Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/434

418 ISRAEL and Zecha- riah., The temple. Hiero- cracy in- critable. They did not at all events answer the expectations which had been formed. A settlement had been again obtained, it was true, in the fatherland; but the Persian yoke pressed now more heavily than ever the Babylonian had done. The sins of God s people seemed still unforgiven, their period of bond-service not yet at an end. A slight improve ment, as is shown by the prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah, followed when in the year 520 the obstacles disappeared which until then had stood in the way of the rebuilding of the temple ; the work then begun was com pleted in 516. Inasmuch as the Jews were now nothing more than a religious community, based upon the traditions of a national existence that had ceased, the rebuilding of the temple, naturally, was for them an event of supreme importance. The law of the new theocracy was the book of Deutero nomy; this was the foundation on which the structure was to be built. But the force of circumstances, and the spirit of the age, had even before and during the exile exerted a modifying influence upon that legislative code; and it continued to do so still. At first a "son of David" had continued to stand at the head of the Bne haggola, but this last relic of the old monarchy soon had to give way to a Persian governor who was under the control of the satrap of trans-Euphratic Syria, and whose principal business was the collection of revenue. Thenceforward the sole national chief was Joshua the high priest, on whom, accordingly, the political representation also of the com munity naturally devolved. In the circumstances as they then were no other arrangement was possible. The way had been paved for it long before in so far as the Assyrians had destroyed the kingdom of Israel, while in the kingdom of Judah which survived it the religious cultus had greater importance attached to it than political affairs, and also inasmuch as in point of fact the practical issue of the pro phetic reformation sketched in Deuteronomy had been to make the temple the national centre still more than formerly. The hierocracy towards which Ezekiel had already opened the way was simply inevitable. It took the form of a monarchy of the high priest, he having stepped into the place formerly occupied by the theocratic king. As his peers and at his side stood the members of his clan, the Levites of the old Jerusalem, who traced their descent from Zadok (Sadduk) ; the common Levites held a much lower rank, so far as they had maintained their priestly rank at all and had not been degraded, in accord ance with Ezekiel s law (chap, xliv.), to the position of mere temple servitors. " Levite," once the title of honour bestowed on all priests, became more and more confined to members of the second order of the clergy. Meanwhile no improvement was taking place in the condition of the Jewish colonists. They were poor ; they had incurred the hostility of their neighbours by their exclusiveness ; the Persian government was suspicious ; the incipient decline of the great kingdom was accompanied with specially unpleasant consequences so far as Palestine was concerned (Megabyzus). All this naturally tended to produce in the community a certain laxity and depression. To what purpose (it was asked) all this religious strictness, which led to so much that was unpleasant 1 Why all this zeal for Jehovah, who refused to be mollified by it 1 It is a significant fact that the upper ranks of the priesthood were least of all concerned to counteract this tendency. Their priesthood was less to them than the predominance which was based upon it ; they looked upon the neighbour ing ethnarchs as their equals, and maintained relations of friendship with them. The general community was only following their example when it also began to mingle with the Amme haareg. The danger of Judaism merging into heathenism was imminent. But it was averted by a new accession fromL without. In the year 458 Ezra the scribe, with a great ] number of his compatriots, set out from Babylon, for the l purpose of reinforcing the Jewish element in Palestine. l The Jews of Babylon were more happily situated than their Palestinian brethren, and it was comparatively easy for them to take up a separatist attitude, because they we. e surrounded by a heathenism not partial but entire. They were no great losers from the circumstance that they were precluded from participating directly in the life of the ecclesiastical community ; the Torah had long ago become separated from the people, and was now an independent abstraction following a career of its own. Babylonia was the place where a further codification of the law had been placed alongside of Deuteronomy. Ezekiel had led the way in reducing to theory and to writing the sacred praxis of his time ; in this he was followed by an entire school ; in their exile the Levites turned scribes. Since then Babylon continued to be the home of the Torah; and, while in Palestine itself the practice was becoming laxer, their literary study had gradually intensified the strictness and distinctive peculiarities of Judaism. And now there came to Palestine a Babylonian scribe having the law of his God in his hand, and armed with authority from the Persian king to proceed upon the basis of this law with a reforma tion of the community. Ezra did not set about introducing the new law immediately on his arrival in Judaea. In the first instance he concentrated his attention on the task of effecting a strict separation between the Bne haggola and the heathen or half -heathen inhabitants. So much he could accomplish upon the basis of Deuteronomy, but it was long before he gave publicity to the law which he himself had brought. Why he hesitated so long it is impossible to say ; between the seventh and the twentieth year of Artaxerxes Longi- manus (458-445 B.C.) there is a great hiatus in the narrative of the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. The main reason appears to have been that, in spite of the goodwill of the Persian king, Ezra had not the vigorous support of the local authorities. But this was indispensably necessary in order to secure recognition for a new law. At last, in 445, it fell to the lot of a Jew, who also : shared the views of Ezra, Nehemiah ben Hakkelejah, 1 the " cupbearer and the favourite of Artaxerxes, to be sent as Persian governor to Judeea. After he had freed the com munity from external pressure with vigour and success, and brought it into more tolerable outward circumstances, the business of introducing the new law-book was next pro ceeded with ; in this Ezra and Nehemiah plainly acted in concert. On the first of Tisri the year is unfortunately not! given, but it cannot have been earlier than 444 B.C. the promulgation of the law began at a great gathering in Jerusalem ; Ezra, supported by the Levites, was present. Towards the end of the month, the concluding act took place, in which the community became solemnly bound by the contents of the law. Special prominence was given to those provisions with which the people were directly con cerned, particularly those which related to the dues payable by the laity to the priests. The covenant which hitherto had rested on Deuteronomy was thus expanded into a covenant based upon the entire Pentateuch. Substantially at least Ezra s law-book, in the form in which it became the Magna Charta of Judaism in or about the year 444, must be regarded as practically identical with our Pentateuch, although many minor 1 According to the present punctuation this name is Hakalja (Hacli- aljah), but such a pronunciation is inadmissible ; it has no possible etymology, the language having no such word as hakal. The name in its correct form means " Wait upon Jehovah."