2. When we proceed to speak of _the Priesthood_ we are met by difficulties, to which we have already alluded, as to the date of the varying regulations respecting it. "It would be difficult," says Dr. Edersheim, "to conceive arrangements more thoroughly or consistently opposed to what are commonly called 'priestly pretensions' than those of the Old Testament."[324] According to the true ideal, Israel was to be "a kingdom of priests and an holy nation";[325] but the institution of _ministering_ priests was of course a necessity, and the Jewish priesthood, which is now utterly abrogated, was, or gradually became, representative. Representatively they had to mediate between God and Israel, and typically to symbolise the "holiness," _i.e._, the consecration of the Chosen People. Hence they were required to be free from every bodily blemish. It was regarded as a deadly offence for any one of them to officiate without scrupulous safeguard against every ceremonial defilement, and they were specially adorned and anointed for their office. They were an extremely numerous body, and from the days of David are said to have been divided into twenty-four courses. They were assisted by an army of attendant Levites, also divided into twenty-four courses, who acted as the cleansers and keepers of the Temple. But the distinction of priests and Levites does not seem to be older than "the Priestly Code," and criticism has all but demonstrated that the sections of the Pentateuch known by that name belong, in their present form, not to the age of Moses, but to the age of the successors of Ezekiel. The elaborate priestly and Levitic arrangements ascribed to the days of Aaron by the chronicler, who wrote six hundred years after David's day, are unknown to the writers of the Book of Kings. In daily life they wore no distinctive dress. In the Temple service, all the year round, their vestments were of the simplest. They were of white _byssus_ to typify innocence,[326] and four in number to indicate completeness. They consisted of a turban, breeches, and seamless coat of white linen, together with a girdle, symbolic of zeal and activity, which was assumed during actual ministrations.[327] The only magnificent vestments were those worn for a few hours by the high priest once a year on the Great Day of Atonement. These "golden vestments" were eight in number. To the ordinary robes were added the robe of the ephod (_Meil_) of dark blue, with seventy-two golden bells, and pomegranates of blue, purple, and scarlet; a jewelled pectoral containing the Urim and Thummim; the mitre; and the golden frontlet (_Ziz_), with its inscription of "Holiness to the Lord." The ideal type was fulfilled, and the poor shadows abolished for ever, by Him of whom it is said, "Such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners."