Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/653

Rh of Jehovah on the high places or local sanctuaries was constantly exposed to superstitious corruption and heathen admixture, and so is frequently attacked by the prophets of the 8th century. It was undoubtedly under their influence that Hezekiah abolished the high places. The abolition was not permanent ; but in the reign of Josiah, the next reforming king, we find that the principle of a single sanctuary can claim the support not only of prophetic teaching, but of a written law-book found in the temple, and acknowledged by the high priest (2 Kings xxii., xxiii.) The legislation of this book corresponds not with the old law in Exodus, but with the book of Deuteronomy. But perhaps the clearest proof that, during the period of pro phetic inspiration, there was no doctrine of finality with regard to the ritual law any more than with regard to religious ideas and doctrines, lies in the last chapters of Ezekiel, which sketch at the very era of the Captivity an outline of sacred ordinances for the future restoration. From these and similar facts it follows indisputably, that the true and spiritual religion which the prophets and like- minded priests maintained at once against heathenism and against unspiritual worship of Jehovah as a mere national deity without moral attributes, was not a finished but a growing system, not finally embodied in authoritative documents, but propagated mainly by direct personal efforts. At the same time these personal efforts were accompanied and supported by the gradual rise of a sacred literature. 1 a Though the priestly ordinances were mainly published by oral decisions of the priests, which are, in fact, what is ure- usually meant by the word law (Torah) in writings earlier than the Captivity, there can be no reasonable doubt that the priests possessed written legal collections of greater or less extent from the time of Moses downwards. Again, the example of Ezekiel, and the obvious fact that the law- book found at the time of Josiah contained provisions which were not up to that time an acknowledged part of the law of the land, makes it probable that legal provisions, which the prophets and their priestly allies felt to be j necessary for the maintenance of the truth, were often embodied in legislative programmes, by which previous legal tradition was gradually modified. Then the prophets, especially when they failed to produce immediate reforma tion, began from the 8th century, if not still earlier, to commit their oracles to writing ; and these written pro phecies circulating widely in a nation which had attained a high degree of literary culture, and frequently cited by later seers disseminated prophetic teaching in a permanent form. Long before this time music and song had been prac tised in the prophetic circle of Samuel, and were introduced under David into the service of the sanctuary. Another important vehicle of religious instruction was the written history of the nation, which could not fail to be generally set forth in the theocratic spirit in which all loftier Hebrew patriotism had its root. And, indeed, the literary diffusion of spiritual ideas was not confined to the direct r efforts of priests and prophets. In spite of the crass and &quot; unspiritual character of the mass of the people, the noblest traditions of national life were entwined with religious con victions, and the way in which a prophet, like Amos, could arise untrained from among the herdsmen of the wilderness of Judah, shows how deep and pure a current of spiritual faith flowed among the more thoughtful of the laity. Prophecy itself may from one point of view be regarded simply as the brightest efflorescence of the lay element in the religion of Israel, the same element which in subjective form underlies many of the Psalms, and in a shape less highly developed tinged the whole proverbial and popular literature^ of the nation; for in the Hebrew commonwealth popular literature had not yet sunk to represent the lowest impulses of national life.

''Close of the Old Testament Development. Formation of the'' Canon.—The struggle between spiritual and unspiritual religion was brought to a crisis when the prophetic predictions of judgment on national sin were fulfilled in the fall of the kingdom of Judah. The merely political worship of Jehovah as the tutelary god of the state was now reduced to absurdity. Faith in the covenant God was impossible except on the principles of spiritual belief. Nor did the restoration by Cyrus affect this result. No political future lay before the returning exiles, and continued confidence in the destiny of the race was not separable from the religious ideas and Messianic hopes of the prophets. To obey the Jaw of Jehovah and patiently to await the coming Deliverer was the only distinctive vocation of the com munity that gathered in the new Jerusalem; and after a period of misfortune and failure, in which the whole nation seemed ready to collapse in despair, this vocation was clearly recognized and embodied in permanent institutions in the reformation of Ezra and Nehemiah (445 B.C.) But with this victory the spiritual religion passed into a stationary state. The spirit of prophecy, long decadent, expired with Malachi, the younger contemporary of Nehemiah ; and the whole concern of the nation from this time downwards was simply to preserve the sacred inheritance of the past. The Exile had so utterly broken all continuity of national life, that that inheritance could only be sought in the surviving monuments of sacred literature. To these, more than to the expiring voice of prophecy in their midst, the founders of the new theocracy turned for guidance. The books that had upheld the exiles faith, when all outward ordinances of religion were lacking, were also the fittest teachers of the restored com munity. Previous reformers had been statesmen or pro phets. Ezra is a scribe who comes to Jerusalem armed, not with a fresh message from the Lord, but with &quot; the book of the law of Moses.&quot; This law-book was the Penta teuch, and the public recognition of it as the rale of the theocracy was the declaration that the religious ordinances of Israel had ceased to admit of development, and the first step towards the substitution of a canon or authoritative collection of Scriptures for the living guidance of the prophetic voice. A second step in the same direction is ascribed to Nehemiah by a tradition intrinsically probable, though of no great external authority. He, it is said, collected a library which, besides documents of temporary importance, embraced &quot; the books about the kings and prophets, and the writings of David&quot; (2 Mac. ii. 13.) Certainly a complete body of the remains of the prophets, with an authentic account of the history of the period of their activity, must soon have been felt to be scarcely second in importance to the law ; and so Nehemiah may very well be supposed to have begun the collection which now forms the second part of the Hebrew Bible, embracing, under the general title of The Prophets, the historical books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings (Earlier Prophets), and the four prophetic books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the twelve minor prophets (Latter Prophets). The mention of the writings of David implies that Nehemiah also began the formation of the third and last part of the Hebrew canon, which comprises, under the title of Ketubim (Scriptures, Hagiographa), the Psalms, Proverbs, Job, the five Megillot or rolls (Canticles, Euth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther), and, finally, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles. It is certain, however, that this part of the collection was not completed till long after Nehemiah s time ; for to say nothing of the disputed dates of Ecclesiastes and Daniel, the book of Chronicles contains genealogies which go down at least to the close of the Persian period. The miscellaneous character of the Ketubim seems, in fact, to show that after the Law and the Prophets were 