Doubtless the accurate
determination of dates is correlated with the other circumstance
that the festivals are no longer kept in an isolated way by
people at any place they may choose, but by the whole united
nation at a single spot. It is therefore probable that the fixing
of the date w as accomplished at first in the case of the autumn
festival, which was the first to divest itself of its local
character and most readily suffered a transposition of a week or
two. It was hardest to change in the case of the _maccoth_
festival; the putting of the sickle to the corn is very
inconvenient to shift. But here the passover seems to have
exerted an influence. For the passover is indeed an annual feast,
but not by the nature of things connected with any particular
season of the year; rather was it dependent originally on the
phases of the moon. Its character as a _pannychis_ [vigil]
(Exodus xii. 42 [LYL #MWRYM]) points in this direction,
as also does the analogy of the Arab feasts.
The verification of the alleged denaturalisation of the feasts
in the Priestly Code lies in this, that their historical
interpretation, for which the way is already paved by the
Jehovistic tradition, here attains its full development.
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