PRIEST 



PRIESTLEY 



403 



2 Chronicles, xxxi. 17, it would seem that the 

 minimum age was twenty. In the service of the 

 temple the priests were divided into twenty-four 

 classes, each of which was subject to a chief priest, 

 and served, each company for a week, following 

 each other in rotation. Their duties in the temple 

 consisted in preparing, slaying, and ottering 

 victims, in preparing the show-bread, burning the 

 incense, and tending the lights of the sanctuary. 

 Outside they were employed in instructing the 

 people, attending to the daily offerings, enforcing 

 the laws regarding legal uncleanness, &c. For 

 their maintenance were set aside certain offerings 

 (see FIRST-FRUITS) and other gifts. They wore a 

 distinguishing dress, the chief characteristics of 

 which were a white tunic, an embroidered cincture, 

 and a turban-shaped head-dress. The Jewish priest- 

 hood may be said to have practically ceased with 

 the destruction of the temple. 



In the Christian dispensation the name primi- 

 tively given to the public ministers of religion was 

 preabyteros, of which the English name 'priest' is 

 but a form derived through the old French or Nor- 

 man prestre. The name given in classical Greek 

 to the sacrificing priests of the pagan religion, Gr. 

 hieretis, Lat. sacerdos, is not found in the New 

 Testament explicitly applied to ministers of the 

 Christian ministry ; but very early in ecclesiastical 

 nse it appears as an ordinary designation ; and 

 with all those bodies of Christians Roman Catho- 

 lics, Greeks, Syrians, and other Orientals who 

 regard the eucliarist as a sacrifice (see LITURGY) 

 the two names were applied indiscriminately. The 

 priesthood of the Christian church is one of the 

 grades of the hierarchy, second in order only to 

 that of bishop, with which order the priesthood 

 has many functions in common. The priest is 

 regarded as the ordinary minister of the eucliarist, 

 whether as a sacrament or as a sacrifice ; of bap- 

 tism, penance, and extreme unction ; and although 

 the contracting parties are held in the modern 

 schools to be themselves the ministers of marriage, 

 the priest is regarded by all schools of Roman 

 divines as at least the normal and official witness 

 of its celebration. The priest is also officially 

 charged with the instruction of the people and the 

 diiiTtimi of their spiritual concerns, and by long- 

 established use special districts, called parishes, 

 are assigned to priests, within which they are 

 entrusted with the care and supervision of the 

 spiritual wants of all the inhabitants. The holy 

 order of priesthood can only be conferred by a 

 bishop, and he is ordinarily assisted by two or 

 more priests, who, in common with the bishop, 

 im[M>se hands on the candidate. The rest of the 

 ceremonial of ordination consists in investing the 

 candidate with the sacred instruments and orna- 

 ments of his order, anointing his hands, and 

 reciting certain prayers significative of the gifts 

 and the duties of the office. The distinguishing 

 vestment of the celebrant priest in the mass is the 

 Chasuble (q.v.). In Catholic countries priests wear 

 even in puolic a distinctive dress, in most respects 

 common to them with the other orders of Clergy 

 (q.v.). In the Latin Church priests are bound 

 to a life of celibacy. In the Greek and oriental 

 churches married men may lie advanced to the 

 priesthood ; but no one is permitted to marry after 

 ordination, nor is a married priest permitted to 

 marry a second time, should his wife die. 



In the Church of England, and other Reformed 

 Episcopal Churches, the term priest is retained as 

 the designation of the second order of clergy, whose 

 special office it is ( 1 ) to celebrate the Sacrament of 

 the Lord's Supper; (2) to pronounce the forms of 

 Absolution in the Morning and Evening Prayer, in 

 the Communion Service, and in the Office for the 

 Visitation of the Sick ; and (3) to preach, though 



this last office is, by special license, sometimes 

 extended to deacons. See DEACON, ORDERS ( HOLY ). 

 Priestley. JOSEPH, son of a cloth-dresser, was 

 born at Fieldhead, near Leeds, 13th March 1733. 

 For some time he was obliged to abandon school 

 studies, owing to weak health, and betook himself 

 to mercantile pursuits, but with returning strength 

 his literary studies were resumed at a dissenting 

 academy at Daventry (founded by Dr Doddridge). 

 Though bis father and family were strong Cal- 

 vinists, young Priestley, during his residence at 

 the academy, felt called on to renounce nearly all 

 the theological and metaphysical opinions of his 

 youth. 'I came,' he says, 'to embrace what is 

 called the heterodox side of every question.' In 

 1755 he became minister to a small congregation at 

 Needham Market, in Suffolk. While here he' 

 composed his work against the doctrine of Christ's 

 death being a sacrifice or satisfaction for sin, 

 entitled The Scripture Doctrine of Remission. In 

 this he taught tnat the Bible is indeed a divine 

 revelation, made from God to man through Christ, 

 himself a man and no more, nor claiming to be 

 more, and rejected the doctrines of the Trinity 

 and the Atonement. In 1758 he quitted Needham 

 for Nantwich ; and in 1761 be removed, as teacher 

 of languages and belles-lettres, to an academy at 

 Warrington ; and here his literary career may be 

 said first fairly to have begun. A visit to London 

 led to his making the acquaintance of Franklin, 

 who supplied him with books which enabled him 

 to write his History and Present State of Electricity, 

 published in 1767. It was followed by a work on 

 Vixinit, Light, and Colours. In 1762 he published 

 his Theory of Language and Universal drammar. 

 In 1764 he was niade LL.D. of Edinburgh, and 

 F.R.S. in 1766. In the following year he removed 

 to Leeds, having been appointed minister of the 

 Mill Hill dissenting chapel there. A brewery 

 beside his dwelling gave a new direction to his 

 energetic and versatile mind ; he began to study 

 chemistry. In 1773 he was appointed literary com- 

 panion to Lord Shelburne, and accompanied the 

 earl on a continental tour in 1774. Having been 

 told by certain Parisian savants that he was the 

 only man of understanding they had ever known 

 who believed in Christianity, he wrote, in reply, 

 the Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever, and 

 various other works, containing criticisms on the 

 doctrines of Hume and others. But, while laughed 

 at in Paris as a believer, at home he was branded 

 as an atheist. To escape the odium arising from 

 the latter imputation, he published, in 1777, his 

 Disquisition Relating to Matter and Spirit, in 

 which, partly materialising spirit and partly 

 spiritualising matter, he holds that our hopes of 

 resurrection must rest solely on the truth of the 

 Christian revelation, and that on science they have 

 no foundation whatever. On leaving Lord Shel- 

 burne, he became minister of a dissenting chapel at 

 Birmingham. The publication, in 1786, of his His- 

 tory of Early Opinions concerning Jesus Christ 

 occasioned the renewal of a controversy, which 

 had l>egun in 1778, between him and Dr Hprsley, 

 concerning the doctrines of Free-will, Materialism, 

 and Unitarianism. His reply to Burke's Reflections 

 on the French Revolution led to his being made a 

 citizen of the French Republic ; and this led to a 

 mob on one occasion breaking into his house, and 

 destroying all its contents, books, manuscripts, 

 scientific instruments, &c. A brother-in-law, how- 

 ever, about this time left him 10,000, with an 

 annuity of 200. In 1791 he was elected to a 

 charge at Hackney ; but his honestly-avowed 

 opinions had made him unpopular, and he ( 1794) 

 removed to America, where he was heartily 

 received. He died at Northumberland, Penn- 

 sylvania, 6th February 1804, expressing (though 



