times, and upon extraordinary occasions, at least, they flayed the
burnt-offerings and killed the Passover. They were to receive the blood
of the burnt-offerings in basins and sprinkle it around about the altar,
arrange the wood and the fire, and to burn the parts of the sacrifices.
If the burnt sacrifices were of doves, the priest was to nip off the
head with the finger nail, squeeze out the blood on the edge of the
altar, pluck off the feathers, and throw them with the crop into the
ash-pit, divide down the wings, and then completely burn it. He was to
offer a lamb every morning and evening, and a double number on the
Sabbath, the burnt-offerings ordered at the beginning of months, and the
same on the feast of Unleavened Bread, and on the day of the First
Fruits; to receive the meat-offering of the offerer, bring it to the
altar, take of it a memorial, and burn it upon the altar; to sprinkle
the blood of the peace-offerings upon the altar around about, and then
to offer of it a burnt-offering; to offer the sin-offering for the sins
of a ruler or any of the common people; to eat the sin-offering at the
holy place; and the same way to offer offerings for all the kinds of sin
and the priest should eat these offerings at the holy place; to offer
for the purification of women after child-birth; to judge of the leprosy
in the human body or garments (it is remarkable that the Jewish race
from the beginning, has been all through the ages a heavy victim of
leprosy). The priest was to make the ointment of spices; to prepare the
water of separation; to act as assessor in judicial proceedings; to
encourage the army when going to battle, and probably to have charge of
the law.

The emoluments of the priests: The perquisites of the priests were many
and various, and as Philo calls them very rich, and this statement holds
good all the way down to the Christian priest who inherited most of the
virtues of his Jewish predecessors. Thus no wonder for the priests to
keep their people in dense ignorance of the historical originality of
the priesthood. And the high priest, besides all duties and privileges
already mentioned as common to him and the ordinary priest, he must not
marry a widow, nor a divorced woman, or a profane, or that had been a
harlot, but a virgin Israelitess. He must not eat anything that died of
itself, or was torn by beasts; must wash his hands and feet when he went
into the tabernacle to offer the mass. The high prie