While in Deuteronomy
they are still offered at the three great sacrificial meals in
the presence of Jehovah, in the Priestly Code they have
altogether ceased to be offerings at all, and thus also of course
have ceased to be festal offerings, being merely dues payable to
the priests (by whom they are in part collected) and not in any
case brought before the altar. Thus the feasts entirely lose
their peculiar characteristics, the occasions by which they are
inspired and distinguished; by the monotonous sameness of the
unvarying burnt-offering and sin-offering of the community as a
whole they are all put on the same even level, deprived of their
natural spontaneity, and degraded into mere "exercises of
religion." Only some very slight traces continue to bear witness
to, we might rather say, to betray, what was the point from which
the development started, namely, the rites of the barley sheaf,
the loaves of bread, and the booths (Leviticus xxiii.). But these
are mere rites, petrified remains of the old custom; the actual
first-fruits belonging to the owners of the soil are collected by
the priests, the shadow of them is retained at the festival in the
form of the sheaf offered by the whole community--a piece of
symbolism which has now become quite separated from its connection
and is no longer understood.
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