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now came into existence comprising the two Books of the Law (Deut. and Priestly Code), plus the older writings of Genesis, the Book of the Covenant (Ex. xx.-xxiv.), and Joshua. There were other 'writings" extant then, e.g. Judges, Samuel, Kings, also the Prophets, but they were not thought worthy of a place side by side with the Holy Law. The Hexateuch, or at any rate the Pentateuch, alone formed the Bible of 444 B.C. Even in the Pentateuch itself great changes were made. The older books were first thoroughly revised and brought into closer harmony with the spirit of the Priestly Code. The Code itself was now given a historical setting of its own to vindicate, as of Divine origin, the Priestly Law and such new institutions as the enhanced value attached to Sabbath-observance, circumcision, the priestly ritual and hierarchy, the centralisation of worship, and the new feasts and fasts.1 The eightyfive new chapters, and also shorter interpolations, were distributed among the various books for this very purpose, e.g. Gen. i. was inserted with its story of the Creation leading up expressly to the Sabbathobservance advocated by the Code; the Flood is given a new setting closing with a command not to eat blood; and the history of Isaac's birth has in view the new meaning now attached to circumcision. Similarly, to bring them into line with the Priestly

'P might be called "Origins of the Institutions of Israel," for, according to it, these institutions were not all at once, but progressively, revealed and amplified from age to age as occasion demanded. Thus the sabbath-ordinance has its origin and sanction in the Creation itself, as God's own Day of rest. The Flood gives occasion to the first permission of animal-food, with the proviso prohibiting flesh with blood in it. Circumcision first comes in with Abraham, while the Passover (and its name) is ordained in connection with the last Egyptian plague; and all the ordinances of worship were revealed at Sinai. And, as P's only legitimate sacrifice presupposes one central_temple and altar, a legitimate priesthood, and regular ritual, the patriarchs in P never offer sacrifice. No sacrifice before God's institution of the Tabernacle and its cultus could be anything but impious, like heathen worship. On the same principle of progressive revelation, these institutions were not all first revealed to Israel, e.g. the Sabbath is instituted at the Creation, i.e. a revelation to all men; but the extension of Revelation gradually narrows, e.g. Adam (all men); Noah's son Shem (= Semites); Terah's line, i.e. Abraham (= Hebrews). Hence the genealogies and their value.

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Code, the Passover, an old agricultural festival, is given quite a new significance, while the Day of Atonement, of very late origin, is made out to be a Mosaic institution, and the most important and holiest of Holy Days; the centralisation of worship in the Tabernacle is also made out to be the rule already in Moses' day, while priests and Levites are represented as a caste set apart by Divine order from the very first.

The Priestly Code thus cuts across plain facts of history, is wholly based on theocratic motives and ideals, and throws back its own ideals into a remote past. Its symbolical ideas are transformed into tangible history, simply because its authors honestly and verily believed that what is done, and ought to be done, in their day was always done by true Israelites in all ages, exactly as we Churchmen throw back, in all honesty of conscience, our own view of episcopacy into the New Testament. In their eyes, for instance, sacrifice not done by priests, or offered outside the Temple, is sheer profanity; hence in the Priestly Writings the early patriarchs never offer sacrifice in person, nor good kings either, yet we know they constantly did so.

Such was the Priestly Code of Holiness. What estimate are we to form of its moral and religious value? This question we discuss in our next chapter.

CHAPTER XIV

MORAL AND SPIRITUAL VALUE OF PRIESTLY CODE

WHAT estimate are we to form of the Priestly Code's moral and spiritual worth? On this point, from New Testament days onward, opinions have been very divided. One school condemns it wholesale, the other exalts it as a God-given guide to heaven. Let us state the case for and against the Code as impartially as we can; though it is very difficult for either Christian or Jew1 to hold the scales without bias.

(A) Against the Code.-The case against the Code, as it strikes the ordinary Christian steeped in Paul's Epistles and the Gospels, is easily stated. From this standpoint, its weak points "jump to the eyes," with its meticulous attention to trivial external details, its stress on the mechanical performance of mere ritual and ceremonial acts, "its weak and beggarly elements." This spirit of legalism seems such a sad fall off from

As Montefiore, H.L., 355 sqq. and 467 sq. well points out, (1) The best O.T. historian, if unversed in Rabbinical literature, is a most inadequate authority for the post-Nehemian era, because (2) O.T. history ends with 432 B.C. and helps us practically not at all to a correct estimate of the evolution of Judaism from 400 B.C. onward, its most important period. The apocalypses give us but the mere fringe of it, and the O.T. Canon, already in existence in 130 B.C., thus leaves us in mediis rebus. (3) In the O.T. we see only tendencies to a fully established Judaism, still in the making even in Jesus' day, and not complete till about 200 A.D. This is known as Rabbinism, and it alone gives us the real clue we need for the delineation of the religious evolution from 400 B.C. which led up to it. (4) Montefiore, H.L., 358, rightly adds that we must avoid two snares: (a) "Christian theologians too habitually look at post-exilic Judaism through Pauline spectacles," (b) the Jew looks at it from the standpoint of modern Judaism. The one safe guide, according to Montefiore, is to steep yourself in such documentary evidence as we have in post-exilic O.T. literature (for though O.T. history ends in 432, O.T. litera ture goes on to 160 B.C.), .g. the Psalter; while the only commentary of any real use to a right understanding of post-exilic O.T. Judaism is to be found in its child, Rabbinism, spirit of its spirit. The "end" explains the earlier stages and gives them their true inner meaning.

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the living truths and inspiring principles of the prophets, with their heart-religion and their worship of God in spirit and in truth. In a word, the Priestly Code, looked at in this light, does not fall into line with our idea of religion as a character and a life. Our idea of Religion is that it should work from within outwards, as the self-utterance of a heart so full of the love of God that it constrains us to uprightness of character and the service of our brother-man. True religion should stress the spirit rather than the letter, the motive rather than the deed, character above action.

Now, says the Paulinist, the Priestly Code does the very opposite. In it acts, not motives, count. The moral factor, the man's frame of heart, is all but a negligible quantity; it is punctilious attention to the Code's ceremonial etiquette alone that matters and works with magical efficacy. From first to last the Code tells us: Do this prescribed action, refrain from this unclean thing, and you earn merit with God; if you do this wrong act or come in contact with that unclean thing, then go straight to a priest with the prescribed offering in your hand, and this will of itself avert God's wrath and punishment. And what is the outcome of such a Creed? From fear of punishment or hope of reward, men perform the duties prescribed and go on their way rejoicing that it is so easy to make God and the world thus walk hand in hand. Morally and spiritually, such compliance does little or no good and almost invariably degenerates into a hollow dead form. Religious observances which do not touch will or heart leave men as they were, and not infrequently beget hypocrisy and Pharisaism.

Moreover the Code, urge its critics, fosters a totally wrong idea of God. He is a God so "Holy," so aloof from all that is common or unclean, that He is all but inaccessible in His awe-ful and unapproachable Glory. All immediate access to Him is forbidden to His people. For a layman to draw near, except

by proxy through His priests, means instant death. Even of the priests themselves, none but one, the chiefest, dare enter the Holy of Holies into the immediate Presence, and that only once a year. Naturally, such a transcendent conception of God gave the Jews the idea of a God to whom they looked up with awe, but not a God who appealed to them as a Father, neither could they feel for Him the love and trust of children. He is a stern Judge, noting all man's actions with an exacting eye, keeping a record in which He credits to him all acts of obedience to His Law, while debiting all transgressions of it, the balance for or against him in God's Book deciding the man's fate. Hence, in legal Judaism, religion becomes increasingly a matter of pure calculation: not, How much can I do for God? but, How little may I do and yet secure the reward I seek? The inevitable tendency is for the relationship between God and man to degenerate into a kind of legal contract, under which man gives God only just so much as he is absolutely obliged by the terms of the bond.

Hence, it is asked, how can such a religion, (1) in which acts, not motives, count; (2) in which a man's heaven or hell is arithmetically computed; (3) in which it is so easy for a man to make terms with his conscience and his God by merely conforming to a fixed scale of outward formalities,-how can such a religion produce in its votaries anything but formalism, sanctimoniousness, and hypocrisy? Is it any wonder that heart-religion and true morality receded into the background, as our New Testament shows? A religion of the Law must produce either self-righteous Pharisees, or else drive men into despair, as St. Paul found.

With St. Paul, these critics of the Law deny it all moral or spiritual value. St. Paul is not content with branding it as worthless for righteousness. He deliberately adds: it was given "for the sake (xápiv) of transgressions," ie. not to make us good,-this is

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