IS THE SO-CALLED PRIESTLY CODE " OP POST-EXILIC DATE ? 81 



The only criticism that he would make on Chancellor Lias' paper 

 was this, that the critics would always shuffle out from an argument 

 resting on the linguistic basis. 



Mrs. Maunder pointed out that the critics ascribed the Priestly 

 Code to the time of Artaxerxes Longimanus, when the Zoroastrian 

 faith was in full vigour. The Jews had then been under Persian 

 rule for 80 years, whereas they had been under Babylonian for only 

 50. If this were the date of the Priestly Code, we ought to find some 

 traces of, or reference to, the Magian and Zoroastrian doctrines. 

 We do find such traces in the book of Tobit, the keynote of 

 which is the pious action of Tobit in burying the body of a murdered 

 countryman ; the author assuming that the burial customs at 

 Nineveh in the days of Sennacherib were the same as he had 

 experience of some centuries later at Rhagae and Ecbatana. Now 

 in the whole of the Priestly Code we have no hint of the knowledge 

 of such a custom as the exposure of the corpse to be devoured by 

 birds and beasts, the fundamental practice of Zoroastrianism. We 

 find from the Talmud that the later Jews imbibed a number of 

 superstitions concerning devils and demons from the Persians ; 

 there is no trace of any of these, either by Avay of recognition or 

 condemnation, in the Priestly Code. In the Zoroastrian idea, the 

 north was the abode of devils ; it was forbidden to pour out, 

 even one's household water, towards the north, lest it be taken as a 

 libation to them. But P orders in Leviticus i, 11, that the priest 

 shall kill the sacrifice before the altar, " northward" before the Lord. 



Canon R. B. GiRDLESTONE hoped that so far from this being 

 Chancellor Lias' last paper to them, he would live twenty years 

 longer and give them many more. He had been very glad to see 

 that Mr. Wiener was there, and to hear what he had said ; 

 especially as he belonged to the Israelite people. He was right in 

 saying that they must consider the setting of the Code as well as its 

 words. If they took Leviticus as a w^hole, and as a member of a 

 still greater living whole, then they could see how admirably it 

 fitted together. But on the other hand he was not willing to 

 surrender the linguistic argument, which was most precious. They 

 found in the Pentateuch old words, a definite coinage that vanished 

 in the later books. When they compared the books of Samuel and 

 Kings with Chronicles, and tested the Hebrew, sentence by sentence, 

 they found that the Chronicler, whilst quoting from Samuel and 



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