High Priest: Difference between revisions

** In ''[[Discworld/Small Gods|Small Gods]]'' Deacon Vorbis of the Omnian church plots to take over the Omnian High Priest post (The Cenobriarch) and usher in a new age of religious terror.

* ''[[Stranger in Aa Strange Land]]'' has Foster, the founder of the Church of the New Revelation, and his successor, Supreme Bishop Digby. Valentine Michael Smith, as the leader of the Church of All Worlds, also fits.

* A common role for Constitutional Monarchs as it ties in with their role as master of ceremonies for the state. Sometimes this is taken more seriously then others, for instance the Emperor of Japan really is the high priest of State Shinto, whereas the QueenKing of England is only nominally head of the Anglican Church and has to deal with the fact that being head of a multinational state makes large numbers of herhis subjects non-anglicanAnglican. For instance, Scots are largely Presbyterian; Indians when part of the empire were Hindus and Muslims predominately plus some minority faiths like Sikhs, Jains, and Parsees.

** Judaism has not had a high priest since the destruction of the great Temple by Titus.

*** The requirements for high priest are descent from the Levite tribe; physical purity(especially legitimate birth and freedom from deliberate physical disfigurements associated with paganism); and if this troppertroper remembers, masculinity, at least there are no female high priests recorded. Unlike Catholicism, Jewish High Priests had consorts. Personal behavior is not a requirement(though highly encouraged obviously), as the sacrifice is meant to atone for the High Priest's sins as well as those of Israel in general and in any event the High Priest's duties were more those of an icon then a teacher or role model. However there is one Biblical record of an otherwise decent High Priest punished by God with heart failure for tolerating his sons' excessive corruption.

*** The High Priest stricken with heart failure would have been Eli, mentor to Samuel who succeeded him as one of the most beloved High Priests. Eli's sons were guilty of desecration, extortion, womanizing and possibly power-rape. They themselves were punished by dying in battle which sounds like a more honorable death then they really deserved.

*** Oddly enough Moses was not High Priest. That job went to his brother Aaron. Moses rather would have been both first of the prophets and first of the judges.

** The Caliphate has tended to go to the most prestigious monarch in Islam by tradition and thus the claim is usually only recognized by a part of Islam; a large part of the disagreement between Shia and Sunni hinges on that, though it is also about ethnic strife between Persians vs Turks and Arabs. Today the Caliphate has no official holder though several radical groups claim it's restoration as part of their platform. This is really an unfortunate association as past Caliphs were often [[Fair for Its Day|Fair for their Day]] and while certainly as bloodthirsty as typical monarchs of the time were not as boorish or fanatical and could often be [[Cultured Warrior|Cultured Warriors.]]

*** To be precise Shia has a "monarchial" concept with the office going to Mohammad's kin, whereas Sunni has a "democratic" concept of consensus among Islam, with however no institutional mechanism for election. On the whole, historically the Sunni model has been the closest to what was followed though like all religions Islam is highly factionalized and often the title simply went with [[Asskicking Equals Authority|military success.]]

*** One obscure aspect of a monarch possessing the Caliphate or claiming to is that this gives a subtle diplomatic advantage. Warlords needing a cloak of legitimacy to retire safely with and perhaps form a dynasty of their own would compete for his favor. This, like any patronage strategy had to be used carefully(after all no one would suddenly become a lone desert dervish if the Caliph refused to make him an Emir), but a clever statesman could cultivate it well.

** The Sikhs have had ten gurus. The tenth however is their religious writings rather then a person.

** The High Priest of Christianity in general is ultimately held to be Jesus himself who is held to have Incarnated as a human. This by the way went with some interesting rabinical ingenuity on St Paul's part as Jesus was not a Levite and Christianity was not at the time considered split off from Judaiism.