The law which abolished all sacrificial seats, with a single
exception, severed this connection. Deuteronomy indeed does not
contemplate such a result. Here, in marked opposition to what we
find in the Priestly Code, to eat and be merry before Jehovah is
the standing phrase for sacrificing; the idea is that in
concentrating all the worship towards Jerusalem, all that is
effected is a mere change of place, the essence of the thing
remaining unaltered. This, however, was a mistake. To celebrate
the vintage festival among one's native hills, and to celebrate it
at Jerusalem, were two very different things; it was not a matter
of indifference whether one could seize on the spot any occasion
that casually offered itself for a sacrificial meal, or whether it
was necessary that one should first enter upon a journey. And it
was not the same thing to appear by oneself at home before Jehovah
and to lose oneself in a large congregation at the common seat of
worship. Human life has its root in local environment, and so also
had the ancient cultus; in being transplanted from its natural
soil it was deprived of its natural nourishment.
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