priestly aristocracy

From his family he knew how corrupt & arrogant the priestly aristocracy were.

Moses set up a senatorial priestly aristocracy, which, like that of Rome, resisted monarchy.

The Jewish priestly aristocracy also lived off the backs of the people and so the burden of taxation was quite severe, though possibly not much worse than most imperial colonies.

First-century Palestine was a peasant society organised by exploitation, in which wealth was channelled upwards to the ruling elites and above all to the priestly aristocracy centred around the Temple in Jerusalem.

Josephus also writes that Abraham taught science to the Egyptians, who in turn taught the Greeks, and that Moses set up a senatorial priestly aristocracy, which like Rome resisted monarchy.

As the two principal branches of Judaism of the period, the Sadducees were a sect dominated by a priestly aristocracy that opposed the Pharisees, a conservative sect led by lay teachers with strict views of religious laws.

Mosca states that "In societies in which religious beliefs are strong and ministers of the faith form a special class a priestly aristocracy almost always arises and gains possession of a more or less important share of the wealth and the political power."