It is scarcely possible to arrive at a definite date for the various strata of the priestly sj-stem in the Priests' Code, and thus for tne Priests' Code as a whole. The probable conclusion from the prece<I- ing considerations, if these are justified, — differing from what is reached on the view of the case adopted by the majority of modem critics, — would be that tlie "iiain stock of the Priests' Code (P^) is prior to Ezekiel, and, in that case, belongs probably even to the period preceding Josiah s reform of the cultus. The programme of Ezekiel, which in one wa}' or other is of decisive im- portance for the dating of the Priests' Code, appears to the present writer to be intelligible,
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if the prophet considers an older cultus-legislation to ha\e Deen abolislied with the overtlirow of the ancient temple, and if he substitutes a new s}-steni for use in his new temple. But it appears dilliiult to comprehend how a legislator posterior to Kzokiel should have displaced the law of the propliet written down for the new Israel by a lej,'is- lative scheme of his own. On the other hand, n^'ain, it is readily intellipble that through the impulse of the law of Ezekiel, and owing to the new conditions and the new conceptions that grew up during the El.\ile, expansions and modilications should have been made by exilic priests u|ion an ancient law, in order to fit it for application to the new community. The form of the Bk. of Ezekiel, apparently intermediate between Deuteronomy and tlie Priests' Code, is more simplj' explained if Ezekiel is dependent, not only, as he clearly is, upon Deuteronomy and Jeremiah, but also upon an older code emanating from the Jerusalem
Sriesthood, tlian if he makes an original start in ealing with the cultus. The same remark applies to his language, which on the one hand recalls Deuteronomy and Jeremiah, and on the other hand the Priests' Code.
The ditl'erent views held as to the date of the system of the Priests' Code do not afl'ect esscnti.ally the actual history of the priesthood itself except on a few points, as, for instance, in the view whicli is to be taken of the position of the chief priest prior to the time of Ezekiel, if the Code is to be placed thus early. This is owing to the fact that the organization of the priesthood in the Priests' Code 13 of a theoretical character, for as a whole it does not fit the real conditions of any period whatever. Of much more importance is the ques- tion of the date of the Priests Code for the history of sacrifice.
But, whatever date may be fixed for the redac- tion of the system of this legislation, it will not be possible to avoid the conclusion that the whole body of ritual set up in it could not have taken its rise in its special form — i.e. in its deviation from Dt and Ezk — during the relatively short period between Ezekiel (B.C. 572) and Ezra (B.C. 458), namely some 110 years, but that it represents a long development of cultus-practice as well as cultus-language. The beginnings of this de\ elon- nieut go back in any case to the pre-exilic period, and are not unintelligible there, wlien we consider, what to the mind of the present writer is dear, tliat the Deuteronomic law did not emanate from the priesthood at Jerusalem, in which case no specimen of the cultus-language and cultus-practice of this priesthood prior to Ezekiel lia-s been pre- served outside the Priests' Code, and when we note, further, that Jeremiah (8") is acquainted with a literary actinty exercised in the way of giving form to the t6rah, an activity of which he disapproves, and whicli therefore cannot be taken to reler to the codifying of the Deuteronomic law, with which the prophet undeniably syinpatliizcd. AVhat incurs hLs disapproval can scarcely be any- thing else than the resolving of God's will, wliich lie interprets ethicallj' ("-'■), into ritual dcmamls. Here, then, in Jeremiah we find pretty clear traces of a priestly literary activity answering to the rise of the Priests' Code. Those literary productions, however, as may be gathered from the same refer- ence in Jeremiah, have not yet gained the iiosition of a generally accepted ceremonial law. Even the Deuteronomic law betrays no acquaintance with this la.st, but knows only of some particular tOrCih for the priests (Dt 24'), which may afterwards have been taken over by the Priests' Code (see above, § 8 a). On the other hand, a point which cannot be more fully discussed here, the redaction of the Deuteronomic law and the position it assigns to
this as a farewell address of Moses, presujjposes an acquaintance with the Priests' Code, and an accept- ance of it as the law proper, of which Dt is meant to appear as a recapitulation. The redaction of Dt is, in view of its relations to the Deuteronomic law, not to be placed at a very great distance frou the latter ; it cannot belong to so late a period as the rise of the new post-exilic coniniunlly.
If the sj'stem of the Priestly Writing is earlier than the Exile, and thus probably prior to Josiah's reform, it can have originated at such a time jmrely as an ideal picture sketched by a Jeru.'^.ilcm i)riest, and not, or at least only very partially, as a de- scription of the actually existing state of things. At whatever time the I'riests' Code was written, the first unmistakable trace which at the same time is capable of being dated with certainty, of the influence of the system embodied in it, is to be found in the place given to the high priest in Zechariah, and the first evidence of its close is found in tlie reading aloud of the law in the time of Ezra.