THE HINDU PRIESTHOOD. The priesthood of India belongs to the first or Brahman caste ex clusively. The growth of a priest caste can be traced in the history of Hindu literature. Origi nally a king. or paterfamilias, whether of priestly caste or not, could officiate as a priest. Any defective knowledge on the part of a priest or any defective performance by him of the sacrificial rites was supposed to entail upon him the most serious consequences both in this life and in the future. As the duration of a Hindu sacrifice varies from one day to a year, or even more, the number of priests required at such a ceremony likewise varied. Again, as there are sacrificial acts at which verses from the Rig-Veda only were recited; others requiring the inaudible muttering of verses from the Yajur Veda only; others, again, at which verses only of the Sama-Veda were chanted ; and others, too. at which all these three Vedas were indis pensable—there were priests who merely knew and practiced the ritual of the Rig-Veda. or the Yajur-Veda, or the Sama-Veda. while there were others who had a knowledge of all these Vedas and their rituals. The full contingent of priests required at a great sacrifice amounts to sixteen. Other inferior assistants, such as the ladle-hold ers, slayers, choristers, and the like, are not looked upon as priests. From one to four priests sufficed at the minor sacrifices, or those of daily occurrence. These were the rules and practices when the Hindu ceremonial obeyed the canon of the Vedic ritual; and the latter probably still prevailed at the epic period of India, though many additions to it are perceptible in the I/ a ka b ra (q.v . ) and /ea /a aya n a ( q.v. ) . But at the Puranic period. and from that time down ward, when the study of the Vedas had fallen into disuse, almost every Brahman not utterly ignorant became qualified to be a priest.
By a sort of historical retrogression to early conditions, in the latter-day sects of the Hindus it was not even necessary that a priest should be a Brahman. He might be of any caste, and
priestesses as well as priests were permitted. The radical difference between the Vedic and Puranic ritual was in the abolition on the part of the latter of the Vedic service and in the method of slaughtering the sacrificial victim. In Vedic rites the victim is throttled; in Puranic rites its throat is cut, or very often no victim at all is offered, only vegetable offerings hieing made. The Puranic rites required no knowledge of the Vedas whatever. For the priesthood of the Buddhists, Jainas, and Tibetans, see BUDDHISM : JAINAS ; LAMAISM.
In the history of the Christian Church the question of the existence of a priesthood properly so called has given rise to fundamental divisions, On the one hand. Roman Catholic theologians contend that the Apostles were definitely made by Christ partakers of His mediatorial priest hood, with power to hand it down to their suc cessors (see John xx. 2l). and assert that from the date of this commission there has been an unbroken tradition of sacerdotal power. whose most important function is the offering of sacrifice for the living and the departed (see Mass) ; that the Christian ministry is as truly a priesthood as that of the Jewish law, though with higher functions. There is a sense in which they admit this priesthood to be shared by the whole body of the faithful; but its specific exer cise they claim is strictly limited to those who have been set apart by episcopal ordination. The Protestant bodies generally deny the existence of any such class or powers, and have therefore usually abandoned the use of the word 'priest,' substituting for it 'presbyter' or though :Milton. dissatisfied with the thoroughness of. the English Reformation, complained that "New presbyter is but old priest writ large." See HIDERS, HOLY; BISHOP APOSTOLIC SUCCES SION.