CHAPTER XIII

DISASSOCIATION AS REFLECTED IN THE PRIESTLY LAW

In the Babylonian Exile the Hebrews lost political control over their affairs; and this event marked a fundamental turning-point in the evolution of their moral and social ideals. It became clear that national salvation demanded a policy of political acquiescence, of subordination to the great world-powers. The petty governors of Judea were occasionally regarded as forerunners of the Messianic King, but more and more this political idea receded into the background. Set free from the old social order of the State, the Hebrew out of his very need began to create institutions that were not political. One of these institutions was the Priestly Law. It has been said that the Hebrews went to Babylon a nation and returned a church; but the change was not so sudden as this; the Priestly view was the outcome of a long growth. David made Jerusalem a national stronghold; Isaiah preached its inviolability; the Deuteronomic law of 621 made Zion the center of Hebrew religious life; Ezekiel in Babylon drew up a Priestly code of laws for the restored community of Zion. The Priestly codes cover the period from 600 to 400. Ezekiel's code (Chapters 40-48) was the beginning; he formulated the principles which afterwards became the basis of the

Priestly system. The importance of the priesthood and sacrifice (48:11); the holiness of Yahweh and the nation (36:20); the ritual distinction between clean and unclean (44:23), were all laid down by Ezekiel. In his ideal society the "prince" was merely a guardian of the temple! Ezekiel was thus the determining link between the Deuteronomic law of 621 and the Priestly law. There was the Holiness code of Leviticus (Chapters 17-26) (between 597 and 586, Kent); there was the Priestly Teaching;1 and finally there was the Priestly Code proper, whose formulation began in Babylon about 500, and which in its completed form was brought from Babylon by Ezra, who together with Nehemiah secured its adoption by the Jewish Community about 400 B.C. (Neh. Chs. 8IO).

The Jews were subjugated by Assyria, by Babylonia, by Persia, by Greece, and by Rome; but it was their territory rather than their civilization that was conquered. Elijah withstood Canaan and her Baals; Deuteronomy was directed against the influence of Assyria over Manasseh; and the same policy of exclusiveness, with its doctrine of holiness, evolved the Priestly point of view. It was a protective measure against religious and social disintegration. Judaism incased itself in a hard shell of legalism, ritualism, ecclesiasticism; there was one place holier than other places, the temple; there was one ritualistic method of life, other methods were profane. Nehemiah and Ezra denounced marriage with foreigners to the extent of driving the Samaritans off by themselves. It was 1Lev. 1-3; 5-7; 11-15; Numb. 5; 6; 15 and 19:14-22 (Kent).

against this Priestly exclusiveness that the book of Jonah was written; in the same way the book of Ruth was a protest against the Priestly attempt to annul foreign marriages. The ethical teaching of these two books is unexcelled in the Old Testament. Nevertheless when we see that Rome lives in her roads and her laws, that Greece lives in her philosophy and art; when we see that the Greek and Roman peoples ceased to exist because they lost their early sense of social and religious solidarity, we are prepared to see the protective value of the social and religious exclusiveness of the Priestly Law.

The Exile, culminating in the Priestly Law, was the means of differentiating Church and State among the Hebrew people. The Jews who were permitted by Cyrus to return to Zion in 538 were Persian subjects. Jewish governors like Zerubbabel and Nehemiah were only shadowy specters of kings like David and Josiah. David was high-priest as well as king; now the priest absorbed the remnants of civil power. The predominant idea of the old Hebrew order centered around the idea of a clan brotherhood; through the entire period from Moses to the Exile the conscience of the Hebrew was in the social order embodied in the State. The State was a divine institution; the conservatives in the days of Saul objected to a king on the ground that Jehovah was himself the head of his people. Moses and David, Elijah and Isaiah, were spokesmen of a national ideal. In the Exile all this was changed; Zion was no more; the outer, political order was gone; and there was left only the inner, moral and religious world over which the Hebrew had control. Then

arose, accordingly, that post-exilic form of Hebrew life which we call Judaism, a priestly type of life which was organized not for citizenship but for holiness. Foreign rulers having control over the State, the Jews gave their attention to "sacred" things, so that the state accordingly became a "secular" institution. Now the purpose of all this was good: it aimed at the integrity of Jewish life-just that at which Elijah and Deuteronomy had aimed. But here was a new way of attaining it absolutely opposed to the prophetic teaching. Isaiah (1:10-20), who was a statesman, warned his people against the priestly tendency. Amos was vehement on this point (5:21-25); Hosea (6:6) and Micah (6:7-8) preached mercy and justice and not sacrifice. Jeremiah was more explicit still (7:22,23; 31:33). But Ezekiel had marked out a new path; a separate ritualistic segment was marked out from the total circle of life which was regarded as good not with reference to the living unity of experience, not with reference to the family, or the state; it was good in itself. Goodness came to be a matter of ceremony and ritual. The old Hebrew conscience concerned all the affairs of life; now, having lost control of the State, Judaism made formal and exact the part of life left within its grasp; and into this formal, ritualistic side of life, with its emphasis on holiness, went the real conscience of the priestly development. In the pre-exilic period the prophet was the moral interpreter of the state; we need only mention Elijah and Amos and Isaiah. Through the entire period from Moses to the Exile the conscience of the Hebrew was in the social order, but the post-exilic priestly devel