With infinitely greater justice
may it be maintained that such theoretical modelling and adaptation
of the legend as is practiced in the Priestly Code, could only gain
an entrance when the legend had died away from the memory and
the heart of the people, and was dead at the root.
The history of the pre-historic and the epic tradition thus passed
through the same stages as that of the historic; and in this
parallel the Priestly Code answers both as a whole, and in every
detail, to the Chronicles. The connecting link between old and
new, between Israel and Judaism, is everywhere Deuteronomy.
The Antar-romance says of itself, that it had attained an age of
670 years, 400 years of which it had spent in the age of ignorance
(i.e. old Arabic heathenism), and the other 270 in Islam. The
historical books of the Bible might say something similar, if
they were personified, and their life considered to begin with
the reduction to writing of the oldest kernel of the tradition and
to close with the last great revision. The time of ignorance
would extend to the appearance of "the book," which, it is true,
did not in the Old Testament come down from heaven all at once
like the Koran, but came into existence during a longer period,
and passed through various phases.
Pages:
792
793
794
795
796
797
798
799
800
801
802
803
804
805
806
807
808
809
810
811
812
813
814
815
816