feeling. Nevertheless, wherever any portion of the great book of the law could possibly be carried out in practice, ample devotion, integrity, and self-sacrifice, were lavished upon its execution, the purest zeal was kindled, and the most earnest effort made in every direction. The new community threw itself with growing ardour and completeness into this 'service' of its God, whenever the sacred book and its interpretation placed it before them in any way as a clear obligation; and while the sense of this duty gained constant strength, the confidence in such men as Ezra grew daily greater. Thus was a people being trained in respect of willingness of spirit and tender faith in the truth revealed of old into more and more complete conformity to the type which had often been longed for in earlier times by the prophets, but had never yet appeared. It was as though since the days of Moses the law had never found a nation to listen to its claims and its decisions so readily as

now.

This tone and tendency of life, directed so earnestly and so perseveringly by the great majority of the new people to sacred things and their more and more complete appropriation, was accompanied far down into the middle of the Persian epoch by that genuineness and warmth of feeling which we have seen springing up afresh at its commencement. To this, again, was now added the quiet domestic peace and cheerful content which could not be diffused until the people had found the full satisfaction of their aspiration in the authority exercised by their venerable faith and law, in their new sanctuary, and in the honour which their country was once more acquiring. Many of the latest Psalms still breathe this lofty rest and joy in God, which, it was thought, would henceforth spread through the whole community, since by it each member could feel himself raised, individually no less than collectively, above all the limits of time.' How earnestly the venerable law of Israel in its written form might be embraced by the human mind, and what infinite exultation, what certain hope, and what bold confidence towards princes and kings might be derived from it, since it is not only a legal work, but at the same time a short epitome of all the true religion, may be seen with peculiar clearness in Ps. cxix. This poem is one of the latest of all the Psalms. It shows little of the higher art in its composition, yet it is penetrated by a tranquil warmth of feeling, and animated, in spite of its wearisome length, by flashes of the most vivid spiritual life; and thus forms a fine memorial of the purer aspirations and

See in particular Pss. ciii. sq,, xxxiii., cxlv.-cl,

elevating feelings characteristic of this period of mingled age and youth.

Indeed, all the comparatively prosperous and peaceful tranquillity which enabled the new kingdom to settle down round Jerusalem, and gain strength for new and mightier efforts, was itself in the main nothing but the fruit of the resolution with which it had addressed itself to the sacred things which remained the one great blessing of its life, and in which it could find an abundance of elevated contentment and calm. So now, whenever any one of the great feasts brought all who confessed the true religion together from all quarters round the new sanctuary, the inhabitants of the ancient holy land with the hosts of pilgrims whose active participation in commerce in every direction had scattered them further and further in distant countries-what an elevating spectacle must even then have been unfolded! Through the continued spread (in spite of the new settlement at Jerusalem) of these offshoots of the ancient people, the true religion became better and better known among the heathen, and, moreover, by the residence at foreign courts of such Judeans as Ezra and Nehemiah, more and more highly honoured, as the inhabitants of Jerusalem itself perceived with joy. We cannot specify exactly when a third or outer court 3 was added to the two older courts of the Temple. It was open for heathens also to sacrifice in it, and we know that in the Greek period generals, kings, and other potentates, often brought the most magnificent offerings there 'to the most great God.' But this kind of half toleration of the heathen was quite in accordance with the spirit and the external necessities of the times; and this court of the heathen was probably established from the very first.

In these centuries of the triumphant glorification of the venerable law, the priests answered on the whole, as we have observed, to the special call made upon them by the age, and displayed a far more zealous and enlightened activity. This in turn concentrated the brightest beams of the honour and glory of the times on them, especially after the fire of Ezra's zeal had kindled and illuminated them afresh. We have indeed seen already that Nehemiah sternly recalled to his duty the high

To this connection belong especially the two great songs corresponding one to the other, Pss. cvi., cvii., and similarly Pss. cxi.-cxiv.

2 According to the expression in Mal. i. 11, which is well worth attention; cf. Ps. cxlviii. 11, xlvii. 10 [9]. See also the further explanations in the Jahrbb. der

Bibl. Wiss. viii. p. 162.

3 See vol. iii. p. 232 sq.

Cf. 4 Macc. iv. 11; Book of Aristeas, p. 111 sq.; Jos. Ant. xvii. 10, 2; Contr. Ap. ii. 5, 8; 3 Macc. i. 9, 16, and elsewhere.

S P. 160.

priest of his time, Eliashib, grandson of the well-known Joshua. Malachi had to reproach the priests in his day with all kinds of irreverence in their sacrifices and teaching, and with quarrelsome, overbearing, and selfish conduct.' But these were only the first feeble and scattered germs of future degeneracy, such as invariably appear in any hagiocracy, especially one in which the ruling house is hereditary as well as the ruling order of priests. On the whole the priestly order did not fulfil its function badly during these centuries. Nothing now remained to the people wholly unimpaired except the pure and eternal contents of its religion; and the priests, consequently, especially such as were skilled in literature, became of necessity its most powerful leaders and its ablest representatives externally. Submission to their judgment and regulations inevitably assumed in the minds of all the more conscientious individuals the aspect of one of the highest duties of life, and their honour and welfare seemed to be the foundation and an important part of the honour and welfare of the whole people. This was an internal necessity, as is strikingly exemplified by the powerful and energetic layman Nehemiah; and as we should expect from the new Jerusalem, in virtue of its ancient associations and the circumstances of its foundation, it was met in a spirit of laborious but fruitful toil by the corresponding depth of individual conscientiousness and reverence for sacred things which characterised such great priests as Ezra. In more exalted style, the priest now very often bears the honourable designation of a mediator' or 'messenger of God,'-the most beautiful that can be given him; 2 and it seems as if the thrill of the rich blessings which immediately resulted from the labours of Ezra was still felt when Malachi sketched his noble picture of a true priest3-the same Malachi who was in other respects the last man to spare the priests with his stern word of God.

II. THE EXTINCTION OF PROPHETISM.-THE LAST PROPHET.

The hagiocracy, then, was now fully started. It is true that it had no new and powerful supports at first, except the

' Mal. i. 5-14, ii. 8 sq.

2 Mal. ii. 7, Ecc. v. 5; at the beginning of this period the name was much more used of prophets; Hag. i. 13, cf. Isaiah xliii. 27.

Mal. ii. 2-7; cf. Ecc. v. 5. Hence the sentences (quite fresh of their kind) in praise of the priest and sacrifice, Ecclus. vii. 29-31, xiv. 11, xxxii. 1–11.

sacred book of the law and the power of the priesthood in its three gradations, which had been hereditary from the times of antiquity. All else was as yet undeveloped, but everything was favourable to its growth and independent strength, especially after Ezra's labours.

But at the same time the disadvantages and drawbacks which must arise in every hagiocracy, merely assuming different forms in different times and places, began at once to appear. The hagiocracy was something new in Israel. Such an organisation had never existed there before; and in the presence of its fresh power the old order, in spite of the scrupulous endeavours which were made at this very time to preserve it, underwent of necessity a complete revolution in its most important features. Externally the ancient religion was more highly reverenced now than ever, and even internally there was nothing at first to stand in the way of its sinking more and more deeply into the hearts of individuals, since its essence now shone inextinguishably in the sacred books, which lay open to all; but since it was only protected by the hagiocracy in so far as it had been once for all received as sacred, its living continuation was at an end.

In the position then occupied by Israel, one of the first and most significant consequences of the establishment of the hagiocracy was the final extinction of all the better prophecy. We have indeed already seen' that even before the destruction of Jerusalem prophecy had attained the highest point within its reach in the course of the history of this people; for it was one of those elements of the life of Israel which could not rest until they had realised their own inner perfection. Nevertheless, the exceptional nature of the days of Israel's great trial, followed by its approaching release, roused it once again to powerful expression, as we have previously described; and then in the new Jerusalem prophecy strove to rise again quite after the ancient type, and on the sacred hearth of Zion itself its lightning flashed forth with considerable power yet once again in Haggai and Zechariah. But it could no longer flourish in its purest sphere of action as the creative source of the life and spirit of revealed religion where a sacred book already contained this revelation with sufficient detail and precision, and was regarded as the final authority. By the side of this it must either remain superfluous, in which case it would gradually lose itself in

3

1 Vol. iv. p. 246 sqq.

2 Pp. 10 sqq. 39 sqq.

3

Pp. 102, 108.

weakness and impotence, or else it must advance beyond what it had so far revealed. This latter task required more strength than it was conscious of possessing. It was, in fact, quite an impossibility in these centuries, which were concerned only with the simple appropriation of the lofty revelation made already. Hence, soon after the last efforts of prophecy, its power in Israel succumbed to a natural and complete decay; and in its place, by the side of the sacred book, wherever any important decision or regulation for the present had to be made, at any rate in purely religious matters, the priests stood forth alone, and especially those of them who were skilful scribes, until at last the scribes also became an important power independent of the priesthood. This change came about only by degrees, but in such a way that the revolution soon became perceptible enough.' In gloom and darkness the ancient prophecy long strove to maintain a continued existence; but the depth of moral degradation to which it soon fell in the midst of the revival of the hallowed usages of old, has been already pointed out in the life of Nehemiah.2

It is true that the age of Ezra, the last pure glow of the long day of the Old Testament sun, produced one more prophetic work, the brief composition of Malachi. With its clear insight into the real wants of the time, its stern reproof even of the priests themselves, and its bold exposition of the eternal truths and the certainty of a last judgment, this book closes the series of prophetic writings contained in the canon in a manner not unworthy of such lofty predecessors. And, indeed, it is no less important than consistent in itself that even the setting sun of the Old Testament day should still be reflected in a true prophet, and that the fair days of Ezra and Nehemiah should in him be glorified more nobly still. But in spite of all this, the last of the prophets, as Malachi really was, proves already of a very different stamp, so far as he gives ground for the confident expectation that the inevitable extinction of all true prophecy in Israel is very near. For on the one hand, though

implies that it followed the age of Ezra, which had left the freshest marks upon it. In fact, Ezra's labours are already presupposed in the way in which the admission of mixed marriages is reproved, quite incidentally and briefly, though severely, Mal. ii. 11 sq., while the remoter and more delicate consequences of this reform under Ezra are now more discussed. But, on the other hand, this remarkable book certainly does not belong to any

The whole tone of this composition much later period.