But of the latter we
hear not a single word, while we can follow the course of the
former fairly well from its beginnings in thought down to its
issue in a practical result. It was Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah who
introduced the movement against the old popular worship of the high
places; in doing so they are not in the least actuated by a
deep-rooted preference for the temple of Jerusalem, but by ethical
motives, which manifest themselves in them for the first time in
history, and which we can see springing up in them before our very
eyes: their utterances, though historically occasioned by the
sanctuaries of northern Israel, are quite general, and are directed
against the cultus as a whole. Of the influence of a point of view
even remotely akin to the priestly position that worship in this
or that special place is of more value than anywhere else, and on
that account alone deserves to be preserved, no trace is to be
found in them; their polemic is a purely prophetic one, i.e.,
individual, "theopneust" in the sense that it is independent of all
traditional and preconceived human opinions. But the subsequent
development is dependent upon this absolutely original
commencement, and has its issue, not in the Priestly Code, but in
Deuteronomy, a book that, with all reasonable regard for the
priests (though not more for those of Jerusalem than for the
others), still does not belie its prophetic origin, and above all
things is absolutely free from all and every hierocratic
tendency.
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