PRIESTHOOD

the office of a priest, a ritual expert learned in a special knowledge of the technique of worship and accepted as a religious and spiritual leader. Throughout the long and varied history of religion, the priesthood has been the official institution that has mediated and maintained a state of equilibrium between the sacred and the profane aspects of human society and that has exercised a stabilizing influence on social structures and on cultic organizations. The term priest is derived etymologically from the Greek word presbyteros ("elder"), of which it is a contraction, and it is equated with the Latin word sacerdos (the Roman officiant at the sacrifices and sacred rites). the office of a priest, a ritual expert learned in a special knowledge of the techniques of worship and accepted as a religious and spiritual leader. In many societies certain forms of social organization (the family, clan, etc.) have a sacral character; hence, a priestly quality often attaches to the head of the group (chieftain, king, head of the household, etc.) by virtue of the sacerdotal functions that he is required to perform. On the other hand, most civilizations also exhibit a definite tendency toward cultic specialization, and it has, therefore, been suggested that the term priest should be limited to the holder of such special office. Unlike the ancient Roman paterfamilias, who also performed priestly or semipriestly tasks, the full-fledged priest, as a religious functionary and cultic specialist, is distinct from the ordinary people, or "laity," who require priestly services and mediation. Specialization, in its turn, leads to social differentiation and to the establishment of a "clergy"-that is, of a priestly class, or caste. Obviously such specialization arises only in societies able to exempt some individuals from the common toil for subsistence and to provide for their needs in exchange for their ritual contribution to the general welfare. Where such institutionalized division of labour does not exist, as in many so-called primitive societies, suitably gifted or knowledgeable persons will perform priestly duties in addition to their ordinary activities. Generally speaking, the term priest denotes religious functionaries whose activity is concerned less with the purely mechanical techniques of magic than with the right performance of the ritual acts required by the divine powers and supernatural beings recognized by the group. Because sacrifice is one of the most prominent features of man's ritual relations with the world of gods and spirits, it has come to be associated with priesthood as one of its chief functions; the Brahmans, or priestly caste of Hinduism, for example, derive from those who performed the ritual sacrifice in Vedic times. Medieval Catholicism owed much of its doctrine of the priesthood to the connection of the latter with the Eucharist conceived as a propitiatory sacrifice. The ancient Inca, Maya, and Aztec distinguished between priests responsible for the cult of the great national gods and such ritual experts as those engaged in divination or curing. Similarly, many African societies differentiated between priests responsible for the worship of the tribal ancestors, on the one hand, and witch doctors and shamans, on the other. Priesthood, in its fully developed form, generally implies large societies with centralized authority, a fairly elaborate culture, and the existence of an organized cult with fixed rituals and well-formulated doctrines. However, it would be a mistake to assume that every highly developed religion of necessity possesses a priesthood. Islam is perhaps the best example of a religion without priests, religious authority being defined in other than sacerdotal terms. Buddhist doctrine has no room for sacrificial ritual and priestly intervention, although certain sacrificial aspects are implicit in the bodhisattva ideal. Yet in actual practice-especially in Mahayana, but to some extent even in Theravada Buddhism-there is little to distinguish a bhikku, or monk, from a priest. Tibetan Buddhism in particular has produced a type of priesthood whose ritual techniques encompass traditional magic. In Judaism, the decline of the priesthood in ancient times resulted in the assumption of many priestly functions by the rabbi, or teacher. The former hereditary priesthood of the cohen is still recognized symbolically in Orthodox Judaism. Many primitive societies exhibit patterns of "priesthood of all believers"-i.e., of all members of the group. Thus the Pueblo Indians in the southwestern United States were organized in religious fraternities, and the highly formalized and elaborate rituals necessary to ensure fertility and the general welfare were performed by these groups and not by priestly functionaries. The principle of the priesthood of all believers was also a cardinal doctrine of the churches of the 16th-century Reformation, both Lutheran and Reformed, and of the Protestant Free churches that arose from the Reformation churches. In its Protestant form the doctrine asserts that all men have access to God through Christ, the high priest, and thus do not need a priestly mediator. Additional reading The nature, characteristics, and significance of priesthood in primitive cultures ancient and modern are discussed in Grahame Clark, Archaeology and Society, 3rd ed., rev. (1957); and mile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, 2nd ed. (1976; originally published in French, 1912). Cultural and scientific developments are examined in Jacquetta Hopkins Hawkes and Leonard Woolley, Prehistory and the Beginnings of Civilization (1963). The prominent features of priests and kings in the rise of civilization are considered by Harold Peake and Herbert John Fleure, The Corridors of Time, vol. 4, Priests & Kings (1927). Gunnar Landtman, The Origin of Priesthood (1905); and E.O. James, The Nature and Function of Priesthood (1955, reissued 1961), are comparative and anthropological studies of the subject in its wider aspects, with full bibliographies.The organized priesthoods in ancient Egypt and the Middle East are treated in James Henry Breasted (ed.), Ancient Records of Egpyt, 5 vol. (1906-07, reissued 1988), and Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt (1912, reissued 1986); and Henri Frankfort, Ancient Egyptian Religion (1948, reissued 1961). The available Sumerian evidence is produced by S.N. Kramer, Sumerian Mythology (1944, reprinted 1988). S.H. Hooke, The Origins of Early Semitic Ritual (1938, reissued 1980), surveys the priestly aspects of the autumnal festival. The Canaanite counterparts are recorded in Cyrus Herzl Gordon, Ugaritic Literature (1949); and Godfrey Rolles Driver, Canaanite Myths and Legends, 2nd ed. (1978). A full bibliography on the Hellenic conceptions of priesthood is appended to the article by W.K.C. Guthrie, "The Religion and Mythology of the Greeks," in The Cambridge Ancient History, 3rd ed., vol. 2, part 2 (1961), pp. 851-905. The origin and status of the Levites and the Levitical code in the Hebrew priesthood are investigated by Theophile James Meek, Hebrew Origins, rev. ed. (1950, reissued 1973). Julia M. O'Brien, Priest and Levite in Malachi (1990), contains an up-to-date survey of research on the Israelite priesthood, as well as a discussion of prophetic critiques of the priesthood and the temple cult.The origin of the Christian priesthood is addressed in Kenneth E. Kirk (ed.), The Apostolic Ministry (1946, reprinted 1962). Studies of the modern situation of the priesthood in Christianity include Bernard Cooke, Ministry to Word and Sacraments: History and Theology (1976), a study of the evolution of ministry in the Christian church; Max Thurian, Priesthood and Ministry: Ecumenical Research (1983; originally published in French, 1970), providing an excellent overview of the theology of the ordained ministry in Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and contemporary Calvinism; and Kenan B. Osborne, Priesthood: A History of the Ordained Ministry in the Roman Catholic Church (1988), a comprehensive history. An overview of research on the Roman Catholic priesthood is Dean R. Hoge, Raymond H. Potvin, and Kathleen M. Ferry, Research on Men's Vocations to the Priesthood and the Religious Life (1984); a more recent essay is Andrew M. Greeley, "A Sea of Paradoxes: Two Surveys of Priests," America, 171(2):6-10 (July 16, 1994). Much contemporary Christian, and especially Roman Catholic, discussion regarding the priesthood focuses on the question of women's ordination. Jacqueline Field-Bibb, Women Towards Priesthood: Ministerial Politics and Feminist Praxis (1991), argues in favour; while Manfred Hauke, Women in the Priesthood? A Systematic Analysis in the Light of the Order of Creation and Redemption (1988; originally published in German, 1982), argues against.The Vedic, Brahmanic, and Upanishadic conceptions of priesthood and the predominance of the Brahman caste in Hinduism are discussed in Arthur Berriedale Keith, The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads, 2 vol. (1925, reprinted 1989); S. Radhakrishnan, The Hindu View of Life (1927, reissued 1980), and Eastern Religions and Western Thought, 2nd ed. (1940, reissued 1991); J.H. Hutton, Caste in India, 2nd ed. (1951); and R.C. Zaehner, Hinduism (1962, reissued 1977), with a full bibliography. C.J. Fuller, Servants of the Goddess: The Priests of a South Indian Temple (1984), analyzes the complex interrelationships between the priests of the Minaksi Temple in Madurai and the economic, political, and social structure of contemporary India. V. Bouillier and G. Toffin (eds.), Priesthood, Power, and Authority in the Himalayas (1989), in English and French, is a collection of ethnographic papers concerning the role of the priesthood in Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and two tribal religions, the Tharu of Dang and the cult of Kham Magar. The sublimation of priesthood in Buddhism in India, China, and Japan is treated in Paul Dahlke, Buddhism and Its Place in the Mental Life of Mankind (1927); and Edward Conze, Buddhism: Its Essence and Development (1951, reissued 1975). D. Howard Smith, Chinese Religions (1968), introduces religious thought and sacerdotal practice in China. Religious Studies in Japan (1959), a collection of papers from the ninth International Congress for the History of Religions, is a very informative composite volume in English by a group of Japanese scholars. Texts concerning the Zen sect include Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, Manual of Zen Buddhism, 2nd ed. (1950, reissued 1983); and Alan Watts, The Way of Zen (1957, reprinted 1989); while reference is made to it in R.C. Zaehner, Mysticism, Sacred and Profane (1957, reissued 1980). The priesthood in Shinto is discussed in D.C. Holtom, The National Faith of Japan (1938, reissued 1965). The Rev. Edwin Oliver James The Editors of the Encyclopdia Britannica