Aaron, but also his son Eleazar, and his grandson Phineas, and bestowed on
them the right of administering the office of high priest. (61) This right
was retained by the high priests afterwards, but none the less were they
delegates of Moses - that is, of the sovereign power. (62) Moses, as we have
shown, left no successor to his dominion, but so distributed his
prerogatives, that those who came after him seemed, as it were, regents who
administer the government when a king is absent but not dead.

(19:62) In the second commonwealth the high priests held their right
absolutely, after they had obtained the rights of principality in addition.
(63) Wherefore the rights of the high priesthood always depended on the
edict of the sovereign, and the high priests did not possess them till
they became sovereigns also. (64) Rights in matters spiritual always
remained under the control of the kings absolutely (as I will show at the
end of this chapter), except in the single particular that they were not
allowed to administer in person the sacred duties in the Temple, inasmuch
as they were not of the family of Aaron, and were therefore considered
unclean, a reservation which would have no force in a Christian community.

(19:65) We cannot, therefore, doubt that the daily sacred rites (whose
performance does not require a particular genealogy but only a special mode
of life, and from which the holders of sovereign power are not excluded as
unclean) are under the sole control of the sovereign power; no one,
save by the authority or concession of such sovereign, has the right or
power of administering them, of choosing others to administer them, of
defining or strengthening the foundations of the Church and her doctrines;
of judging on questions of morality or acts of piety; of receiving
anyone into the Church or excommunicating him therefrom, or, lastly, of
providing for the poor.