Deuteronomy has its position in the very midst of the historical
crisis, and still stands in a close relation with the older period
of worship, the conditions of which it can contest, but is unable
to ignore, and still less to deny. But, on the other hand, the
Priestly Code is hindered by no survival to present times of the
older usage from projecting an image of antiquity such as it must
have been; unhampered by visible relics or living tradition of an
older state, it can idealise the past to its heart's content. Its
place, then, is after Deuteronomy, and in the third post-exilian
period of the history of the cultus, in which, on the one hand,
the unity of the sanctuary was an established fact, contested by
no one and impugned by nothing, and in which, on the other hand,
the natural connection between the present and the past had been so
severed by the exile that there was no obstacle to prevent an
artificial and ideal repristination of the latter.
I.III.
The reverse of this is what is usually held. In Deuteronomy, it
is considered, there occur clear references to the period of the
kings; but the Priestly Code, with its historical
presuppositions, does not fit in with any situation belonging to
that time, and is therefore older.
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