Nor is it disputed further that
the belief in the dependence of sacrifices and other sacred acts
upon a laboriously strict compliance with traditional and prescriptive
rites occurs in the case of certain peoples, even in the remotest
antiquity. But with the Israelites, judging by the testimony of the
historical and prophetical books, this was not on the whole the
case any more than with the ancient Greeks; there were no
Brahmans or Magians in either case. Moreover, it must be carefully
noted that not even in the Priestly Code do we yet find the same
childish appreciation of the cultus as occurs in such a work as the
Rigveda, and that the strict rules are not prescribed and
maintained with any such notion in view as that by their
observance alone can the taste of the Deity be pleased; the idea
of God is here even strikingly remote from the anthropomorphic,
and the whole cultus is nothing more than an exercise in piety
which has simply been enjoined so once for all without any one
being in any way the better for it.
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Two details still deserve special prominence here.
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