C. ISRAEL AND JUDAISM.
"The Law came in between."--VATKE, p. 183.
CHAPTER IX. CONCLUSION OF THE CRITICISM OF THE LAW.
Objections have been made to the general style of the proof on
which Graf's hypothesis is based. It is said to be an illicit
argument _ex silentio_ to conclude from the fact that the priestly
legislation is latent in Ezekiel, where it should be in operation,
unknown where it should be known, that in his time it had not yet
come into existence. But what would the objectors have? Do they
expect to find positive statements of the non-existence of what
had not yet come into being? Is it more rational, to deduce _ex
silentio_, as they do, a positive proof that it did exist?-_to say,
that as there are no traces of the hierocracy in the times of the
judges and the kings it must have originated in the most remote
antiquity, with Moses? The problem would in this case still be
the same, namely, to explain how it is that with and after the
exile the hierocracy begins to come into practical activity.
What the opponents of Graf's hypothesis call its argument _ex
silentio_, is nothing more or less than the universally valid
method of historical investigation.
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