with an activity in collecting the holy books,' which should rather have been attributed to Ezra. Nehemiah's memoir shows, it is true, that for a layman he used his pen with skill; but any proper literary activity was quite foreign to his character as known to us, though no doubt he might have sanctioned, as governor, the ordinances recommended by Ezra and the other scholars.

3

The succeeding centuries, as we shall presently see, proved less and less faithful to historical fact, and their spirit was such that as the reverence paid to the two leaders of the people rose higher and higher, all kinds of loose representations connected themselves with their names, even at a tolerably early period, and they frequently became the subjects of half poetical narrative and purely literary art. Thus they were often regarded as the first founders of the new Jerusalem, and events and actions were ascribed to them which stricter history at best only admits as possible in the time of Zerubbabel and Joshua. As early as in the book of Enoch' the three who return from the exile together to rebuild Jerusalem are Zerubbabel, Joshua and Nehemiah, for though they are not designated by name there is no doubt that they are meant. The author of the second book of Maccabees, however, accepted a very free account of Nehemiah as the founder of the new sanctuary, which was doubtless to be read already in works current in his time. This story centres in the conception of the holy fire of the Temple,1 and, not content with the indestructible endurance implied in its higher signification, desires to establish a literal belief in its external preservation during the interval subsequent to the destruction of the Temple by the Chaldees. At the time of that disaster Jeremiah and certain other priests had taken the holy fire from the altar and secretly conveyed it in safety to the bottom of the shaft of a dry well. Many years after Nehemiah sent the descendants of these same men, who knew the secret, to bring it up again. As we can easily understand, they could find no fire there; and he accordingly bade them sprinkle the sacrificial wood and the offering itself with water drawn from that same well. When this was done, at the prayers and songs of the priests, the sun, scattering the clouds on a sudden, kindled the wood and the offering into a great

1 2 Macc. ii. 13.

2 lxxxix., 72, ed. Dillmann.

2 Macc. i. 18-36, cf. also ii. 1. See the Alterth. pp. 31 sq., 129 sqq. The great strength with which the ancient belief in these cases clung to the beams

of the sun as the specific principle of life and holiness may be proved not only from this very story, 2 Macc. i. 22, but also from a perfectly different narrative in 2 Macc. x. 3.

blaze of fire. Nehemiah then gave orders for the rest of the water to be poured out upon some large stones. Bright flames gleamed forth from these also, but as they did not shine on the right spot they were at once consumed by the fire of the altar which glowed over against them. It was this occurrence which induced the Persian king to decree that the great sanctuary should be laid out and built on this very spot. This, it will be seen, is but one of the many stories which sought in later times to enhance the very high sanctity of the Temple with reference even to its origin; but when, in conclusion, the narrator adds that this wonderful fire from the earth has usually been called Naphtha since that time,' he betrays clearly enough that the well-known Zarathustrian-Persian notions of the sacred fire of the earth and sun, and the sacred naphtha fountains, hovered before him, and that it was only under their influence that he gave his narrative its present form. ---In a similar spirit the author of the fourth book of Esdras (the further discussion of which belongs to the history of the first century after Christ) makes Ezra live in the middle of the Chaldean exile, and in its thirtieth year see the wonderful history which God was conducting;2 so that he is here actually confused with Salathiel.3

But it was Ezra especially who rose higher and higher in importance as time went on and the mere learning of the scribe grew to be the ruling power among the remnants of the ancient people, until at last he was elevated indefinitely above all the limits of time. He was regarded as the wonderful master of all the learning of the scribes, as the restorer of the

1 In order to refer this name back as completely as possible to a Hebrew word, the author considers it an abbreviation of Nepoúp, i. 36; as if, to separate, to release, and, unleavened, lead to the idea of καθαρισμός. The narrator can hardly have been thinking of the Persian

, a rare and poetical word, meaning pure. Further, it may be noticed that the high-priest Jonathan of ver. 23 is the later one mentioned in Neh. xii. 11; and, according to p. 123 sq., note 1, his name was probably borrowed from this

passage.

24 Esdras iii. 1, 29. It best suited the object and artistic requirements of this book to place Ezra's career about this time; but it is evident that the exact number 30 rose out of a confusion for 130, for Ezra really did flourish 130

years after the destruction of Jerusalem. Further, if the author found some older work already in existence in which a similar story was told of Salathiel, we can understand the extraordinary circumstance of his identifying him with Ezra. The author proceeds to ring a number of changes on the number 30, ix. 43, sqq., x. 45 sqq., but its origin can only be that suggested above; see Gött. Gel. Anz., 1863, p. 648. We may see how easily 100 years might be skipped over by bearing in mind what is to be explained immediately, and remembering that, according to Epiph. Haer. viii. 7, there were many, even before the author of 4 Esdras, who, in the priest mentioned in vol. iv. p. 216, discovered Ezra and transferred that event to the thirtieth year after the destruction of Jerusalem.

P. 83, note 5.

2

collection of the holy books and the author of many like them,' and at last as master, to be put on the same level of lofty jurisdiction with Moses, empowered to decide on every question concerning the holy scripture, and even as the originator of the Masôra of the Bible, and all the reading marks (points, &c.). At the same time, many were disposed to consider him identical with the prophet Malachi.3 Nay, there were certain beld writers in the century of the birth of Christ whose reverence for him rose so high that they reckoned him, like Elijah,‘ one of the Immortals who retain in Paradise perpetual youth, and reappear on earth, something like the Phoenix, at great crises. But these late rabbinical dreams have no further place in our history, though their reflected light glows clearly enough even upon the Koran," and many of the earlier Christians also gave them only too easy credence. Under every aspect, it is remarkable and significant enough that in Ezra we have the last Old Testament man of God, the undying significance of whose life seemed to posterity to place him on a level with an Enoch, a Moses, a David, an Elijah, and a Jeremiah. No one belonging to a later period than this, not even any of the Maccabees, was thought of as blooming in the unfading and eternal youth of Paradise.

In the same way, we are ignorant when and where Ezra and Nehemiah died; though tolerably early in the Middle Ages a tomb was pointed out as Ezra's grave.7

The idea of Ezra has not yet reached this extension with Josephus, but in 4 Esdras xiv. it has; and if the author of 4 Esdras in his turn had been acquainted with the representations which became prevalent in the Talmudic periods, he would certainly have noticed them.

2 The so-called Great Synagogue, on which see below.

Targum on Mal. i. 1: Babyl. Talm. Megillah, c. i. f. 15a, where, however, we also find the opinion that Mordecai was identical with Malachi.

Vol. iv. p. 113.

He belongs to the JAL of Paradise, according to the Arabic translation of 4 Esdras viii. 20, x. 57-59, xiv. 9 (and in the subscription which, according to the Gött. Gel. Anz., 1863, p. 650, is genuine); cf. also Jalâleldin's Hist. of Jerusalem, p. 289, ed. Reyn. This rendered it all the easier to make him appear upon the earth 100 years earlier as well, this time under the name of Salathiel, p. 163.

The Arabs designated this wonderful individual (as they did Solomon also,

vol. iii. p. 204, note 1) by the diminutive form Uzair, and, according to Sur. ix. 31, Mohammed must have heard that the Judeans of his neighbourhood put him on the same level as the Christians did Christ. Whether he is meant in the little story of the man who slept in a deserted city with his ass for 100 years (Sur. ii. 261) could only be settled by finding its earlier sources, for the old expositors are at variance on this point (cf. Baidhâvî); he may be meant.

And indeed just in the place in which it is least likely to be, judging by the facts known to us from other sources, viz. in southern Babylonia, at Bassra (in the ancient Maisûn or Meséne), see Lex. Geogr. Arab., vol. iii. p. 185; Travels of Benjamin of Tudela, Ed. Bohn, p. 93; Carmoly's Itinéraires, p. 457 (cf. also p. 41 sq. on the lost sacred books); Petermann's Reisen, vol. ii. pp. 151, 153. But here it is, if possible, still clearer than in the cases mentioned pp. 14, 95, note 2, that it is only an ancient and splendid synagogue building which was afterwards supposed to be a tomb.

C. THE NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE PERSIAN AGE.

I. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE HAGIOCRACY.

Before it reached its final goal, it was, we may say, the destiny of the community of the true God once more to raise itself to the status of a nation, and to establish itself in this position in the ancient fatherland, rigorously shutting itself off from other peoples and communities. This work had been so powerfully initiated and already to so large an extent accomplished by Ezra and Nehemiah, that it could never stand still again until its whole course had been run. The rigidness of the ancient religious discipline which, as the former portions of this work have shown, determined the original form of Israel's development, had under Ezra's influence once more attained sufficient vital energy to restore the people to a more steady life, even from the depths to which, in later times, they had sunk. The ancient kingdom of Israel was now re-established provisionally, within the somewhat contracted limits of the ancient Judah. This was indeed effected only so far as was compatible with foreign supremacy, but, in the hope of better times to come, it strove to recover its outward power by the most faithful adhesion to the ancient consecrated law, and obedience to the written word of God contained in it. Holiness, as it was conceived on the basis of the elevating tradition of its ancient history and the great book of its ancient law, had now become supreme; and though all the host of special commandments which were found in the book of the law was so difficult to comprehend and co-ordinate practically, yet even these were more and more fully worked into the new life of the nation, and, with their remoter consequences, penetrated deeper and deeper. The task was in many respects a hard one, and long periods often elapsed before the efforts which strong and conscientious men devoted to it reaped their reward, yet prosperous moments also appeared from time to time, in which what had been long in preparation suddenly took shape in the decision and resolution of the whole community, and was voluntarily embraced by them.

The Chronicler mentions one such moment, of very critical importance, which occurred in the times of Ezra and Nehemiah, and seemed to bring all their long years of toil to an enduring result, such as all desired.1

In the passage already mentioned above, Neh. viii.-x., the conclusion, x. 30-40 [29.-39], is certainly derived from

On one of the yearly

a very trustworthy source, not so much because the contents of this Covenant are expressly referred to a written document,

1

3

fast-days, after Ezra had delivered a moving exhortation to penitence, the whole assembled people, the commons faithfully following their brethren in authority, vowed with all the solemnities of concluding a covenant carefully to observe all the laws of the holy book of Moses in general, but specially (1) to avoid all mixed marriages; (2) to keep the days of rest and feasts, together with the year of rest; 2 (3) every seventh year, at any rate, to remit all the debts of their co-religionists; 5 (4) to pay a yearly poll-tax to the Temple. Of this last regulation it may be said that the tax was very ancient, but it had, no doubt, been paid but very irregularly hitherto, during the depressed period which followed the destruction of the first Temple, and it was now reduced to a third of the ancient pound (shekel) of silver." They further determined (5) to deliver at Jerusalem every year the wood required for the numerous public burnt-offerings. Moreover, it was to be done in a certain order, apparently so that each of the twelve circuits of the country had to provide it in turn. No service of this kind is mentioned in the ancient law, and this new tribute was perhaps an additional reason for reducing the poll-tax. Nehemiah, however, on account of the continued deficiency of the resources of the Temple, carried out this regulation with especial zeal. Finally (6) the firstlings and the tithes, in their full legal extent and definition, were to be conscientiously paid, preserved, and administered, for in this respect great abuses had crept in, and numbers of Levites had been compelled to leave Jerusalem for want of support. In this point also

x. 1 [ix. 38], as specially because they fall in completely with what we know from Ezra's and Nehemiah's own records. Probably the Chronicler found the contents in Ezra's record, or in the Chronicle of a younger contemporary of Ezra, mentioned in Neh. xii. 23, and he contented himself with shortening the list of names of the heads of the nation at that time to the great extent plainly perceptible in x. 2-28 [1-27].

The day of penitence celebrated one day after the great festival of prayer, Neh. ix. 1, was certainly one of those already described, p. 22, and was indeed the most universally observed of

tioned, Jos. Ant. xviii. 9, 1; Matt. xvii. 24-27, &c.; cf. Eckhel, Doctr. numm. vol. iii. p. 464.

Neh. xiii. 31, x. 35 [34]. It appears from Jos. Bell. Jud., ii. 17, 6 sq., that the day of the year on which this present of wood for the sacrifices was made (the separate heads of houses approaching the sanctuary with it almost as if bringing an offering) became a feast day henceforth (ἡ τῶν ξυλοφορίων ἑορτή); and we may conclude from the same passage that it was celebrated on the 14th Ab (August). On the other hand the vow of y for the Temple is legally defined as a free service, Mishnah, Shekalim, vi. 5, 6, vii. 1. On the similar Feast of Baskets, see below.

We see this not only from Neh. xiii. 10 sq., but also from the reproving words of Malachi, who had still to complain of the same sort of thing in his time, iii. 8 sq. It is further shown in the Alterth.