speaks of an offering by Samuel. In one instance only we have a specific statement of the part personally taken by Samuel in a sacrifice (1 Sam. ix. 13); and in this instance he was to pronounce a blessing at the sacrificial meal, long after all the priestly rites had been completed.

2 The priest must be from the tribe of Levi; the prophet might be from any tribe. The priest was selected according to descent and ceremonial condition; the prophet was directly and individually commissioned by Deity. The priest was accredited by solemn religious services and carefully kept genealogical registers, the prophet by the possession of the extraordinary powers that God gave him. The priests served in a yearly

were somewhat generally recruited from among men who were disciples of the acknowledged was the prophets, and had thus received special tui- prophet a tion for the service. In the times of the graduate? "sons of the prophets," for example, it is likely that most men who became prophets were those who had previously been connected with these so-called prophetic schools (2 Ki. ix. 1, 4; Am. vii. 14-15). But there is no trace of this having been done as a matter of regular course. There is no evidence that most of these pupils ever became prophets in the strict sense, much less that they became so in a routine way, by graduating. Apparently, however, they were regarded as prophets in a secondary sense, and were called by the name. In the periods when prophets were very numerous, it is likely that most of them were prophets only in this secondary sense-sons of the prophets, followers of the great prophets, rather than men who were believed to be themselves highly endowed with prophetic gifts.

Ordination

4. There is no indication, fourthly, that the prophets were ordinarily set apart to their office by any ordaining act. They were sometimes set apart to some special work, but there is no instance in which any one is admitted to be a prophet by any such act. The anointing of Elisha is the principal case in point (1 Ki. xix. 16, 19). But the facts of Elisha's life show that he was a distinguished prophet long before this anointing. He was to be anointed, not to the prophetic round, according to a minutely prescribed ritual; the prophets came and went as God sent them. The priests administered and taught the divine laws which the prophets brought and proclaimed. The priests ministered at the altar; the prophets preached the word. The priests were the official clergy of the Israelitish church; the prophets, especially in the matter of scripture-writing, "spake from God, being moved by the Holy Ghost," not to Israel only, but to all the ages.

office, but to be the successor of Elijah, in Elijah's special work. It is a question whether there was any ceremony of anointing save Elijah's casting his cloak upon him. And in any case the transaction is set forth as exceptional and peculiar. In the same breath in which Elijah is directed to anoint Elisha he is also directed to anoint Hazael and Jehu. But the anointing of Hazael king over Syria, by an Israelite prophet (1 Ki. xix. 15), is evidently something exceptional. Equally so is the anointing of Jehu over Israel, in a private room at Ramoth-gilead (1 Ki. xix. 16; 2 Ki. ix. 1-13). And not less exceptional is the setting apart of Elisha that is mentioned along with these. And with this vanishes the last sign that any one ever entered upon the prophetic office by taking orders.

How one became a prophet

5. In fine, every man or woman whom God endowed with prophetic gifts thereby became a prophet. No other door to the office is mentioned in the scriptures. The law in Deut. xviii says: “A prophet. . . will Yahaweh thy God raise up to thee." The prophet becomes a prophet simply by being raised up for that purpose. He becomes a prophet, so far as the records show, solely by becoming endowed with prophetic gifts. He becomes recognized as a prophet through the exercise of his gifts among his fellow-citizens. As people discovered that a person had the gifts, they accepted him as a prophet, and that irrespective of outward insignia or previous training or ceremonies of ordination. If one claimed to be a prophet of Yahaweh, his claims were to be tested not by the clothes he wore, or by his ascetic mode of life, or by appealing to a register of genealogy or of ordinations, but by ascertaining whether he had the gifts of a prophet - by observing, first, whether he spoke in Yahaweh's