3) but nothing more is said about them,
except that when the trumpets of the congregation are blown, the blowing
shall follow or precede the service, and not interrupt it. It is a natural
surmise that they answered to the synagogues both as places of worship and
of religious instruction, such, for example, as the Supervisor is required
to give. The name, _Beth hishtahawoth_, literally, "house of bowing down"
(in worship), is peculiar, and may have been chosen to distinguish these
sectarian conventicles from the synagogues of regular Judaism, as the
English nonconformists of various stripes would not call their
meeting-houses churches. It is possible that the prayers of the sect may
have been accompanied by genuflections and prostrations such as, though
unknown in the synagogue, have formed in all ages and religions a common
feature of Oriental worship; but it is also possible that "bowing down"
simply stands by metonymy for worship, as is often the case with the
corresponding Syriac verb, _segad_.(64)

Sacrificial worship was also maintained.(65) The City of the Sanctuary was
eminently holy; sexual intercourse within its limits is forbidden,
"defiling the City of the Sanctuary with their impurity"
(_beniddatham_).(66) To this city, probably, the sacrifices were brought
to which there is frequent reference. "No one shall send to the altar
burnt offerings or oblation, frankincense or wood, by a man who is unclean
with any of the forms of uncleanness; for it is written, the sacrifice of
the wicked is an abomination, but the prayer of the righteous is an
acceptable oblation" (11 18 ff.). On the Sabbath nothing is to be brought
upon the altar except the Sabbath burnt offerings--that is, we may suppose,
the stated daily burnt offerings with the supplementary Sabbath victims
(13 17 f.; see Num. 28 1-10). Votive sacrifices are also mentioned; it is
forbidden to vow to the altar anything that has been procured by
compulsion; the priest shall refuse to receive such offerings (16 13 f.).
There is nothing to indicate where this sanctuary was situated, further
than the natural presumption that it was in the region of Damascus, where
the sect had established itself. The priests have the precedence of all
others in the community; in its registers their names are enrolled in the
first rank. Their place in the courts and in the local religious
community, and their duties in the examination of lepers, have already
been mentioned. Those wh