In that capacity he attracted growing interest for his reluctance to take priestly orders as well as for his remarkable asceticism and devotion.
The disputes over names were really priestly disputes between rival temples, not dogma disputes.
The priestly pretense to maternity is a grotesque parody - self-aggrandizing patriarchal power tricked out in the robes of female love and nurturance.
That is, the dead king became part of the priestly institutions.
Without the reinforcement of regular priestly contact and guidance, it is probable that they did so only imperfectly.
The existence of priestly hierarchies encouraged a loss of individual autonomy.
Any criticism of their obvious 'otherness' had to wrestle with their priestly image as a provocative but implicitly positive trait.
Stereotypical ethnic markers like vegetarianism, wearing of sacred thread, religious knowledge, priestly occupations, and spatial segregation do not even circumscribe the heterogeneity amongst the latter.
