THE EVOLUTION OF HEBREW RELIGION. 599 



With the permission of Cyrus, the Jews returned to Palestine, and 

 the Temple at Jerusalem was rebuilt. The question now arose in 

 what forms the ceremonial of the new sanctuary should be conducted. 

 The time-honored festivals, the solemn and joyful convocations, the sac- 

 rifices and purifications of the olden time, were all more or less infected 

 with the taint of paganism. Prophecy would have none of them 

 prophecy, free child of genius, contemned sacrifice, denounced the 

 priesthood, even the temple and its ritual ; ' proclaimed humbleness 

 and loving-kindness as the true service in which Jehovah takes de- 

 light. There was formalism on the one hand, idealism on the other. 

 As is usual in such cases, when the time had arrived for turning theory 

 into practice, it was found necessary to effect a compromise. As 

 Christianity in later days adopted the yule-tree into its system, and 

 lit the lamps of the heathen festival of the 25th of December in honor 

 of the nativity of its founder, so the leaders of the Jews, in the fifth 

 century before our era, adopted the feasts and usages of an ancient 

 Nature-worship, breathed into them a new spirit, informed them with 

 a loftier meaning, and made them tokens, symbols of the eternal God. 

 The old foes were thus reconciled ; priesthood and prophecy joined 

 hands, and were thenceforth united. As an offspring of this union, 

 we behold a new code of laws and prescriptions, whose marked and 

 inharmonious features at once betray the dual nature of its progeni- 

 tors. "A x-ough preliminary draft, as it were,"' of this code, is pre- 

 served in the book of Ezekiel, composed probably about the middle 

 of the fifth century. In its finished and final shape, it forms the bulk 

 of a still later work of Leviticus, the third of the books of the Penta- 

 teuch : of all the discoveries of criticism, none more noteworthy, none 

 we are bound to consider more assured. What lends additional cer- 

 tainty to the result is the circumstance that it was reached indepen- 

 dently by two of the most esteemed scholars of our day, the one a 

 Professor of Theology in the University of Ley den, 2 the other a vet- 

 eran of thought, whose brow is wreathed by the ripe honors of more 

 than fourscore years. 3 Let us briefly advert to the line of argument 

 by which this astonishing conclusion was reached : 



The author of the book of Ezekiel was a priest, and one confessedly 

 loyal to the sanctuary of Jerusalem. Now, had the laws of the Leviti- 

 cal code, which minutely describe the ritual of that sanctuary, existed, 

 or been regarded as authoritative in his day, he could not, would not. 

 have disregarded, much less contradicted, their provisions. He does 

 this, and, be it remarked, in points of capital importance. In chap- 

 ter xlv. of Ezekiel are mentioned the great festivals, with the sacrifices 

 appropriate to each; but the feast of Pentecost, commanded in Leviti- 

 cus, is entirely omitted ; also that of the eighth day of tabernacles. 

 The second of the daily burnt-offerings, upon which the legislator of 



1 Jeremiah vii. 4 ; Isaiah Ixvi. 1 ; Micah vi. 6. 2 Prof. A. Kuenen. 



3 The venerable Dr. Zunz, of Berlin. 



