Priestess

“ I am convinced that her disposition is good and virtuous; for, if in beauty she surpasses all, and by her looks awes all beholders into respect, can we do otherwise than think highly of her? But what recommends her above every thing to me is, that she appears to be a priestess of some god; for, in all her misfortunes, she has with a pious regard refused to lay aside her sacred robe and chaplet. Where then can I a priest find a partner more fitting for me, than one who is herself a priestess? ”

“ And lose nor change one pulse of song, one tone
Of all that were thy lady's and thine own,
Thy lady's whom thou criedst on to forgive,
Thou, priest and sacrifice on the altar-stone
Where none may worship not of all that live,
Love's priestess, errant on dark ways diverse ”

“ Ye Gods, remove
From his fix'd eye delusion, lest this hour
Of highest bliss should make us trebly wretched!
Oh she is here, thine own, thy long-lost sister,
Whom great Diana from the altar snatch'd,
And safely plac'd here in her sacred fane.
A captive thou, prepar'd for sacrifice,
And findest here a sister in the priestess.
ORESTES.
Accursed race! Now may the sun behold
Your final doom. Is not Electra here?
That she with us may perish, nor her life
For heavier doom and deeper woe reserve.
'Tis well,—I follow, priestess! Fratricide
Is an old custom of our ancient house ”

“ We will not give up the reason to stand always as a priestess at the altars of human philosophy; she hath a more majestic temple to tread, and more beautiful robes to walk in, and incense rarer and more fragrant to offer in golden censers. She does well when boldly exploring God's visible works; she does better when she submits to spiritual teaching, and sits with Mary at the Saviour's feet. ”

“ The heart within, that tells the truth and tells it twice as plain;
And from the cave of oracles I heard the priestess shrieking
That she and I should surely die and never live again.
O priestess, what you cry is clear, and sound good sense I think it,
But let the screaming echoes rest and froth your mouth no more;
'Tis true there's better boose than brine, but he that drowns must drink it;
And oh, my lass, the news is news that men have heard before.
The King with half the East at heel is marched from lands of morning,
Their fighters drink the rivers up, their shafts benight the air ”

“ Who is the priestess, after an order older than Melchisedec's, but she that ministers to us that most comfortable sacrament, wherein we are made partakers not alone of the outward and visible food which we do carnally press with our teeth, but also of that inward and spiritual sustenance, the patient and enduring love of wife and mother, without which there can be no such thing as home? ”

“ I saw the High Priest, the lovely Mother Priestess, the Vestals, the choir and musicians, all earnestly engaged in some holy ceremony. The music, the heavenly spiritual influence of the atmosphere, the exquisite fragrance of incense and perfumes, with the purity reflected by the Vestal attendants, so enraptured and enthralled me that the thought that I would ever have to leave its sacred boundaries caused me to lose consciousness and, when I awoke, you were bending over me. ”

“ To-morrow is the day of your first ministration in the temple, and you will henceforth be a priestess, fully qualified for the service of the goddess. Surely, never had the goddess a more beautiful and more true-hearted servant. ”

“ You alone do not see the soft flame of your large eyes—the reflection of your heroic soul on your young but serene brow. Your charm is over everything you do—your slightest gesture is engraven on my heart. Into the most ordinary duties of every-day life you carry a peculiar grace, like a young priestess who recites her daily devotions. ”

“ Each generation, as you know, the youngest daughter of the past generation's highest priestess is chosen as the living incarnation of the white Goddess Argo. She is reared and taught by the wisest priests and priestesses. ”

“ As the female priestess in the Roman temple and the Hebrew priest in the temple of God were responsible for the internal order of their temples, so is every woman responsible for the order, the cleanliness, and comfort of the house of which she is the social priestess. It is her house, and in it she is expected to perform duties to which she is not called in any other house. Her oversight and presence, if not her actual labour, are indispensable to the proper arrangement of everything in it. ”

“ It exists only as a preparation for divination; it is the movement of the god in them laboring to express himself, and his expression is couched in intelligible human language. The priestess is a part of an organized and humanized cult and, as such, represents to a certain extent the ideas of a civilized society. The Dionysiac woman yields to an excess of animal excitement, without thought for society; the priestess feels herself responsible to society. ”

“ There were nothing strange or unusual in freedom of conversation between the Priestess and the Sculptor—who, in former years, had added many decorations to the Temple. The virgin priestesses were permitted to receive the visits of men by day; by night none but women were suffered to enter their apartments, which adjoined the sacred building in which they ministered. Each priestess was pledged to continence for thirty years. ”

“ The function of the mother as priestess—for woman has been the preserver, as, to so large an extent, she has been the creator, of religion—has been exercised age after age, and among people after people. Henry Ward Beecher has said: "Every mother is a priestess ordained by God Himself," and Professor Mason enlarges the same thought: "Scarcely has the infant mind begun to think, ere this perpetual priestess lights the fires of reverence and keeps them ever burning, like a faithful vestal" (112. 12) . ”

“ With the first introduction of civil government the witch and the priestess finally part company, to range themselves henceforward upon opposite sides. It is true that as religion follows religion the priestess of the former era often becomes the witch of its successor, thereby only accentuating the distinction. For, in the unceasing efforts to arrange a _modus vivendi_ between the human and the supernatural worlds, the priestess accommodates herself to circumstances—the witch defies them. ”

“ But, that the prophetic faculty comes from no corporeal or animal source, and from no local or material instrumentality, but solely and extrinsically from the presence of the incoming deity, appears from this, that the priestess, before she gives her oracle, performs many ceremonious rites, observes strict purity, bathes, abstains for three days from food, dwells apart, and so, by little and little, begins to be illuminated and enraptured. ”

“ Besides keeping up the fire she has other priestly functions to discharge. Before the men start on a dangerous expedition, she rubs the holy ashes on their foreheads. [706] When a woman brings her new-born infant to the sacred hearth to receive its name, the maiden priestess or Vestal, as we may call her, sprinkles water on both mother and child. [707] Every morning, when the cattle walk out of the fold, she besprinkles the fattest of them with a brush dipped in water. ”

“ It is under this twofold aspect, as priestess and as tribal mother-goddess, that the power of women was brought face to face with Christianity; the priestess and the mother-goddess were the well-defined types of heathen womanhood with which the early Church was called upon to deal. ”

“ Whence the first priestess—from whom later descends the first priest. For who so apt at propitiation as she who can cajole that most domesticated of demons, the ever-present Pain. So, later, when the propitiation of Evil gives place to the invocation of good, who so worthy of honour, which is to say of worship, as she who, in the dawning of the race, first relieved poor humanity of its bodily ills? Goddess, priestess, White Witch [Pg 49] and Black—all are but variations on that oldest and most beautiful of themes, Motherhood. ”

“ Oh, priestess, that thine eye more mildly beam'd,—
Thou much-rever'd one,—that I found thy glance,
O consecrated maid, more calm, more bright,
To all a happy omen! Still doth grief,
With gloom mysterious, shroud thy inner mind;
Still, still, through many a year we wait in vain
For one confiding utt'rance from thy breast. ”

“ Not had I an hundred tongues, an hundred mouths, and a voice of iron, could I sum up all the shapes of crime or name over all their punishments.'
Thus spoke Phoebus' long-lived priestess; ”

“ Should we continue the parable in Plato's manner, we might say that the earthly and visible Venus, the outward grace of art and nature, was ordained of God as a priestess, through whom men were to gain access to the divine, invisible One; but that men, in their blindness, ever worship the priestess instead of the divinity. ”

“ I suspect, Uncle Spines, that the conditions will include her own ordination as a priestess, or appointment to some post of still greater responsibility and power; be that as it may, Cardinal Power is willing, and the rest will be obliged, to eat whatever shew-bread it may please Madame Pisa-Vitri to bake for their consumption.’
‘Does the cardinal mention anything about the ordaining of priestesses?’ asked the vicar. ”

“ Suffer the damsel to be relieved of becoming a priestess. Let her become my wife, and I swear that I will make over my estate [pg 279] of Ad Fines to the temple of the god Nemausus, with the villa upon it, and statues and works of art.”
“That is an offer to be entertained by the priesthood and not by me. Boy—hot bricks! and be quick about removing those which have become almost cold.”
A pause ensued whilst the proposal of Æmilius was discussed between the chief priestess of the fountain and the Augustal flamen and the other pontiffs.
The populace became restless, impatient, noisy. ”

“ He then refutes the heresy, the principal point attacked being that the heretics made women priestesses. No woman was at any time a priestess [167] to God: Eve herself was not; none in the Old Testament, none in the New. No woman was ever made a bishop or presbyter, and a deaconess is not a priestess, but a servant of the Church appointed for special purposes. Christ made none of the women who served Him priestesses—not Salome, not even His mother, nor Martha, nor Mary, &c. ”

“ We have difficulty in recognizing the tragic priestess we have been portraying in the enthusiastic child of travel who seems new-born into a new world. From the very outset she is in a maze of wonder and delight. ”

“ I needed love no words could say;
She drew me softly nigh her chair,
My head upon her knees to lay,
With cool hands that caressed my hair.
[17] She sat with hands as if to bless,
And looked with grave, ethereal eyes;
Ensouled by ancient quietness,
A gentle priestess of the Wise. ”

“ Music. Two Priestesses go up the steps before the shrine, draw the curtains on either side (discovering the Goddess) , then open the gates and remain on steps, one on either side, and kneel. A Priestess goes off and returns with a veil of marriage, then assists Phœbe to veil Camma. ”

“ And thus did the Ephesians play the 'March of the Goddess Hecate,' and the sound of the queenly tread of the Infernal Goddess seemed to follow the ranks of her devotees, ranks of priests and priestesses dressed in black raiment bestud with stars of gold, a crescent moon on every brow. They held their hands towards the earth. ”

“ They are supposed to act as intermediaries, and are not considered to exert any malign influence; in fact, being a priestess makes little difference in the routine of life; they marry, and have all other liberties usually accorded to their sex. ”

“ After this was pronounced she was led away to the atrium of Vesta, and lived thenceforward within the sacred precincts, under the special superintendence and control of the pontifical college. The period of service lasted for thirty years. During the first ten the priestess was engaged in learning her mysterious duties, being termed discipula, during the next ten in performing them, during the last ten in giving instructions to the novices, and so long as she was thus employed she was bound by a solemn vow of chastity. ”

“ ACT II. Scene.—Interior of the Temple of Artemis.
Small gold gates on platform in front of the veil before the colossal statue of the Goddess, and in the centre of the Temple a tripod altar, on which is a lighted lamp. Lamps (lighted) suspended between each pillar. Tripods, vases, garlands of flowers, etc., about stage. Altar at back close to Goddess, with two cups. Solemn music. Priestesses decorating the Temple.
Enter a Priestess.
Priestess.
Phœbe, that man from Synorix, who has been
So oft to see the Priestess, waits once more
Before the Temple. [55]
Phœbe. ”

“ It will necessitate the early ordination of a number of priestesses. Not mere vestals nor acolytes, mind you, but priestesses, women invested with full power to celebrate mass, to hear confession and give absolution, extreme unction, in short, to administer all the sacraments. Our laymen will clamour for it, and our women will see that they are mistresses of the situation, and will command it. ”

“ It has been an article of popular belief, from the earliest period of the history of the nations of western Europe, that women were more easily brought into connection with the spiritual world than men; priestesses were the favorite agents of the deities of the ages of paganism. ”

“ Thus sometimes priestesses were required to be virgins, if not for their whole life, at any rate for the duration of their priesthood; in other cases, however, married women might undertake the priestly functions. ”