The altar which the tribes eastward of Jordan build (Josh. xxii.)
is erected with no intention that it should be used, but merely in
commemoration of something. Even the pre-Mosaic period is rendered
orthodox in the same fashion. The patriarchs, having no
tabernacle, have no worship at all; according to the Priestly
Code they build no altars, bring no offerings, and scrupulously
abstain from everything by which they might in any way encroach
on the privilege of the one true sanctuary. This manner of shaping
the patriarchal history is only the extreme consequence of the
effort to carry out with uniformity in history the semper
ubique et ab omnibus of the legal unity of worship.
Thus in Deuteronomy the institution is only in its birth-throes,
and has still to struggle for the victory against the praxis of
the present, but in the Priestly Code claims immemorial legitimacy
and strives to bring the past into conformity with itself,
obviously because it already dominates the present; the carrying
back of the new into the olden time always takes place at a later
date than the ushering into existence of the new itself.
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