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That Nature-worship closely resembles what the Deuteronomic reform fought so fiercely in Israel; and the immemorial antiquity and still vigorous life of such a worship in China indicates impressively how little such Nature-worship tends, of itself, to its own supersession by a definite Theism.
This certainly shows that the people of Bethlehem did not know of the Deuteronomic law, for they were a God-fearing and a law-abiding people; and it also makes it probable that the incident occurred, and that the book which describes the incident was written, before this part of the Deuteronomic code was in existence.
To set completely aside the Deuteronomic lawbook and the primitive decalogue of Exodus xx.-xxiii., already in force among the Jews of Palestine, was impossible and unnecessary. Hence, as we have noted, it was the task of some editor of the next generation to combine these and the earlier prophetic histories with the late priestly law and its accompanying history.
Even vigorous persecution or keen exclusiveness of feeling have pace Lord Acton saved for mankind, at certain crises of its difficult development, convictions of priceless worth as in the Deuteronomic Reform and the Johannine Writings.
The whole, therefore, is the fruit of the remarkable priestly literary activity between 600 and 400 B.C., and possibly extending even later. The Jewish community which Nehemiah found in Palestine was still living under the Deuteronomic law, and apparently knew nothing of the very different demands of the priestly codes.
Could we have studied the scriptures of the Israelitish race about 400 B.C., we should have classified them under four great divisions: The prophetic writings, represented by the combined early Judean, Ephraimite, and late prophetic or Deuteronomic narratives, and their continuation in Samuel and Kings, together with the earlier and exilic prophecies; the legal, represented by the majority of the Old Testament laws, combined with the late priestly history; the wisdom, represented by the older small collections of proverbs; the devotional or liturgical, represented by Lamentations and the earlier collections of psalms.
It is not Christianity which has been judged and condemned at the bar of civilisation; it is civilisation which has destroyed itself because it has honoured Christ with its lips, while its heart has been far from Him. But a spiritual religion can win a victory only within its own sphere. It can promise no Deuteronomic catalogue of blessings and cursings to those who obey or disobey its principles.
The public reading and promulgation of the Deuteronomic laws in the days of Josiah, with the attestation of the prophets and the solemn adoption by the people, was an act of canonization far more formal than the final acceptance of the New Testament writings by the Council of Carthage. The next great stage in the canonization of the law is recorded in Nehemiah x.
Modern critics assume that verses 7-23 are 'an interpolation by the Deuteronomic writer, apparently for no reason but because they trace Israel's fall to its cause in idolatry. But surely the bare notice in verse 6, immediately followed by verse 24, cannot have been all that the original historian had to say about so tragic an end of so large a part of the people of God.
Indeed the Deuteronomic law most stringently forbids all social relations with that particular tribe to which Ruth belonged. "An Ammonite or a Moabite shall not enter into the assembly of the Lord; even to the tenth generation shall none belonging to them enter into the assembly of the Lord for ever.... Thou shalt not seek their peace nor their prosperity all thy days for ever."
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