Next, the passage of the law was read, in which Jehovah commands that no descendent of Aaron should ever be admitted to the priesthood, who had any natural imperfection or deformity of body, although he might still claim a subsistence from the provisions of the temple.[[59]] Helon was examined and found free from any of those imperfections which the law enumerates. Had he proved otherwise, he would have been [clad in black], and dismissed, being only allowed in future to discharge menial offices about the temple. The outward worship of Jehovah was to be a mirror and emblem of the inward dispositions demanded from the worshipper; and therefore he required, that both his sacrifices and those who offered them should be without blemish.

Helon having undergone the necessary scrutiny, and having been found not only of pure descent but free from all bodily infirmity, was committed to the care of one of the ministering Levites, and conducted by him into the vestry, which stood near the gate of Nicanor. Here the Levite put on him the white [sacerdotal robes], which one of the same body had made. They consisted of drawers reaching to the leg, the under-garment fitting close to the body and descending to the ancles, woven of one piece without a joining or a seam; the girdle of four fingers’ breadth, which went twice round the body, and, being tied in front, both ends hung down nearly to the feet;[[60]] it was woven so as to resemble a serpent’s skin, and embroidered with flowers, purple, dark blue, and crimson; lastly, the turban, which was wound firmly around the head in the form of a crown. The feet were bare.

After being robed, Helon returned into the hall of the Sanhedrim, and the law of Moses relative to the priests was read to him;[[61]] “And the Lord said unto Moses, Speak unto the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say unto them, None among them shall defile himself with a dead body among his people, except for the nearest of his kindred, for his mother and for his father, and for his son and for his daughter, and for his brother and for his sister, while she is still a virgin and lives with him, having no husband; for her he may defile himself. But he shall not defile himself for any one that belongeth to him among his people, least he desecrate himself. They shall not make their heads bald, nor shave off the extremity of their beard, nor make incisions in their flesh. They shall be holy to their God, and not profane the name of their God, for the offerings of Jehovah made by fire, the food of their God, they are to offer; therefore must they be holy. They shall not marry a woman that is a harlot, nor one that has been polluted, for they are holy to their God. And thou shalt esteem them holy for they offer the food of thy God; they shall be holy unto thee; for I Jehovah who sanctify them am holy.” When this passage had been read, the high-priest blessed the candidate for the priesthood, and said, “Praised be God that no blemish hath been found in the seed of Aaron, and praised be he who hath chosen Aaron and his sons to stand and minister before God in his holy temple.” And all the members of the Sanhedrim said Amen! The sitting was thus ended, and Helon was led into the court of the Priests. Those of the course which was then on duty were standing there, and, greeting him, received him among their body.

The family of Aaron was consecrated once for all in the wilderness, when they offered on eight successive days the sacrifice of initiation.[[62]] Since that time it had been only renewed, and each new priest began his ministration by a meat-offering,[[63]] on his presenting which [the original unction was imputed to him]. This Helon was to do on the following morning, and it fortunately happened that, owing to the delay occasioned by the return of the victorious army, the course to which he belonged entered on duty on this very sabbath.[[64]]

Elisama offered on this joyful occasion a magnificent thank-offering of several bullocks, and invited the whole course of priests, who gradually arrived to be in readiness to begin their functions, to feast upon the sacrifice.

Among the rest he had invited the old man of the temple. He who bore this name was a venerable priest, nearly one hundred years old, of the course of Jojarib, to which the Maccabees also belonged. Engaged, since his twenty-fifth year, in the service of Jehovah, he had now past eighty years in the house of his God, and in the course of them had witnessed very eventful times. He had entered the temple, in the life of the excellent high-priest Onias III., and had endured the alternate yoke of the Syrians and the Egyptians; he had seen Antiochus Epiphanes, and known the victims of his sanguinary fury; he had been one of those who followed the valiant Mattathias to the wilderness; he had admired the heroic deeds of the members of the family of the Maccabees, Judas, Jonathan, Simon, and John Hyrcanus, and had served them in succession. In Egypt, where he had frequently dwelt, he had seen, forty years before, the foundation of the temple of Leontopolis, and he had beheld that of Gerizim levelled with the ground. As a doctor of the law, he was master of all the knowledge of divine or earthly things which Israel then possessed, and had been able to compare his experience with the word of God. He knew accurately the opinions of all the sects into which Israel was divided, and though he joined himself to none of them, yet was honoured by them all, and almost reckoned by all to belong to themselves. For a considerable time, during the last years of the high-priest Simon, and in the first years of Hyrcanus, he had discharged the honourable office of the Wise Man in the Sanhedrim, and in every year of the thirty-four that had elapsed since the new era of Israel’s emancipation began, some important affair had been decided by his counsel. In consequence of his increasing years, he had laid down all his offices, resigned his house and property to his children’s children, and taken up his abode in a single apartment in the temple, where he discharged the duty of a priest of the permanent course, as it was called, that is of those who dwelt in Jerusalem and supplied the place of any one in the other courses who could not serve in his turn. His piety, his wisdom, his earnest longing for the advent of the Messiah, and his affection for the house of the Maccabees, were become proverbial. He united so well the mild dignity of age with the fresh sensibility of youth, that he possessed a most decided influence over the principal persons in the state, but more especially on all the younger priests, whose teacher he might be considered, and who very generally adopted his opinions. Even the heathens admired the vigour and originality of his mind. What most surprised many of his countrymen was, that he, whom they would, before all others, have called a Chasidean, that is a man of extraordinary piety, laid no claim to so high a title, and contented himself with the humbler name of a just man.

The old man made his appearance, but declared that he came only to bid the youth welcome to the courts of the Lord. A feast, even in the temple, he said, did not befit a man over whom one hundred winters had already past. All rose up when he appeared, and, falling at his feet, kissed the border of his robe. Helon had heard of him in Alexandria, and Elisama had pointed out his venerable form to him, as he assisted at the sacrifice; and when he saw him appear in the banqueting room, for his sake, overpowered by such kindness and condescension, he too fell, in silent reverence, at his feet, and kissed the border of his garment. The old man raised him up, and said, “Praised be the God of Israel, who bringeth the seed of Aaron out of Egypt, to the place where is the memorial of his name.” He spoke of his grandfather, whom he had known at Alexandria, and said that Jehovah would bless that house for ever, on account of the zeal which every member of it had displayed for the honour of his law. He then called Helon from the company, observing to the rest, that before he partook of their feast, he would regale him with food of another kind. Helon with profound veneration followed the old man, who led him through the court of the Gentiles to Solomon’s porch, which with its lofty pillars formed the eastern boundary of this court. Here he placed himself on the ground and Helon beside him. He made the youth relate to him the history of his life, and the manner in which the desire of becoming a priest had been first awakened in him. He afterwards addressed a few of those questions to him, by which one who knows mankind penetrates into the bosom of a youth. His countenance gradually assumed an expression of pleasure and good-will, which led Helon to hope that his answers had been satisfactory.

“It cannot be said my son,” he at length began, “that the Hellenists have been wholly wrong in their allegories. They are right in the principle from which they set out, that the service of Jehovah contains a hidden and deeper wisdom. Does not David say,

[Behold thou delightest in the truth] in secret things,

Teach me therefore thy hidden wisdom.—Ps. li. 6.