nothing about a priestly law with whose tendencies he is in thorough sympathy admits of only one explanation,—­that it did not then exist.  His own ordinances are only to be understood as preparatory steps towards its own exactment.

IV.I.2.  Noldeke, however, interprets the parallelism between the sons of Aaron and the sons of Zadok in favour of the priority of the Priestly Code, which, after all, he points out, is not quite so exclusive as Ezekiel. 1 But, in the first place, this is a

******************************************* 1 Jahrb. f. prot.  Theol., 1875, p. 351:  “Its doctrine that the Aaronidae alone are true priests has its parallel in Ezekiel, who still more exclusively recognises only the sons of Zadok as priests.” ******************************************

point of subordinate importance, the main thing being that Ezekiel has to make the distinction between priests and Levites, which is regarded in the Priestly Code as very ancient.  In presence of the fact that the former introduces as a new thing the separation which the latter presupposes, the precise degree of the distinction drawn by the two is of no consequence whatever.  In the next place, to bring the sons of Aaron into comparison with the sons of Zadok, as a proof of their higher antiquity, is just as reasonable as to bring the tabernacle into comparison with the temple of Jerusalem for a similar purpose.  The former are priests of the tabernacle, the latter of the temple; but as in point of fact the only distinction to be drawn between the Mosaic and the actual central sanctuary is that between shadow and substance, so neither can any other be made between the Mosaic and the actual central priesthood.  In the Priestly Code the ancient name is introduced instead of the historical one, simply in order to maintain the semblance of the Mosaic time; if the circumstance is to be taken as betokening the earlier origin of the work, then a similar inference must be drawn also from the fact that in it the origin and character of the Levites is quite obscure, while in Ezekiel it is palpably evident that they are the priests thrown out of employment by the abolition of the Bamoth, whom necessity has compelled to take a position of subordination under their haughty fellow-priests at Jerusalem.  In truth it is, quite on the contrary, a proof of the post-exilian date of the Priestly Code that it makes sons of Aaron of the priests of the central sanctuary, who, even in the traditional understanding (2Chronicles xiii. 10), are in one way or other simply the priests of Jerusalem.  By this means it carries their origin back to the foundation of the theocracy, and gives them out as from the first having been alone legitimate.  But such an idea no one could have ventured to broach before the exile.  At that time it was too well known that the priesthood of the Jerusalem sept could not be traced further back than David’s time, but dated from Zadok, who in Solomon’s reign ousted the hereditary house of Eli from the position it had long previously held, first at Shiloh and Nob, and afterwards at Jerusalem, at what had become the most prominent sanctuary of Israel.