28). At his investiture he receives
the chrism like a king, and is called accordingly the anointed
priest; he is adorned with the diadem and tiara (Ezekiel xxi. 31,
A.V. 26) like a king, and like a king too he wears the purple,
that most unpriestly of all raiment, of which he therefore must
divest himself when he goes into the holy of holies (Lev. xvi. 4).
What now can be the meaning of this fact,--that he who is at the
head of the worship, in this quality alone, and without any political
attributes besides, or any share in the government, is at the same
time at the head of the nation? What but that civil power has been
withdrawn from the nation and is in the hands of foreigners; that
Israel has now merely a spiritual and ecclesiastical existence?
In the eyes of the Priestly Code Israel in point of fact is not
a people, but a church; worldly affairs are far removed from it
and are never touched by its laws; its life is spent in religious
services. Here we are face to face with the church of the second
temple, the Jewish hierocracy, in a form possible only under
foreign domination. It is customary indeed to designate in the Law
by the ideal, or in other words blind, name of theocracy that
which in historical reality is usually called hierarchy; but
to imagine that with the two names one has gained a real
distinction is merely to deceive oneself.
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