Priesthood in the religions of the world

Nonliterate cultures

The office of priesthood in nonliterate society ranges from the medicine man, who magically manipulates the sacred power as a quasi-impersonal force, to the shaman, who, as an agent of divine or spiritual beings, may be at once a medicine man, a visionary, an occult diviner, and a genuine sacerdotal cult leader. Not infrequently, chiefs or headmen of a clan or village may become sacred men or ritual experts displaying supernatural insight and knowledge as the agents of spiritual beings. As such, they may eventually become prophets or sacral kings occupying a unique status in the community. This status may be acquired by accepted claims of descent from a mythical divine ancestor or god on whom the fertility of the crops and the welfare of the community in general are thought to depend. Occult power and insight may be derived from spirits with which the prophet or diviner is related in a trance or ecstasy, or else in dreams, visions, or auguries and oracles that make known the divine will. To occupy such a position, a strenuous course of training is frequently required, involving some knowledge of therapeutics (healing), leechcraft (use of leeches in healing), trephining (operating on the skull), herbs, poisons, and perhaps sleight of hand and similar techniques, together with the development of psychical and occult qualities. While charlatanry (pretensions to medical knowledge) is often practiced, the office also demands an understanding of the technical equipment calculated to bring about the results that are sought, and the proper type of temperament, conditions of mind, and state of emotion.

Unlike the shaman and the medicine man, both of whom exercise their respective functions while relying largely on their own initiative and psychic and occult powers of divination, healing, and direct access to the spirit world at their command, the priest supplicates and conciliates supernatural forces superior to himself, guards the sacred tradition in his care, and acts as the master of sacrifice. The shaman or magician officiates in his own name and by his own methods and techniques; the priest serves the altar, in the temple or shrine, as the representative of the community in his relations with the gods and the sacred order by virtue of the status and its functions that have been conferred upon him at his ordination, bestowing its sacredness and attendant taboos.

The ancient Middle East

In the Nile valley the occupant of the throne (the pharaoh) was regarded as a god incarnate, the sacred king. Because he was believed to be the epitome of all that was divine, he alone was the intermediary between humankind and the gods whom he summed up in his complex personality. Before Menes, founder of the 1st dynasty (c. 3100–2890 bce), centralized the rule of Upper and Lower Egypt, the high priest and king “Scorpion” was traditionally considered to be the incarnation of Horus (the sky god). Under the powerful influence of the priesthood of Heliopolis, the sacred kingship was given a solar significance; the pharaohs were represented as the sons of the sun god Re, who was identified with the god Atum. When Memphis became the imperial city, Re-Atum was brought into relation with its god, Ptah (the creator), and subsequently with Osiris, a fertility god who also was regarded as a god of the dead. Osiris was equated with the life-giving waters of the Nile and believed to be the first civilizing king, reigning in the person of the pharaoh as his posthumous son Horus. Therefore, in Egypt the divine origin and status of the monarchy was so firmly established that it became the stabilizing force of the civilization in the Nile valley.

In theory, the king of Egypt was the high priest of every god, and in all important ceremonies he alone was depicted in the temple scenes as the officiant. For practical purposes, however, he delegated his functions to the particular professional local priesthoods. In due course the priests, courtiers, and officials shared in his divine powers and privileges. Even though they only acted on behalf of the divine ruler, his representatives shared in some measure his personality and potency. As the priest par excellence, the pharaoh remained unique, and it was from him that the priesthood and nobility exercised their sacerdotal functions when the solar theology of Heliopolis was established in the 5th dynasty (c. 2494–c. 2345 bce). After the 5th dynasty the pharaoh was accredited exclusively with having built all the temples, and on their walls he was portrayed officiating as the mediator between humanity and the gods in all important rites. In fact, nevertheless, his place was taken by one of the retinue of priests attached to the royal household or to the local temples. Only very occasionally did he perform his sacerdotal duties in person. Every temple had its high priest who, in addition to his sacred offices, might also be a high judicial official, thereby combining sacred and profane roles, varying with the actions performed.

From the number of titles assigned to priestly officials in the Old Kingdom (c. 2686–c. 2160 bce), it appears that one priest must have served simultaneously a multiplicity of cults in the shrine to which he was attached and received a share of the offerings and emoluments. In wealthy great temples in the New Kingdom (c. 1567–c. 1085 bce) there was an elaborate organization, and a large staff engaged in administrative, civil, and educational duties, as well as in their sacerdotal and mortuary functions. There were also a number of priestesses associated with the mother-goddess Hathor (wife of the sun god Re), who were mainly concerned with playing the sacred sistra and other musical instruments. From the 18th to the 21st dynasties (1567–1085 bce), however, under the Theban priesthood of Amon-Re, the priestly hierarchy was able to create an absolute “state within a state.”

In Mesopotamia, where kingship occupied a less prominent position than it did in the Nile valley, powerful priesthoods and highly organized temples were firmly established in and after the 4th millennium bce. The temples were centres of sacred learning of the content and methods of incantation, prognostication, exorcism, and political and economic administration, and their attendant priests were divided into classes with special sacerdotal and secular functions. The valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers contained a series of city-states loosely bound together under the rule of a governor (patesi or ensi) and of a high priest (sangu mah). Their main functions were to integrate the temple communities of the city, their revenues and boundaries; and the unigallu, or head of the priesthood, was responsible for the performance of the seasonal rites, with the assistance of those who sang the liturgies and directed the temple music and those who uttered the lamentations, invoked the oracles, and interpreted the astrological signs and omens. The duties of other members of the priesthood included making incantations and pronouncing spells and exorcisms. The seers, or baru, foretold the future by means of soothsaying, interpreting dreams and visions, and communicating revelations.

An important function of the priesthood in the ancient Middle East was that of exorcism. All down the ages good and evil have been viewed as two contending forces in perpetual conflict, and in the dual task of the riddance of evil and the induction of good the exorcist, the shaman, and the seer have exercised complementary functions hardly distinguishable in the higher cultural levels in Babylonia and Assyria. When the function of the driving out of demons from human beings and buildings by incantations and ritual expulsions was separated from the interpretation of omens and astrological portents, the office of the exorcists was in ever increasing demand. According to cuneiform texts from about the 3rd millennium bce, exorcists held a position of supreme importance, assisting at the consecration of temples, at funerals, and at seasonal ceremonies. In the temple schools, exorcists, diviners, and astrologers, together with physicians, scribes, and judges, fostered the study of astronomy, medicine, and jurisprudence. In their sacerdotal functions and capacities they were regarded as the agents and exponents of the gods, having a monopoly on sacred knowledge, controlling for good or evil the destinies of the community and its members. Therefore, their power was enormous, and they maintained the relation between religion and culture by their all-embracing hierarchy that determined the present welfare and future destinies of both human beings and the social order.

Similar beliefs and practices occurred in northern Syria in the middle of the 2nd millennium bce, before the Israelite settlement in Canaan. Here, again, the priesthood was responsible for the dramatic rituals on which the social structure and the well-being of humans were believed to depend, especially in the climax of the autumnal festival that culminated in the enthronement of the year god. The priestly movement was centred in the temple of Ugarit, and the religious texts discovered there (Ras Shamra) were essentially liturgical documents devised to make the sacred drama enacted there efficacious. Baal, the weather god, was regarded as “the lord of the furrows of the field,” responsible for the rain and the production of the fruits of the earth. A series of temples was erected in his honour in Syria and Palestine. The temple at Ras Shamra was a considerable structure with a lattice, the opening of which was supposed to produce the autumnal rains, and its liturgical ritual was celebrated by the priests and priestesses in their official capacities as those who personified the gods and goddesses responsible for providential bounty and beneficence.

With the advent of Persian sovereignty in Mesopotamia, a new approach to cosmology and mythology was introduced. In the religion founded by Zoroaster (c. 7th century bce), the ultimate ground of the universe was reduced to a single supreme deity, Ahura Mazdā, the “Wise Lord.” Astrology became widely practiced by the Iranian Magi (priests of the Zoroastrian religion) who were highly skilled in the knowledge of astral lore and the signs of the zodiac. In the three centuries after the Persian occupation of Mesopotamia (6th century bce), the Babylonian priests under Iranian influence made remarkable strides in astronomical learning that ultimately dethroned astrology from its exalted position in sacred tradition. Beyond the Euphrates valley, however, it survived until after Islamic rule, when the astrologer and the astronomer became indistinguishable.