tabernacle at its centre, the high priest at its head, the priests
and Levites as its organs, the legitimate cultus as its regular
function. It is precisely this Law, so called par exceIlence,
that creates the difficulties out of which our problem rises, and
it is only in connection with it that the great difference of
opinion exists as to date. With regard to the Jehovistic document,
all are happily agreed that, substantially at all events, in
language, horizon, and other features, it dates from the golden age
of Hebrew literature, to which the finest parts of Judges, Samuel,
and Kings, and the oldest extant prophetical writings also
belong,--the period of the kings and prophets which preceded the
dissolution of the two Israelite kingdoms by the Assyrians.
About the origin of Deuteronomy there is still less dispute; in
all circles where appreciation of scientific results can be looked
for at all, it is recognised that it was composed in the same age
as that in which it was discovered, and that it was made the rule
of Josiah's reformation, which took place about a generation before
the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldaeans. It is only in
the case of the Priestly Code that opinions differ widely; for it
tries hard to imitate the costume of the Mosaic period, and, with
whatever success, to disguise its own. This is not nearly so much
the case with Deuteronomy, which, in fact, allows the real
situation (that of the period during which, Samaria having been
destroyed, only the kingdom of Judah continued to subsist) to
reveal itself very plainly through that which is assumed (xii.8,
xix.8). And the Jehovist does not even pretend to being a Mosaic
law of any kind; it aims at being a simple book of history; the
distance between the present and the past spoken of is not
concealed in the very least. It is here that all the marks are
found which attracted the attention of Abenezra and afterwards of