From the evidence of the ten commandments it is thus almost certain that the Israelitic religion was, even at its beginning, peculiarly moral. The people were commanded to worship Jahveh exclusively, and also to practise a severe morality. From this connection between Jahvism and morality important consequences were bound to follow. All ancient religions were more or less marked in practice by a sacrificial system. The idea at the bottom of the custom of offering sacrifices is very simple. Men, as a proof of their devotion, give to their gods some of their possessions. The immediate object may be either to win the divine favour or to avert the divine wrath. When a religion is harsh and severe, the latter is likely to be the more frequent sacrificial motive. Accordingly, when the Israelites sacrificed to Jahveh, it was probably for the most part to remove Jahveh’s anger, to obtain forgiveness for their sins against him. Now exactly in proportion to the closeness of the connection between Jahvism and morality would be the tendency of these sins to be real sins. When sins are included among offences against a religious code, they are pretty sure to be the offences most frequently committed. Hence it follows that the early sacrificial system of the orthodox Israelites must have been largely directed to the atonement of sin. If, then, we could accept the accounts in the Pentateuch as an accurate description of the sacrificial customs of the Mosaic age,[9] with external evidence corroborating internal probability, we might regard our conclusion as proved. But, as Professor Kuenen has shown, the whole system of the Jewish ceremonial law described in the Pentateuch was, in at least its final and consolidated form, the result of the labours of the period of Ezra and Nehemiah. It thus becomes a question of great difficulty to determine what portion of the law, if any, existed in early times. A few statements of the prophets seem to imply that in the Mosaic age no sacrifices at all were offered to Jahveh.[10] But the prophets cannot be considered trustworthy authorities for the early history of Israel. They wrote under the pressure of immediate circumstances, and with a very definite purpose. This purpose, as will afterwards be shown, required them to cast discredit on sacrifices. In doing so, their repeated references are evidence that a full sacrificial system in connection with the worship of Jahveh was established in their time.[11] Here their testimony is irrefragable, and it proves that such a system must have begun before their age. No period was so likely to have originated it as the earliest, when the foundations of the national life were laid.