objections, all of which, however, laboured more or less under the
disadvantage that they rested upon the foundation which had
already been shattered. Passages were quoted from Amos and Hosea
as implying an acquaintance with the Priestly Code, but they were
not such as could make any impression on those who were already
persuaded that the latter was the more recent. Again it was
asserted, and almost with violence, that the Priestly Code could
not be later than Deuteronomy, and that the Deuteronomist actually
had it before him. But the evidences of this proved extremely
problematical, while, on the other hand, the dependence of
Deuteronomy, as a whole, on the Jehovist came out with the utmost
clearness. Appeal was made to the latest redaction of the entire
Hexateuch, a redaction which was assumed to be Deuteronomistic;
but this yielded the result that the deuteronomistic redaction
could nowhere be traced in any of the parts belonging to the
Priestly Code. Even the history of the language itself was
forced to render service against Graf: it had already been too
much the custom to deal with that as if it were soft wax. To say
all in a word, the arguments which were brought into play as a
rule derived all their force from a moral conviction that the
ritual legislation must be old, and could not possibly have been
committed to writing for the first time within the period of
Judaism; that it was not operative before then, that it did not
even admit of being carried into effect in the conditions that
prevailed previous to the exile, could not shake the conviction--
all the firmer because it did not rest on argument--that at least
it existed previously.

The firemen never came near the spot where the conflagration
raged; for it is only within the region of religious antiquities