The distinction between the PSX MCRYM and
the PSX HDWRWT is necessary, if only for the reason that the former
is a historical fact, the latter a commemorative observance.
When it is argued for the originality of the passover ritual
in the Priestly Code that it alone fits in with the conditions
of the sojourn in Egypt, the position is not to be disputed.
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In the case of Pentecost alone is there no tendency to historical
explanation; that in this instance has been reserved for later
Judaism, which from the chronology of the Book of Exodus
discerned in the feast a commemoration of the giving of the law at
Sinai. But one detects the drift of the later time.
It has been already pointed out, in what has just been said, that
as regards this development the centralisation of the cultus was
epochmaking. Centralisation is synonymous with generalisation
and fixity, and these are the external features by which
the festivals of the Priestly Code are distinguished from those
which preceded them. In evidence I point to the prescribed
sacrifice of the community instead of the spontaneous sacrifice
of the individual, to the date fixed for the 15th of the month,
to the complete separation between sacrifices and dues, to the
reduction of the passover to uniformity; nothing is free or the
spontaneous growth of nature, nothing is indefinite and still
in process of becoming; all is statutory, sharply defined,
distinct.
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