started, namely, the rites of the barley sheaf, the loaves of bread, and the booths (Leviticus xxiii.).  But these are mere rites, petrified remains of the old custom; the actual first-fruits belonging to the owners of the soil are collected by the priests, the shadow of them is retained at the festival in the form of the sheaf offered by the whole community—­a piece of symbolism which has now become quite separated from its connection and is no longer understood.  And since the giving of thanks for the fruits of the field has ceased to have any substantial place in the feasts, the very shadow of connection between the two also begins to disappear, for the rites of Leviticus xxiii. are taken over from an older legislation, and for the most part are passed over in silence in Numbers xxviii., xxix.  Here, again, the passover has followed a path of its own.  Even at an earlier period, substitution of other cattle and sheep was permitted.  But now in the Priestly Code the firstlings are strictly demanded indeed, but merely as dues, not as sacrifices; the passover, always a yearling lamb or kid, has neither in fact nor in time anything to do with them, but occupies a separate position alongside.  But as it is represented to have been instituted in order that the Hebrew first born may be spared in the destruction of those of the Egyptians, this connection betrays the fact that the yearling lambs are after all only a substitute for the firstlings of all animals fit for sacrifice, but in comparison with the cattle and sheep of the Jehovistic tradition and Deuteronomy a secondary substitute, and one for the uniformity of which there is no motive; and we see further that if the firstlings are now over and above assigned to the priests this is equivalent to a reduplication, which has been made possible first by a complete obscuration, and afterwards by an artificial revival of the original custom.

A further symptom also proper to be mentioned here is the fixing of harvest festival terms by the days of the month, which is to be found exclusively in the Priestly Code.  Easter falls upon the fifteenth, that is, at full moon, of the first, the feast of tabernacles upon the same day of the seventh month; Pentecost, which, strange to say, is left undetermined in Numbers xxviii., falls, according to Leviticus xxiii., seven weeks after Easter.  This definite dating points not merely to a fixed and uniform regulation of the cultus, but also to a change in its contents.  For it is not a matter of indifference that according to the Jehovistic-Deuteronomic legislation Easter is observed in “the month of corn ears” when the sickle is put to the corn, Pentecost at the end of the wheat harvest, and the feast of tabernacles after the ingathering; as harvest feasts they are from their very nature regulated by the condition of the fruits of the soil.  When they cease to be so, when they are made to depend upon the phases of the moon, this means that their connection with