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Predominant holiness required of the priesthood; religious, ritual and moral requirements; freedom from physical disabilities Lev.21:1. And the Lord said to Moses: Proclaim to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them: Let them not defile themselves by touching the dead of their people; Lev.21:2. only to his closest relative, to his mother and to his father, to his son and daughter, to his brother Lev.21:3. and he can touch his sister, a girl who lives with him and has not been married, without desecrating himself; If the entire people of Israel, as chosen by God to be a priestly people, who had to be a mediator between Jehovah and all extra-covenantal humanity, had to strictly observe all the requirements of the law on spiritual and physical purity and holiness, then even more stringent requirements in this regard are prescribed to the priests. The circle of what is permitted here for priests, and especially for the high priest, is narrower and more limited. “The priest had to be a model of chastity, and so that the race remained unalloyed, not to give cause for insult to those plotting reproach” (Blessed Theodoret, question 30). The requirements for priests regarding spiritual and bodily purity are divided into 3 groups: 1) the prohibition of desecration by corpses and funeral mourning (Lev.21:1, 10–12); 2) prohibition to marry a widow, harlot, outcast, foreigner (Lev.21:7–8, 13–15); 3) prohibition of the priesthood for persons with physical disabilities (Lev.21:17–23). As ministers of the sanctuary of the Living God, priests should have no attachment to death rites. Therefore, although the burial of the deceased was generally considered an indispensable duty of a Jew, the priests could bury and mourn only the closest relatives living together, touching whom would be traced. and desecration (Num. 5:2, 6:6, 19:14) was inevitable: mother, father, son, daughter and virgin sister living with him. There is no mention of a wife (as in Ezekiel 44.25). They see an indication of the wife (based on the Targum of Jonathan) in the prohibition of Lev.21 not to touch anyone among the people (cf. Eze 24.16–18), although it is very doubtful that the priest was prohibited from performing this last duty in relation to the wife, who, according to Gen. 2.23–24, is one flesh with her husband (Vulg.: v. 4: nec in principe populi su contaminatur; so does Onkelos; but the context of the speech says nothing about the “prince of the people”). Lev.21:5. They shall not shave their heads or trim the ends of their beards or make cuts on their bodies. Lev.21:6. They must be holy to their God and must not dishonor the name of their God, for they offer sacrifices to the Lord, bread to their God, and therefore must be holy. The mutilation of the head, beard and body in honor of the dead, forbidden to all Israelis in general (Lev. 19:27, 28), was all the more strictly forbidden to the servants of Jehovah, the holy God, while the forbidden rites had connections with pagan cults. Lev.21:7. They must not take for themselves a harlot and a defamed woman, nor should they take a wife rejected by their husband, for they are holy to their [Lord] God. Lev.21:8. Holy it, for it brings bread to the [Lord] thy God: let it be holy unto thee: for holy am I the Lord, who sanctify you. Lev.21:9. If a priest's daughter defiles herself by fornication, she dishonors her father; fire must burn it. Regarding the marriage and family life of a priest, the following restrictions are given: he could not marry a harlot (Heb. zonah: according to Jewish tradition - any woman who had cohabitation in one of the degrees prohibited by law), a defamed woman (according to tradition - born from a forbidden marriage, according to Josephus - a woman who had questionable chastity, for example, a servant, a captive) and rejected by her husband (according to tradition - also to the woman who “took off the shoe of a relative”, Deut. 25.9). Protecting the dignity and reputation of the priestly family, the law prescribes strict punishment - burning, probably followed by stoning - of the priest's daughter (according to the rabbis: betrothed to someone) who fell into fornication (cf. Blessed Theodore, question 30). Lev.21:10. The great priest of his brethren, on whose head the anointing oil is poured, and who is sanctified to put on the sacred garments, must not bare his head or tear his clothes; Lev.21:11. and he should not approach any dead person: even by touching his dead father and mother, he should not defile himself. Lev.21:12. And he must not depart from the sanctuary and dishonor the sanctuary of his God, for the consecration of the anointing oil of his God is upon him. I am the Lord. Lev.21:13. He must take a maiden [from his people] as his wife: Lev.21:14. he must not take a widow, or an outcast, or a defamed woman, [or] a harlot, but he must take a maiden from his people to wife; Lev.21:15. he shall not disgrace his seed among his people, for I am the Lord [God] who sanctifies him. In both respects the requirements for the high priest are even more stringent. With regard to mourning, the high priest, who must always be pure, is forbidden to mourn funeral mourning - of course, only externally, among the eastern inhabitants there are always violent and immoderate manifestations of it (internal silent sadness could not be prohibited), - even for father and mother: any touch of the high priest to the dead would be a desecration of the sanctuary (according to the interpretation of Jewish authorities, however, if the high priest in in a deserted place on the road he met an unburied dead man; his duty was to bury him). Regarding marriage, in comparison with the rules on priestly marriage (Lev.21.7), the high priest was given a new restriction: he was ordered not to marry a widow (Lev.21:13–14); a widow, during her cohabitation with her former husband, could acquire inclinations that do not meet the requirements of the impeccable purity of the high priest’s family life. Similar restrictions existed among the Romans regarding the pontifex, and among the Athenians - regarding the king. Lev.21:17. Say to Aaron, “No one from your seed throughout all their generations, who has any deficiency in his body, shall come to offer bread to his God; Lev.21:18. no one who has any defect in his body should approach, neither the blind, nor the lame, nor the deformed, Lev.21:19. nor one whose leg is broken or his arm is broken, Lev.21:20. neither hunchbacked, nor with a dry member, nor with an eyesore, nor scabby, nor lousy, nor with damaged yatras; Lev.21:21. no man of the seed of Aaron the priest, who has any blemish in his body, shall come to offer sacrifices to the Lord; there is a shortage on him, therefore he should not approach to bring bread to his God; Lev.21:22. he may eat the bread of his God from the great holy things and from the holy things; Lev.21:23. But he must not come to the veil, and he must not approach the altar, because there is a defect in him: he must not dishonor My sanctuary, for I am the Lord who sanctifies them. The purity and holiness of the priesthood, conditioned by the holiness of its calling and service, also required the physical integrity of those approaching the altar of Jehovah. Therefore, those members of the tribe of Levi and the surname of Aaron who had any physical defect - as an example of these defects the biblical text names 12 (Hebrew terms allow for different understanding, as can be seen from the comparison of the Slavic and Russian translations in Lev. 21:18, 20), and the tradition numbered over 50 - were thereby excluded from serving the altar (Lev. 17, 21, 23), although, as not guilty of this unfitness for priestly service, they were not considered unclean, and they were given the high honor of eating parts of the sacrifices - “great holy things and holy things” (Lev. 21:22; see Lev. 7:27–28). The basis of this article of the law is blessed. Theodorite (q. 30) defines as follows: “God, due to the murmuring of the Jews, forbids the priesthood to those who have any bodily defect, but in the subtype of involuntary defects he prohibits voluntary ones; for blindness of the eye signifies deprivation of knowledge; cutting off an ear means disobedience, taking away a nose means loss of reason, cutting off a hand means lack of activity.” You might be interested in: