Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/748

724 P R I P R I (1696-1710) he found himself incapacitated, by repeated attacks of stone, from further parochial duty. He died at Norwich on 1st November 1724, and was buried in the cathedral on 4th November. His wife, Bridget, only daughter and sole heir of Anthony Bokenham of Helming- ham, Suffolk, died at Norwich in November 1700; they were married on 16th February 1686. Many of the dean s writings were of great value, and their popu larity continued unimpaired down to the present century. His Life of Mahomet, originally published in 1697, had passed through eight editions by 1723, and his Directions to Churchwardens, first issued in 1701, reached a twelfth edition in 1871. But the favour with which these volumes were received, great as it was, contrasts but badly with the extraordinary success of his account of The Old and Neic Testament connected in the History of the Jews, a work of great research and learning. This has been many times reissued since the appearance of the first part in 1716, and has been trans lated into the French, German, and Italian languages. Le Clerc subjected it to a critical examination. A series of remarks upon it is contained in Walter Moyle s works, and continuations were com piled by Samuel Shuck ford and Michael Russell. Prideaux published several small tracts, and many volumes of manuscript collections are in the possession of his descendant at Place. These, with par ticulars of the dean s letters in print and in manuscript and with bibliographical details of his numerous publications, are described in the Bibliotheca Cornubiensis, ii. 527-533 and iii. 1319. A volume of his letters to John Ellis, some time under-secretary of state, was edited by Mr E. M. Thompson for the Camden Society in 1875, and contained a vivid picture of Oxford life after the Restoration ; but it will always be regretted that some passages in his correspond ence should betray feelings unworthy of the writer. An anonymous life of Dean Prideaux appeared in 1748, but it was mainly compiled from a larger memoir by his son. PRIESSNITZ, VINCENZ. See HYDROPATHY, vol. xii. p. 542 sq. PRIEST (Ger. Priester, Fr. pretre) is a contracted form of "presbyter" (irpea-f^vrepo^ "elder"; see PRESBYTER), a name of office in the early Christian church, already men tioned in the New Testament. But in the English Bible the presbyters of the New Testament are called "elders," not "priests"; the latter name is reserved for ministers of pre-Christian religions, the Semitic D"0rp (koharilm, sing. kohen) and D"nO3 (kemarlm), or the Greek tepets. The reason of this will appear more clearly in the sequel ; it is enough to observe at present that, before our English word was formed, the original idea of a presbyter had been over laid with others derived from pre-Christian priesthoods, so that it is from these and not from the etymological force of the word that we must start in considering historically what a priest is. The theologians of the Greek and Latin Churches expressly found the conception of a Christian priesthood on the hierarchy of the Jewish temple, while the names by which the sacerdotal character is expressed Upevs, sacerdos originally designated the ministers of sacred things in Greek and Roman heathen ism, and then came to be used as translations into Greek and Latin of the Hebrew kohen. Kohen, icpevs, sacerdos, are in fact fair translations of one another; they all denote a minister whose stated business was to perform, on behalf of the community, certain public ritual acts, particularly sacrifices, directed godwards. Such ministers or priests existed in all the great religions of ancient civilization, and indeed a priesthood in the sense now defined is generally found, in all parts of the world, among races which have a tribal or national religion of definite character, and not merely an unorganized mass of super stitious ideas, fears, and hopes issuing in practices of sorcery. The term " priest " is sometimes taken to include "sorcerer," just as religion is often taken to include the belief in mysterious or superhuman powers which can be constrained by spells, but this is an abuse of language. Religion begins when the relation of the divine powers to man is conceived on the analogy of the relations of formed human society as having a certain stable personal character on which the worshippers can calculate and act. The gods of the ancient religions might do arbitrary acts, but their conduct towards man was not habitually arbi trary. In so far as they could be reckoned on, they had a religion ; in so far as they were still arbitrary, or them selves subject to the influence of unknown forces, room was left for the persistence of sorcery and similar superstitions, which history proves to have always renewed their strength in times when religious faith failed, when men ceased to be fully persuaded that the favour and help of the gods were sure if certain known conditions were fulfilled. In the best times of the antique religions no such doubts were felt ; the real interest of the gods in their worshippers was certain, for all good things came from their hands, and the actions on the part of individuals or of the state by Avhich their favour was maintained, lost, or regained were matter of undisputed tradition. The main points of this tradition were known to every one concerned, and difficult cases were resolved by experts such as the Greek e^yqTai or referred, through some form of oracle, to the gods themselves. The relations of the gods to men, as thus traditionally defined, were not so much to individuals as to families, tribes, or states, and it was the business of the community to see that they were maintained on a sound footing. This was partly done by watching over the conduct of individuals, for every one had certain religious duties ; and conversely, certain acts of a private as well as of a public character were hateful to the gods, and, unless expiated, might bring calamity to the whole community. But it was also necessary to honour the gods by direct acts of homage, by images and temples, by feasts and sacrifices. To attend to these things was an essential part of the right government of the state, the right ordering of tribal and family life, and they could not be wholly left to the spontaneity of individuals, but necessarily fell to be per formed on behalf of the community by its natural head or by specially appointed officials. In either case the service done to the gods on behalf of many may properly be called "priestly service," though in the former case the priesthood, being only one of the many functions of domestic or civil authority, was not necessarily recognized by a special name. Both kinds of priesthood are found in the old civilization of southern Europe : thus Homer knows special priests who preside over ritual acts in the temples to which they are attached ; but his kings also do sacrifice on behalf of their people. The king, in fact, both in Greece and in Rome, was the acting head of the state religion, and when the regal power came to an end his sacred functions were not transferred to the ordinary priests, but either they were distributed among high officers of state, as archons and prytanes, or the title of " king " was still preserved as that of a religious functionary, as in the case of the rex sacrorum at Rome and the arc/ion basileus at Athens. In the domestic circle the union of priesthood and natural headship was never disturbed ; the Roman paterfamilias sacrificed for the whole family. On the other hand, yentes and phratrise, which had no natural head, had special priests chosen from their members ; for every circle of ancient society, from the family up to the state, was a religious as well as a civil unity, and had its own gods and sacred rites. The lines of religious and civil so ciety were identical, and so long as they remained so no antagonism could arise between the spiritual and the temporal power. In point of fact, in Greece and Rome the priest never attained to any considerable independent importance ; we cannot speak of priestly power and hardly even of a distinct priestly class. In Greece the priest, so far as he is an independent functionary and not one of the magistrates, is simply the elected or hereditary minister

of a temple charged with " those things which are ordained