property which would otherwise have been divided among all the brothers or next of kin.
See J. F. McLennan, Studies in Ancient History (London, 1886) and “The Levirate and Polyandry,” in The Fortnightly Review, n.s. vol. xxi. (1877); C. N. Starcke, The Primitive Family in its Origin and Development (London, 1889); Edward Westermarck, History of Human Marriage (London, 1894), pp. 510-514, where are valuable notes containing references to numerous books of travel; H. Spencer, Principles of Sociology, ii. 649; A. H. Post, Einleitung in das Stud. d. Ethnolog. Jurisprud. (1886).
LÉVIS (formerly Pointe Levi), the chief town of Lévis county,
Quebec, Canada, situated on the precipitous south bank of the
St Lawrence, opposite Quebec city. Pop. (1901) 7783. It is
on the Intercolonial railway, and is the eastern terminus of the
Grand Trunk and Quebec Central railways. It contains the
Lorne dock, a Dominion government graving dock, 445 ft. long,
100 ft. wide, with a depth on the sill of 2612 and 2012 ft. at high
water, spring and neap tides respectively. It is an important
centre of the river trade, and is connected by steam ferries
with the city of Quebec. It is named after the maréchal duc
de Lévis, the last commander of the French troops in Canada.
LEVITES, or sons of Levi (son of Jacob by Leah), a sacred caste in ancient Israel, the guardians of the temple service at Jerusalem.[1]
1. Place in Ritual.—In the developed hierarchical system the ministers of the sanctuary are divided into distinct grades. All are “Levites” by descent, and are thus correlated in the genealogical and other lists, but the true priesthood is confined to the sons of Aaron, while the mass of the Levites are subordinate servants who are not entitled to approach the altar or to perform any strictly priestly function. All access to the Deity is restricted to the one priesthood and to the one sanctuary at Jerusalem; the worshipping subject is the nation of Israel as a unity, and the function of worship is discharged on its behalf by divinely chosen priests. The ordinary individual may not intrude under penalty of death; only those of Levitical origin may perform service, and they are essentially the servants and hereditary serfs of the Aaronite priests (see Num. xviii.). But such a scheme finds no place in the monarchy; it presupposes a hierocracy under which the priesthood increased its rights by claiming the privileges which past kings had enjoyed; it is the outcome of a complicated development in Old Testament religion in the light of which it is to be followed (see Hebrew Religion).
First (a), in the earlier biblical writings which describe the state of affairs under the Hebrew monarchy there is not this fundamental distinction among the Levites, and, although a list of Aaronite high-priests is preserved in a late source, internal details and the evidence of the historical books render its value extremely doubtful (1 Chron. vi. 3-15, 49-53). In Jerusalem itself the subordinate officers of the temple were not members of a holy gild, but of the royal body-guard, or bond-slaves who had access to the sacred courts, and might even be uncircumcised foreigners (Josh. ix. 27; 1 Kings xiv. 28; 2 Kings xi.; cf. Zeph. i. 8 seq.; Zech. xiv. 21). Moreover, ordinary individuals might serve as priests (1 Sam. ii II, 18, vii. 1; see 2 Sam. viii. 18, deliberately altered in 1 Chron. xviii. 17); however, every Levite was a priest, or at least qualified to become one (Deut. x. 8, xviii. 7; Judges xvii. 5-13), and when the author of 1 Kings xii. 31, wishes to represent Jeroboam’s priests as illegitimate, he does not say that they were not Aaronites, but that they were not of the sons of Levi.
The next stage (b) is connected with the suppression of the local high-places or minor shrines in favour of a central sanctuary. This involved the suppression of the Levitical priests in the country (cf. perhaps the allusion in Deut. xxi. 5); and the present book of Deuteronomy, in promulgating the reform, represents the Levites as poor scattered “sojourners” and recommends them to the charity of the people (Deut. xii. 12, 18 seq., xiv. 27, 29, xvi. 11, 14, xxvi. 11 sqq.). However, they are permitted to congregate at “the place which Yahweh shall choose,” where they may perform the usual priestly duties together with their brethren who “stand there before Yahweh,” and they are allowed their share of the offerings (Deut. xviii. 6-8).[2] The Deuteronomic history of the monarchy actually ascribes to the Judaean king Josiah (621 B.C.) the suppression of the high-places, and states that the local priests were brought to Jerusalem and received support, but did not minister at the altar (2 Kings xxiii. 9). Finally, a scheme of ritual for the second temple raises this exclusion to the rank of a principle. The Levites who had been idolatrous are punished by exclusion from the proper priestly work, and take the subordinate offices which the uncircumcised and polluted foreigners had formerly filled, while the sons of Zadok, who had remained faithful, are henceforth the legitimate priests, the only descendants of Levi who are allowed to minister unto Yahweh (Ezek. xliv. 6-15, cf. xl. 46, xliii. 19, xlviii. 11). “A threefold cord is not quickly broken,” and these three independent witnesses agree in describing a significant innovation which ends with the supremacy of the Zadokites of Jerusalem over their brethren.
In the last stage (c) the exclusion of the ordinary Levites from all share in the priesthood of the sons of Aaron is looked upon as a matter of course, dating from the institution of priestly worship by Moses. The two classes are supposed to have been founded separately (Exod. xxviii., cf. xxix. 9; Num. iii. 6-10), and so far from any degradation being attached to the rank and file of the Levites, their position is naturally an honourable one compared with that of the mass of non-Levitical worshippers (see Num. i. 50-53), and they are taken by Yahweh as a surrogate for the male first-born of Israel (iii. 11-13). They are inferior only to the Aaronites to whom they are “joined” (xviii. 2, a play on the name Levi) as assistants. Various adjustments and modifications still continue, and a number of scattered details may indicate that internal rivalries made themselves felt. But the different steps can hardly be recovered clearly, although the fact that the priesthood was extended beyond the Zadokites to families of the dispossessed priests points to some compromise (1 Chron. xxiv.). Further, it is subsequently found that certain classes of temple servants, the singers and porters, who had once been outside the Levitical gilds, became absorbed as the term “Levite” was widened, and this change is formally expressed by the genealogies which ascribe to Levi, the common “ancestor” of them all, the singers and even certain families whose heathenish and foreign names show that they were once merely servants of the temple.[3]
2. Significance of the Development.—Although the legal basis for the final stage is found in the legislation of the time of Moses (latter part of the second millennium B.C.), it is in reality scarcely earlier than the 5th century B.C., and the Jewish theory finds analogies when developments of the Levitical service are referred to David (1 Chron. xv. seq., xxiii. sqq.), Hezekiah (2 Chron. xxix.) and Josiah (xxxv.)—contrast the history in the earlier books of Samuel and Kings—or when the still later book of Jubilees (xxxii.) places the rise of the Levitical priesthood in the patriarchal period. The traditional theory of the Mosaic origin of the elaborate Levitical legislation cannot be maintained save by the most arbitrary and inconsequential treatment of the evidence and by an entire indifference to the historical spirit; and, although numerous points of detail still remain very obscure, the three leading stages in the Levitical institutions are now recognized by nearly all independent scholars. These stages with a number of concomitant features confirm the literary hypothesis that biblical history is in the main due to two leading recensions, the Deuteronomic and the Priestly (cf. [b] and [c] above), which have incorporated older sources.[4] If the hierarchical system as
- ↑ For the derivation of “Levi” see below § 4 end.
- ↑ The words “beside that which cometh of the sale of his patrimony” (lit. “his sellings according to the fathers”) are obscure; they seem to imply some additional source of income which the Levite enjoys at the central sanctuary.
- ↑ For the něthīnīm (“given”) and “children of the slaves of Solomon” (whose hereditary service would give them a pre-eminence over the temple slaves), see art. Nethinim, and Benzinger, Ency. Bib. cols. 3397 sqq.
- ↑ In defence of the traditional view, see S. I. Curtiss, The Levitical Priests (1877), with which his later attitude should be contrasted (see Primitive Semitic Religion To-day, pp. 14, 50, 133 seq., 171, 238 sqq., 241 sqq.); W. L. Baxter, Sanctuary and Sacrifice (1895); A. van Hoonacker, Le Sacerdoce lévitique (1899); and J. Orr, Problem of the O.T. (1905). These and other apologetic writings have so far failed to produce any adequate alternative hypothesis, and while they argue for the traditional theory, later revision not being excluded, the modern critical view accepts late dates for the literary sources in their present form, and explicitly recognizes the presence of much that is ancient. Note the curious old tradition that Ezra wrote out the law which had been burnt (2 Esdr. xiv. 21 sqq.).
