narrative, first the Deuteronomic (in Genesis even, and then quite strongly in Exodus and Joshua), while last of all, in the Priestly Code, under the influence of the legislation of the post-exile restoration, there is brought about a complete metamorphosis of the old tradition.  The law is the key to the understanding even of the narrative of the Priestly Code.  All the distinctive peculiarities of the work are connected with the influence of the law:  everywhere we hear the voice of theory, rule, judgment.  What was said above of the cultus may be repeated word for word of the legend:  in the early time it may be likened to the green tree which grows out of the ground as it will and can; at a later time it is dry wood that is cut and made to a pattern with compass and square.  It is an extraordinary objection to this when it is said that the post-exile period had no genius for productions such as the tabernacle or the chronology.  It certainly was not an original age, but the matter was all there in writing, and did not require to be invented.  What great genius was needed to transform the temple into a portable tent?  What sort of creative power is that which brings forth nothing but numbers and names?  In connection with such an age there can be no question at least of youthful freshness.  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.

C. ISRAEL AND JUDAISM.

“The Law came in between.”—­VATKE, p. 183.

CHAPTER IX.  CONCLUSION OF THE CRITICISM OF THE LAW.