Translations:Priesthood/1/en

Introduction

Priests and priestesses are the guardians of the gods and goddesses’ interests, protectors of their temples and sacred areas, supervisors of offerings, sacrifices, weddings, births, funerals, ceremonies and rituals, and mediators between gods and worshippers. They were exorcists, oracles, healers, bankers, archivists and writers and readers of hymns and poems. Although no Safaitic inscription discovered so far indicates that sacrifice in the wilderness required the officiation of a priest, if we take the texts at face value, sacrifice among nomads was performed by the worshippers directly as individual acts of devotion or involving a small number of people. Sacrifice in temples, however, probably did require a priest. The temple itself was pretty self-sufficient being a commercial center, archive, as well as the home of the priests with its own source of water as seen in Khirbet Et-Tannur, a Nabataean temple. Sacred areas out in the open such as high places, groves and springs don’t necessarily need to be staffed but at many there would be a guardian such as a palm grove mentioned by Diodorus that was “in the care of a man and a woman who hold the sacred office for life” and also in the case of a mountain where a cult statue was set up and a “priest (sacerdos) also lives there, and he wears a dalmatic and linen cloak” according to Antoninus Placentinus.