Well I did a little digging and found that scripture gives evidence that there were orders of holy women who lived in the temple and devoted their lives to worship and prayer. Anna was one such woman. (Luke 2:36-38) In fact, when Anna recognizes Mary and the child Jesus the legend has it that she did so because Mary was once her novice in the women’s order in the temple.
Ok. But Luke ain’t Jewish scriputre.
Also the experience of the
Essene Community indicates a vital ‘monastic’ tradition in Judaism at the time of Christ.
I don’t know how vital it was, but that doesn’t really support or detract from the belief that there were consecrated virgins to the Temple. The Essence’s were, I believe, their own community and were not part of the Priesthood. There is so little written about them from an eyewitness account. I could be mistaken. I tend to forget as much as I learn.
There is also the story of Jephthah’s daughter in the book of Judges. (Judges 11. 31-40) Jephthah made a rash vow to sacrifice the first thing he saw on return from battle, and the first person to greet him was his daughter. Did he actually kill her, or did he make the oblation in form of her service to the temple.
I believe he killed her. This, btw, is an example of how the commandments in the Decaloug were more important than other commandments. Rather than break the commandment regarding oaths, he kills his daughter, breaking the commandment against human sacrifice.
Here is the Douay-Rheims commentary on this tragic event:
31 “Whosoever”… Some are of opinion, that the meaning of this vow of Jephte, was to consecrate to God whatsoever should first meet him, according to the condition of the thing; so as to offer it up as a holocaust, if it were such a thing as might be offered by the law; or to devote it otherwise to God, if it were not such as the law allowed to be offered in sacrifice. And therefore they think the daughter of Jephte was not slain by her father, but only consecrated to perpetual virginity. But the common opinion followed by the generality of the holy fathers and divines is, that she was offered as a holocaust, in consequence of her father’s vow: and that Jephte did not sin, at least not mortally, neither in making, nor in keeping, his vow: since he is no ways blamed for it in scripture; and was even inspired by God himself to make the vow (as appears from ver. 29, 30) in consequence of which he obtained the victory; and therefore he reasonably concluded that God, who is the master of life and death, was pleased on this occasion to dispense with his own law; and that it was the divine will he should fulfil his vow.
When she heard the news she didn’t grieve that she was losing her life, but that she would never marry. Some scholars think that she joined an order of temple virgins, and that such orders existed regularly within the Jewish religion.
Again, not part of Jewish scriputres. My original statement is that there’s nothing in Jewish Scripture that says the Temple took consecrated virgins into its service. In fact, the laws of Leviticus are crystal clear on who is to serve in the Temple and how and when. If you can plow through Leviticus from beginning to end, you will have a greater appreciation of this.
