difference.  If at the end of our first section we found improbable precisely in this region the independent co-existence of ancient praxis and Mosaic law, the improbability becomes still greater from the fact that the latter is filled with a quite different spirit, which can be apprehended only as Spirit of the age (Zeitgeist).  It is not from the atmosphere of the old kingdom, but from that of the church of the second temple, that the Priestly Code draws its breath.  It is in accordance with this that the sacrificial ordinances as regards their positive contents are no less completely ignored by antiquity than they are scrupulously followed by the post-exilian time.

CHAPTER III.  THE SACRED FEASTS.

The feasts, strictly speaking, belong to the preceding chapter, for originally they were simply regularly recurring occasions for sacrifice.  The results of the investigation there made accordingly repeat themselves here, but with such clearness and precision as make it worth while to give the subject a separate consideration.  In the first place and chiefly, the history of the solar festivals, that of those festivals which follow the seasons of the year, claims our attention.

III.I.1 In the Jehovistic and Deuteronomistic parts of the Pentateuch there predominates a rotation of three great festivals, which alone receive the proper designation of hag:  “Three times in the year shalt thou keep festival unto me, three times in the year shall all thy men appear before the Lord Jehovah, the God of Israel” (Exodus xxiii. 14, 17, xxxiv. 23; Deuteronomy xvi. 16).  “The feast of unleavened bread (maccoth) shalt thou keep; seven days shalt thou eat maccoth as I commanded thee, in the time appointed of the month Abib, for in it thou camest out from Egypt; and none shall appear before me empty; and the feast of harvest (qasir), the first-fruits of thy labours, which thou hast sown in the field; and the feast of ingathering (asiph), in the end of the year, when thou gatherest in thy labours out of the field.”  So runs the command in the Book of the Covenant (Exodus xxiii. 15, 16).  The Law of the Two Tables (Exodus xxxiv. 18 seq.) is similar:  “The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep.  Seven days shalt thou eat unleavened bread, as I commanded thee, in the time of the month Abib:  for in the month Abib thou camest out of Egypt.  All that openeth the womb is mine; every firstling among thy cattle, whether ox or sheep, that is male.  The firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb:  and if thou redeem him not, then shalt thou break his neck.  All the firstborn of thy sons shalt thou redeem.  And none shall appear before me empty.  Six days shalt thou work; but on the seventh day shalt thou rest:  even in ploughing time and in harvest shalt thou rest.  And the feast of weeks (shabuoth) shalt thou observe, the feasts of the first-fruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering (asiph)