admitted that the three constituent elements are separated from each other by wide intervals; the question then arises, In what order?  Deuteronomy stands in a relation of comparative nearness both to the Jehovist and to the Priestly Code; the distance between the last two is by far the greatest,—­so great that on this ground alone Ewald as early as the year 183I (Stud. u.  Krit., p. 604) declared it impossible that the one could have been written to supplement the other.  Combining this observation with the undisputed priority of the Jehovist over Deuteronomy, it will follow that the Priestly Code stands last in the series.  But such a consideration, although, so far as I know, proceeding upon admitted data, has no value as long as it confines itself to such mere generalities.  It is necessary to trace the succession of the three elements in detail, and at once to test and to fix each by reference to an independent standard, namely, the inner development of the history of Israel so far as that is known to us by trustworthy testimonies, from independent sources.

The literary and historical investigation on which we thus enter is both wide and difficult.  It falls into three parts.  In the first, which lays the foundations, the data relating to sacred archaeology are brought together and arranged in such a way as to show that in the Pentateuch the elements follow upon one another and from one another precisely as the steps of the development demonstrably do in the history.  Almost involuntarily this argument has taken the shape of a sort of history of the ordinances of worship.  Rude and colourless that history must be confessed to be,—­a fault due to the materials, which hardly allow us to do more than mark the contrast between pre-exilic and post-exilic, and, in a secondary measure, that between Deuteronomic and pre-Deuteronomic.  At the same time there is this advantage arising out of the breadth of the periods treated:  they cannot fail to distinguish themselves from each other in a tangible manner; it must be possible in the case of historical, and even of legal works, to recognise whether they were written before or after the exile.  The second part, in many respects dependent on the first, traces the influence of the successively prevailing ideas and tendencies upon the shaping of historical tradition, and follows the various phases in which that was conceived and set forth.  It contains, so to speak, a history of tradition.  The third part sums up the critical results of the preceding two, with some further determining considerations, and concludes with a more general survey.