has played a large part, for the interpretation of the work of Christ as the fulfilment of these three offices has been conspicuous in Christian theology and has so reflected back a fuller religious interest in the three Jewish institutions, though, as an offset to this, it must perhaps be admitted that the Christian interpretation has here, as well as elsewhere, obscured at times the reading of earlier historical facts.

The union of priestly and prophetic or of priestly and monarchic functions in the same persons belongs, so far as the instances just alluded to are concerned, apart from that of Moses, to late or relatively late periods of Jewish history; by that time the priestly-prophetic functions had become sufficiently differentiated: it is a question to be considered whether in the earliest period this differentiation-at least as regards priestly and prophetic-was anything like so clear, and whether a certain inconsistency in representing the same person now as prophet, now as priest, is not the result of an incomplete differentiation of functions rather than-in these as distinguished from the later cases-of the union of offices. But with this reservation it may be said that priesthood has of the three offices the longest and most continuous history among the Jews. The Hebrew monarchy existed considerably less than half of the period from Moses to the Fall of Jerusalem in A. D. 70; prophecy was intermittent, and there were periods at least when the community were conscious that prophets were no longer arising and speaking in their midst, but priests there were from the beginning to the end, and, if we care to put it paradoxically, before the beginning before, that is to say, various separate elements had coalesced under Moses into a nation—and after the end, for Jewish Kohens or priests exist to the present day.

Tan, Bariλews 'Aλegávdpov, Cooke, NSI 353-5. If we are prepared to disregard the title of king, and even this some would find in Dt. 335, 'And he was king in Jeshurun' (Bennett in D. B. iii. 444), Moses would be a better example of one who combined or was conceived to have combined the three functions of civil head, priest, and prophet; and so as a matter of fact Philo does represent him, adding to the three the fourth function of the law-giver, De Vita M., esp. ii. 1, § 24 (Mangey, p. 134 f.) and ii. [iii.] 39, § 292 (Mangey, p. 179) end.

This long history of the Jewish priesthood was one not merely of changing fortunes, but of changing functions and constitution. Ultimately the priests form the highest of those classes attached to the Temple and concerned with the maintenance of its ritual: in the last days of the Temple its personnel consisted of Koh"nim, 'priests', and Levites, with clearly differentiated functions. Without at present considering variations of function as we pass back in history, I pass to a consideration of these two terms as such with some references also to other terms for officiants in the cultus that emerge for a time in the course of history, in so far as these serve to bring out certain points of importance suggested by the use of the two primary terms.

Priesthood was, of course, as little peculiar in the ancient world, or among the Semitic peoples, in particular to the Hebrews, as was sacrifice; and the Hebrew term for 'priest', ¡n, is not peculiar to the Hebrew language; but there is an interesting and probably a most insignificant difference between the range in the Semitic languages of the fundamental Hebrew terms for 'sacrifice' and 'priest': the words П, n' (to) sacrifice' occur with this meaning in Hebrew, Phoenician, Aramaic, Ethiopic, Sabaean, Arabic, Assyrian; and, as the regular philological changes in the form of the word show, these are not loaned by one or several of these languages from others of them, but are original to them all, with the possible exception of Assyrian : zibu in Assyrian is but one, and that a relatively rare, term for 'sacrifice', and may have been loaned from Western Semitic.1 Still, allowing for this possibility, the evidence points to the term for 'sacrifice' being native to the chief branches of the Semitic language stock received by them from the remote period before the languages branched off from that parent stock, and thus in turn points to the antiquity and perpetuity of the practice denoted by the terms.

The Hebrew term for 'priest', Kohen, also occurs widely, though not so widely as that for 'sacrifice'; but it occurs with some striking difference either of meaning or usage-indeed the only

1 Zimmern, Akkadische Fremdwörter als Beweis für Babylonischen Kultureinfluss, p. 66.

other language in which it appears to have the same meaning and to be used in the same way as in Hebrew is Phoenician. It is not to be traced at all in Sabaean or the other dialects of South Arabia, nor in Assyria,1 i. e. neither in the remote south nor east of the Semitic world. It occurs in Arabic, but with a marked difference of meaning: it is there used of the seer or soothsayer, of persons unconnected with the cultus. It occurs in several of the Aramaic languages or dialects, though not in all; in old Aramaic, of which the records are scanty, it is not found; on the other hand, the idea is expressed by another term of which more hereafter; similarly but not is found in Palmyrene and Nabataean. In Aramaic literature appears first in Jewish documents of the fifth century B. C.; in these it is used alongside of the term but with clearly specialized meaning; priests of Yahweh or Jewish priests are, priests of other gods are ", so (E 15) we read of Palto, priest (kumar) of the gods [Khnum and Sat]i,2 and again (Sachau, 1. 5)3 of the priests (5) of the god Chnub; but the Jewish priests resident in Elephantine describe themselves as (1. 1) and speak of the Jewish priests in Jerusalem as (1. 18)," of the high-priest there as No7 NJ7 (1. 18).5 Practically the same difference of usage is observed in later Jewish Aramaic literature; e. g. in the Targums Jewish legitimate priests or others, like Melchizedek, regarded as priests of the true God are , priests of other gods or Jewish priests of the high-places are . In Syriac is limited to Jewish or other priests of the true gods, but not in all literature is it used even for this: thus in the O.T. (Peshitta) we frequently find the other term even for Jewish priests, and this is the regular usage in the N.T. in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where J is used even of Christ (e. g. 217, 55). The conclusion which it seems to me reasonable to draw from these facts is that in Aramaic the original term for priest was, that as such in Aramaic

4

3

1 Hommel (AHT 17) indeed regards in as a direct loan word from Assyrian mushkînu (=*mushkahînu); but this is a paradox that may be left to itself.

[2 Cowley, APFC 1315.]

[APFC 30'.]

Christian Palestinian . [Cp. Heb. 217.]

[ APFC 3015.]

[ APFC 3018.]

translations it was therefore the natural translation of the Hebrew, of the Greek iepeús, however these terms were applied, but that in some translations and in some independent Aramaic literature the Hebrew in was taken over and Aramaized where the reference was exclusively to Jewish or later Christian priests; in other words, that ¡n-in spite of the difference of vocalization kahin, kôhen—was not native to Aramaic, but was a loan from Jewish usage. Thus of the four great divisions of the Semitic languages two-Assyrian and Aramaic-did not originally employ kohen. Did even Arabic do so? As we have already remarked, kâhin occurs in Arabic with the divergent sense of seer: it also, like the Aramaic, shows the characteristic long vowel â as contrasted with the specifically Hebrew long ō; and for these two reasons its originality in Arabic might seem fairly secured. The significance of the divergence of meaning must be reserved for later inquiry: meantime let it be said that while the many competent philologists, including Wellhausen,1 treat kâhin as native to Arabic, the weighty judgement of Nöldeke is in favour of the Arabic kâhin and Ethiopic kâhen being loan words. If this latter view be right, then we reach the interesting conclusion that kohen is primarily—so far as Semitic languages are concerned— specifically a Canaanite term; for whether we hold that in general the Hebrews adopted the language of Canaan or not, this term, which is as much at home in Phoenician as in Hebrew, is most naturally attributed to Canaan rather than to a preCanaanite stage of the history of the Hebrews.

The term , already discussed as the regular Aramaic term for priest, occurs also in Hebrew: but as kahen in Aramaic has a restricted use and a special sense, so has Chemarim-the form in which is reproduced in R.V.-in Hebrew. Its use in particular is very restricted: it means priests serving other gods than Yahweh; but it is not always, nor even frequently, used even of these: Egyptian priests (Gen. 4145, 50 (E); 4620 (P.); 4726 (J)), Philistine priests (1 S. 62), priests serving Dagon (1 S. 55), Baal (2 Ki. 1019), Chemosh

1 RAH, pp. 134 f.

? It has been suspected that Ethiopic preserves the term khn in the form h-U 'mystery': if so, with a well-marked difference of meaning.

1

(Jer. 487), the Baalim and Asherim (2 Ch. 345) are all termed kohanim: only in three or perhaps four 1 passages of the O.T. are such priests termed Chemarin. We might surmise that as kohen was a Hebrew loan word in Aramaic, so was an Aramaic loan word in Hebrew 2; an alternative is to regard it as native to Hebrew or Canaanite, as well as Aramaic. The term has also been identified by some with kemiru, a term that appears in the Tel-el-Amarna tablets," though not in a connexion that necessarily or even very probably implies a priest.

The significance of the usage-I deliberately at present abstain from discussing the etymology and meaning-of the term so far discussed is by no means yet exhausted. Phoenician is closely allied to Hebrew and in the usage of kohen stands together with it in contrast to the other languages: yet in one important detail Phoenician presents a very significant difference; in Phoenician alongside of the masculine stands the feminine nana. Feminines of terms of office only have two different meanings: they may either imply that the person so described is the wife of the occupant of the office designated by the term, or that the person in question is herself the officebearer; such for example in Hebrew is the double usage of band : Esther the queen was simply wife of the Persian king; the Queen of Sheba, on the other hand, was, according to the intention of the Hebrew story, queen in her own right, in other words a sovereign. So Deborah and Huldah, the prophetesses, were women who exercised the prophetic gift, but Isaiah's wife was, presumably, a prophetess merely in the sense that she was wife of Isaiah the prophet. Fortunately the Phoenician occurs in unambiguous contexts enough to show that the feminine had the fullest significance, and meant a female who filled the priestly office. This is true of the earliest occurrence

1 Hos. 10; Zeph. 1; 2 Ki. 23, and perhaps Ho. 4' (emending

.(ככמר or

2 Baudissin in DB iv. 67 b.

i. 15, 33. The king of Egypt to Kallimasin, king of Kardenses: 'Why don't you send a kemiru who might give you trustworthy information about your sister's wealth, &c. ?'

4

=

* Eph. i. p. 47, 1. 45 Cooke, NSI p. 152, i. 45 (Neo-punic: ? n. pr.); RES Nos. 502 (Eph. ii. p. 173), 509 (Eph. ii. p. 176).