Upon the difference just stated between the later practice and the Law, one argument more has recently been founded against assigning the latter to the Babylonio-Persian period.  “Another testimony borne by tradition completely excludes the idea of the Elohistic torah (i.e., the Priestly Code) having been composed by Ezra.  As is well known, it is the Elohistic torah that carefully regulates the mutual relations of priests and Levites, while Deuteronomy groups the two together without bringing forward the distinction.  It is the former that assigns the tithes to the Levites, while requiring these in their turn to hand over the tithe of their tithes as a due to the priests.  Such was also the practice (Nehemiah x. 38 seq.) soon after the exile [i.e., a hundred years later; Nehemiah vii. 5].  But subsequently the payment of the tithes to the Levites fell entirely into disuse; these were rendered immediately and exclusively to the priests, so that Jose ben Hanina actually confesses:  “We do not pay the tithes according to the command of God” (Sota, 47b).  But everywhere the Talmud refers this practice back to Ezra.  Ezra it was who punished the Levites by withdrawal of the tithes, and that because they had not come out from Babylon (Jebam. 386b; Chullin 11b).  The point to be noted is that Ezra, according to the testimony of tradition, superseded a precept of the Elohistic torah, supporting himself in this perhaps by reference to the Deuteronomic torah.”  So Delitzsch in the Zeitschr. fuer luth.  Theol., 1877, p. 448 seq.  That Ezra is not the author of the Priestly Code may readily be granted—­only not on such an argument as this.  If the genuine historical tradition expressly names Ezra as the man who introduced the Levites’ tithe just as prescribed by law (Nehemiah x. 38 seq.), what conscientious man can attach any weight to the opposite assertion of the Talmud ?

But, even assuming that the divergence of practice from the legal statute actually does go back to the time of Ezra, what would follow from that against the post-exilic origin of the Priestly Code?  For this is what the question comes to, not to Ezra’s authorship, which is made the main point by a mere piece of transparent controversial tactics.  The demands of the Priestly Code, which demonstrably were neither laid down, nor in any sense acted on before the exile, attained the force of law one hundred years after the return from Babylon (Nehemiah x.); the whole taxation system of Judaism ever afterwards rested upon it;- — shall this be held to have no meaning as against the trifling circumstance that the tithe also was indeed paid to the clergy, in full accordance with the Priestly Code, and inconsistently with ancient custom, but paid to the higher, and not to the lower order?