e from the Patriarchs the germ of a
higher religious consciousness, in distinction from all other peoples,
they were to make the cultivation, development, and promotion of the
highest religious truth their life-task, and thus to become the people of
God. At first they were to establish in the Holy Land a theocratic
government, a State in which God alone was the Ruler, while they lived in
priestly isolation from all the nations around. Thus they prepared
themselves for the time when, scattered over all the earth, they might
again work as the priest-people through the ages for the upbuilding of the
universal kingdom of God. This was Israel's destiny from the very first,
as expressed by the great seer of the Exile when he beheld Israel
wandering forth among the nations, "Ye shall be named the priests of the
Lord; men shall call you the ministers of our God."(1100)

2. Among all religions the priest is considered especially holy as the
mediator between God and man, and in his appearance as well as in his mode
of life he must observe special forms of purity and holiness. He alone may
approach the Godhead, ascertain its will, and administer the sacrificial
cult in the sanctuary. He must represent the Divinity in its relation to
the people, embody it in his outward life, enjoy nothing which it abhors,
and touch nothing which could render him impure. These priestly rules
exist among all the nations of antiquity in striking similarity, and
indicate a common origin in the prehistoric period, during which the
entire cult developed through a priestly caste, beginning with simple,
primitive conceptions and transmitted in ever more elaborate form from
father to son. It goes without saying that the priests of the original
Hebrew race, which migrated from Babylonia, retained the ancient customs
and rules. They must also have adopted many other things from neighboring
peoples. During the entire period of the first temple, the priests--despite
all prophetic warnings--preferred the heathen cult with its vainglorious
pomp to the simple worship of the patriarchal times. As everywhere else,
the priesthood of Israel, and later of Judaea as well, thought only of its
own interests, of the retention of its ancient prerogatives, unmindful of
the higher calling to which it had been chosen, to serve the God of truth
and justice, to exemplify true holiness, to stand for moral rather than
ceremonial purity. Yet the sacerdotal institutions were indispen