A further symptom also proper to be mentioned here is the fixing of
harvest festival terms by the days of the month, which is to be
found exclusively in the Priestly Code. Easter falls upon the
fifteenth, that is, at full moon, of the first, the feast of
tabernacles upon the same day of the seventh month; Pentecost,
which, strange to say, is left undetermined in Numbers xxviii.,
falls, according to Leviticus xxiii., seven weeks after Easter.
This definite dating points not merely to a fixed and uniform
regulation of the cultus, but also to a change in its contents.
For it is not a matter of indifference that according to the
Jehovistic-Deuteronomic legislation Easter is observed in "the
month of corn ears" when the sickle is put to the corn, Pentecost
at the end of the wheat harvest, and the feast of tabernacles
after the ingathering; as harvest feasts they are from their
very nature regulated by the condition of the fruits of the soil.
When they cease to be so, when they are made to depend upon the
phases of the moon, this means that their connection with their
natural occasion is being lost sight of.
Pages:
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247