The intention of this prescription is simply and solely to secure the exclusive legitimation of the one lawful place of sacrifice; it is only for this, obviously, that the profane slaughtering outside of Jerusalem, which Deuteronomy had permitted, is forbidden. Plainly the common man did not quite understand the newly drawn and previously quite unknown distinction between the religious and the profane act, and when he slaughtered at home (as he was entitled to do), he in doing so still observed, half-unconsciously perhaps, the old sacred sacrificial ritual. From this arose the danger of a multiplicity of altars again furtively creeping in, and such a danger is met, in an utterly impracticable way indeed, in Leviticus xvii. And it is worth noticing how much this law, which, for the rest, is based upon the Book of Deuteronomy, has grown in the narrowness of its legitimistic mode of viewing things. Deuteronomy thoroughly recognises that offerings, even though offered outside of Jerusalem, are still offered to Jehovah; for the author of Leviticus xvii. this is an impossible Idea, and he regards such offerings simply as made to devils. /1/ -- Footnote 1. With reference to these rural demons, compare my note in Vakidi's Maghazi (Berlin, 1882), p. 113. It is somewhat similar, though not quite the same thing, when the Moslems say that the old Arabs dedicated their worship to the Jinns; and other instances may be compared in which divinities have been degraded to demons. -- Footnote I refuse to believe that any such thing could have been possible for one who lived before the Deuteronomic reformation, or even under the old conditions that were in existence immediately before the exile. Leviticus xvii., moreover, belongs confessedly to a peculiar little collection of laws, which has indeed been taken up into the Priestly Code, but which in many respects disagrees with it, and particularly in respect of this prohibition of profane slaughterings. With reference to the Priestly Code as a whole, Noldeke's assertion is quite off the mark. The code, on the contrary, already allows slaughter without sacrifice in the precepts of Noah, which are valid not merely for all the world, but also for the Jews. Farther on this permission is not expressly repeated indeed, but it is regarded as a thing of course. This alone can account for the fact that the thank-offering is treated so entirely as a subordinate affair and the sacrificial meal almost ignored, while in Leviticus vii.22-27 rules are even given for procedure in the slaughter of such animals as are not sacrificed. /2/ -- Footnote 2. That Leviticus vii.22-27 is not a repetition of the old and fuller regulations about the thank-offering, but an appendix containing new ones relating to slaughtering, is clear from "the beast of which men offer an offering unto the Lord" (ver. 25), and "in all your dwellings" (ver. z6), as well as from the praxis of Judaism. -- Footnote