But the centralisation of the cultus had also not
a little to do with the inner change which the feasts underwent.
At first the gifts of the various seasons of the year are offered
by the individual houses as each one finds convenient; afterwards
they are combined, and festivals come into existence; last of all,
the united offerings of individuals fall into the back ground when
compared with the single joint-offering on behalf of the entire
community. According as stress is laid upon the common character
of the festival and uniformity in its observance, in precisely the
same degree does it become separated from the roots from which it
sprang, and grow more and more abstract. That it is then very
ready to assume a historical meaning may partly also be attributed
to the circumstance that history is not, like harvest, a personal
experience of individual households, but rather an experience of
the nation as a whole. One does not fail to observe, of course,
that the festivals--which always to a certain degree have a
centralising tendency--have IN THEMSELVES a disposition to become
removed from the particular motives of their institution, but in
no part of the legislation has this gone so far as in the Priestly
Code.
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