Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/754

Rh 730 P R I P R I (p. 672). 1 As no such hierarchy existed in the West, it is plain that if the idea of Christian priesthood was influ enced by living institutions as well as by the Old Testa ment that influence must be sought in the East (comp. Lightfoot, PhiUppians, p. 261). The further development of the notion of Christian priesthood was connected with the view that the Eucharist is a propitiatory sacrifice which only a consecrated priest can perform. The history of this development is still very obscure, especially as regards its connexion with heathen ideas, but something will fall to be said on it under the heading of SACRIFICE. It is sufficient to remark here that the presentation of the sacri fice of the mass came to be viewed as the essential priestly office, so that the Christian presbyter really was a sacerdos in the antique sense. Protestants, in rejecting the sacrifice of the mass, deny also that there is a Christian priesthood &quot; like the Levitical,&quot; and have either dropped the name of &quot; priest &quot; or use it in a quite emasculated sense. There is probably no nature religion among races above mere savagery which has not had a priesthood ; but an ex amination of other examples would scarcely bring out any important feature that has not been already illustrated. Among higher religions orthodox Islam has never had real priests, doing religious acts on behalf of others, though it has, like Protestant churches, leaders of public devotion (imams) and an important class of privileged religious teachers ( ulema). But a distinction of grades of holiness gained by ascetic life has never been entirely foreign to the Eastern mind, and in the popular faith of Mohammedan peoples something very like priesthood has crept in by this channel. For where holiness is associated with ascetic practices the masses can never attain to a perfect life, and naturally tend to lean on the professors of special sanctity as the mediators of their religious welfare. The best example, however, of a full-blown priestly system with a monastic hierarchy grafted in this way on a religion originally not priestly is found in Tibetan Buddhism (see LA.MAISM), and similar causes undoubtedly had their share in the development of sacerdotalism in the Christian church. The idea of priestly asceticism expressed in the celibacy of the clergy belongs also to certain types of heathen and especially Semitic priesthood, to those above all in which the priestly service is held to have a magical or theurgic quality. (w. R. s.) PRIESTLEY, JOSEPH (1733-1804), was born on 13th March 1733 at Fieldhead near Birstal, in the West Riding of Yorkshire. His father, Jonas Priestley, was a woollen- cloth dresser and apparently of very moderate means. His mother was the only child of Joseph Swift, a farmer at Shafton near Wakefield. The paternal grandfather, also named Joseph, was a churchman whose high moral char acter became a sacred tradition in his family. The young Joseph s parents were Nonconformists. They had six children in eight years, and on the birth of the last, in the hard winter of 1739, the mother died. During those years Joseph lived a good deal with his maternal grand father at Shafton. But he relates that his mother &quot; was careful to teach him the Assembly s Catechism,&quot; and that, with a view of impressing on his mind &quot;a clear idea of the distinction of property,&quot; she on one occasion made him carry back a pin which he had picked up at the house of an uncle. Three years after the loss of his mother, his father s sister, Mrs Keighley, a lady in good circum stances, having no children of her own, took the boy to live with her. At the age of twelve he was sent to a neighbouring endowed school, where, under the tuition of a clergyman, Mr Hague, he made rapid progress in classics, while on holidays, by way of recreation, he learned Hebrew from 1 See also Mornmsen, Hist, of Rome, Bug. trans., iv. 150. Mr Kirkley, a Dissenting minister. On the removal of the clergyman Mr Kirkley opened a school of his own, and Priestley became entirely his pupil. From the age of sixteen to nearly twenty his health was unsatisfactory, and he attended neither school nor college, but still con tinued his studies in private with occasional assistance. It was thought that his constitution would be better adapted to an active than to a sedentary life, and with a view to commerce he learned French, Italian, and German without assistance. But the aunt, Mrs Keighley, had set her heart on making a minister of him, and young Priestley s own aspirations took the same form. When, therefore, his health improved, the offer of a mercantile situation in Lisbon was surrendered, and Priestley in his twentieth year (1752) was sent to Daventry, where there existed a Non conformist academy, originally founded by Dr Doddridge at Northampton, and removed after his incapacitation by illness or on his death in 1751. There is no mention of any hesitation on the part of Priestley or his friends as to whether he should enter the established church or not. But there was certainly nothing in his theological creed at this period to have prevented his taking orders. The hindrance, therefore, must have been his adherence to the Nonconformist tradition on ques tions of ecclesiastical polity and ritual. There were, how ever, in his early associations some elements which not only help to explain his after career but throw a curious light on the fluid condition of Nonconformist denominations in those days as compared with their sectarian fixedness now. He was brought up in the principles of Calvinism. But he tells us his aunt s house &quot; was the resort of all the Dissenting ministers in the neighbourhood without dis tinction ; and those who were most obnoxious on account of their heresy were almost as welcome to her, if she thought them honest and good men which she was not unwilling to do as any others.&quot; Notwithstanding the comparative freedom of the conversations to which he listened, young Priestley at seventeen was strictly orthodox, and anxiously endeavoured to realize the experiences he supposed to be necessary to conversion. His chief trouble was that he could not repent of Adam s transgression, a difficulty he never surmounted. The pressure of this im possibility forced his candid mind to the conclusion that there must be a mistake somewhere, and he began to doubt whether he was really so much entangled in Adam s guilt as he had been taught. Accordingly he was refused admission into the communion of the Independent church which his aunt attended. His adhesion to Calvinism was now considerably relaxed. But this did not interfere with his entrance at Daventry. Dr Doddridge had not confined his educational aims to students for the ministry, and he not only refused to impose theological tests but he incurred reproach by resolutely refusing to press his own orthodox creed on the heterodox pupils occasionally re ceived. Priestley s intellectual preparation previous to his entrance is noteworthy. Besides being a fair classic, he had improved his Hebrew by giving lessons in that lan guage. He had acquired three modern languages. He had &quot; learned Chaldee and Syriac, and just begun to read Arabic &quot; ; nor was he disproportionately backward in mathematics. He had also mastered s Gravesande s Ele ments of Natural Philosophy, and various text-books of the time in logic and metaphysics. It cannot surprise us that he &quot; was excused all the studies of the first year and a great part of those of the second. At Daventry he stayed three years, taking a prominent part in the singularly free discussions that seem to have formed a considerable part of the academical exercises. &quot; In this situation,&quot; he says, &quot; I saw reason to embrace what is generally called the heterodox side of almost every question.&quot; His chief tutors