sable so
long as the people required a sanctuary where the Deity should dwell, and
where the sacrificial cult should be administered. Every trespass by a
layman on the sanctuary reserved for the priests was considered sacrilege
and called for divine punishment. It was thus necessary to deepen the
popular notion of holiness and of the reverence due the sanctuary, before
these could be elevated into the realm of spirituality and morality. The
priesthood had to be won for the service of the loftier religious ideas,
so that it might gradually educate the people in general for its sublime
priestly mission. This conception underlies both the Mosaic law and its
rabbinical interpretation.

3. Through Biblical and post-Biblical literature and history there runs a
twofold tendency, one anti-sacerdotal,--emanating from the prophets and
later the Hasideans or Pharisees,--the other a mediating tendency,
favorable to the priesthood. The ritualistic piety of the priests was
bitterly assailed by the prophets as being subversive of all morality, and
later on the Sadducean hierarchy also constituted a threat to the moral
and spiritual welfare of the people. Before even the revelation at Sinai
was to take place, we read that warning was given to the priests "not to
break through" and stand above the people.(1101)

On the other hand, the law demands of the Aaronites a peculiar degree of
holiness, since "they offer the bread of their God upon the altar."(1102)
Their blood must be kept pure by the avoidance of improper marriages.
Everything unclean or polluting must be kept far from them.(1103) The law,
following a tradition which probably arose in ancient Babylon, prescribed
minutely their mode of admission into the divine service, their vestments
and their conditions of life, the ritual of sacrifice and of purity; and
every violation of these laws, every trespass by a layman, was declared to
be punishable with death.(1104) The sanctuary contains no room for the
_nation_ of _priests_; no layman durst venture to cross its threshold.
Even in the legal system of the rabbis the ancient rights and privileges
of the priesthood, dating from the time when they possessed no property,
remained inviolate, and their precedence in everything was
undisputed.(1105)

The glaring contrast between the idea of a universal priesthood of the
people and the institution of the Aaronites is explained by a deeper
insight into history. The success of the reformati