problem of his day, and the greater part of his book consists of the
records of his prophetic addresses or of epistles which he sent to his
scattered fellow-countrymen, even as Jeremiah wrote from Judah a letter to
the distant exiles in Babylon. His new constitution for the restored
Jewish state was also based on earlier customs and laws, but was adapted
to the new needs of the changed situation. He was not the only one to
undertake this task. Other priests gathered earlier groups of oral laws
and put in written form the customs and traditions of the pre-exilic
temple. At the same time they modified these earlier customs so as to
correct the evils which past experience had revealed.

III. The Holiness Code. The chief product of the literary activity of
the earlier part of the exile is the collection of laws found in the
seventeenth to the twenty-sixth chapters of Leviticus. Because of its
strong emphasis on the holiness of Jehovah and on the necessity that he
be worshipped by a people both ceremonially and morally holy, it is now
commonly designated as the Holiness Code. In theme, in point of view, in
purpose, and in literary form it has many close points of contact with the
writings of Ezekiel. In its original unity it evidently came from the
period and circle of thought in which the great priest-prophet lived.
His sermons, however, suggest that he was acquainted with its main
teachings. In distinguishing sharply between the Jerusalem priests and the
ministering Levites, and in prohibiting the marriage of a priest with a
widow, Ezekiel shows that his work represented a slightly later stage in
the development of Israel's religious standards. The most probable date,
therefore, for the Holiness Code is the decade between the first and
second captivity (597-586 B.C.).

Like every ancient lawbook the Holiness Code contains many laws and
regulations which evidently come from a much earlier period in Israel's