On two points, it is true, the Priests' Code con- tains regulations allecting the priests which cannot be sejiarated from its system (I*^), and which yet undoubtedly go beyond what is found in Ezekiel. In the Priests Code the tenth falls to the Levites and the tenth of the tenth to the priests, to whom belong also the firstborn of dean beasts. Ezekiel says nothing about either of these things. But in the Deuteronomic regul.itions it is clear that neither the tenth nor the lirstbom are considered as be- longing to the Levites or priests (cf., further, below).
Other difTorences between the law of Ezekiel and that of the Priests' Code ap|)ear to the present writer to speak ncce.s.sarily in favour of the i)riority of the Priests' Code, or at least of the system repre- sented by it. In this Code the kiUinj;, flaying, and cutting up of the sacrilicial animal has to bo done by the layman presenting the ottering (Lv l"-'"- etc. J see Gcsrh. p. 114); in Ezekiel the Levites have to perform the killing. There can be no doubt that in this instance the Priests' Code repre- sents the earlier custom, which was based upon the view that by slaying his sacrifice the od'erer himself presents his gift to the deity, and thereby expresses the fact that it is meant for him. In Ezekiel, on the other hand, this action is undertaken by the Levites as a cla,ss intermediate between laity f.nd priests, in order to remove the layman a stage lurtlier from sacred functions. Vogclstein (p. 67), indeed, reverses the chronological order, and holds that the flow of an anti-Levite current has willi- drawn from the Levites the slaying of the sacrilicial
victims ; but surely the slaughter bj' the hand of the sacrificing layman is a relic of primitive times when every Lsraelite was entitled to ofler sacrifice. Besides, by setting down the killing of the animal by the lay offerer as a later custom, a very im- probable course would be given to the development of the practice in this matter (as it cannot be imagined that the regulations of the Priests' Code we are considering are due to a later alteration of the text) ; that is to say, the Chronicler, who makes the Levites take part in the slaying of the victims (see below, § 9), would, on this view, have taken a step backwards from the Priests' Code in the direction of Ezekiel. The practice of later times in regard to the temple service appears, indeed, to have excluded both Laymen and Levites from the slaying of the sacrilicial animals, and to have reserved this for tlie priests alone (Biicliler, Priester, 136 fl.); it is probably a matter of pure theory when tlie Talmud, in agreement with the Priests' Code (Vogclstein, p. G8, note 1), represents laymen as performing the act of slaughter. Amongst the oriTinances of Ezekiel which go beyond the Priests' Code in the sen.se of keeping the laity at a distance, besides the one we have considered, there are the enactments that the priests are not to come out amongst the people with their holy garments or with the sacrilicial portions, lest the people be hallowed thereby— regulations which are wanting in the Priests' Code. We find expressed here a materialistic conception of holiness as if it were something that could be transferred by external contact. The .same conception shows itself in the Priests' Code only, on what is not an impossible explanation, in the case of the sinolfcring (whoever touches the flesh of this ollcring ' l)ccomes holy ' [?], Lv 6** [Eng. -■']), and the ' most holy ' otl'erings in general (Lv 6" [Eng.'"] ; cf. Ex 2!(" :!0-'»). But in these pa.ssages the thought of ' becoming holy ' (Jlciligwerdcn) by touching can hardly be really present, rather would it apjiear tlint it is ' being holy' (Ileilirjscin), i.e. 'being a priest,' that is s]iccified as the condition of touching (see liaudissin, titndicn zur semit. Hfliijiunsgasrhiilde, ii., Leii)zig, 1878, p. 54 f. note). The no'stexilic Haggai (a"*^) denies that contact with the skirt of a garment in which one carries holy flesh makes holy ; but he does not deny that direct contact with sacrilicial flesh has this efl'cct. In this way he does not, as Kuenen {ThT, 1890, p. 17) sujiposes, contradict Ezekiel ; and, therefore, we may not infer from Haggai's language that Ezekiel's view was an older one, which was abandoned in the post-exilic period (and so also in the Priests' Code, on the assumption of its po.st-exilic composition).
It is alleged that Ezekiel was not actjuainted with Lv Si'"', whore, perhaps, the priest is for- bidden (although this is extremely questionable) to defile himself for a dead wife. But this does not follow (Nowack, p. 115, note 1) from the faet that in Ezk 24'""- mourning on the part of the priest for his wife is assumed as a matter of course, for it is not mourning in general that is forbidden in Lv 21'"', but only certain specified mourning customs, besides the defilement by the coijise (v.° ; cf. Ezk 44'" ; cf. Job. Frey, 'I'od, Seeleiifflnubc tind Heelenkult ivi altcn Israel, Leipzig, IS'.tS, p. 74 f.).
Ezekiel's arrangements about the Levitical and priestly land are much more practical than in the Priests' Code. In Ezekiel's State of the future, priests and Levites live in the immcdiiito neigh- oourhood of the temple where they have to serve; according to the Priests' Code they are distributed among dill'erent cities throughout the land, where they have nothing to do. It is hardly conceivable that the author of the Priests' Code should have so changed for the worse tlie arrangements of Ezekiel, if these were the earlier. Kather does the Priests