historical annals, genealogies, laws and ordinances, Temple psalms and songs, proverbs, and the utterances of the literary prophets, all more or less jumbled together, and still doubtless, as they had been, in the keeping of the clergy or priests. And the clergy, with no official work of the altar to do, turned to the study of their civic and religious archives, and became scribes or scholars. So, as during the captivity prophecy culminated and later subsided, scholarship, gradually taking its place, grew in vigor and solidity and became a dominant achievement of the men of leading. To this not only their enforced leisure but the atmosphere of a cultured land would contribute. They could estimate their literary accumulations in a new light. There were naturally two lines of cleavage in the work undertaken by these unnamed scholars: one selecting the works adapted to the present needs in Chaldea, and of the Dispersion in general; the other collecting and codifying the works adapted to the permanent and as it were constitutional needs of the people who had returned to the homeland to set up their capital anew. The Line of I. It would naturally begin, I think, with their store of prophecies, whose truth and sanity had been so vindicated by the event of fulfillment and restoration. All Vindicated the extant work of the literary prophets, as we Prophecy have seen, had centered about this crisis of national break-up and exile; and its vitality would be evident now. It had become classic. Accordingly, with the work of Jeremiah and Ezekiel still fresh in mind as a nucleus, these scholars would bring together, arrange, and perhaps touch up and fill out the earlier remains. The last two chapters of Jeremiah - to mention only one example are generally regarded as a case in point; and we have seen how grandly the unknown Second Isaiah supplemented the torso left by Isaiah son of Amoz, making it a finished vision covering virtually the whole prophetic period. So it would fare also with Micah, Nahum, Zephaniah, Habakkuk, for the Judean state; nor would they omit Hosea and Amos for the still earlier northern kingdom; for the prophecy of Isaiah (cf. Isa. xi, 11-13) and later of Ezekiel (cf. Ezek. xxxvii, 15-28) had come true, and the whole Israelitish race was again united in spirit. In the feeling of the prophets, indeed, it had never been divided; their ultimate mission was one. It was the body of collected prophecy, not unlikely, that became the favorite reading matter of the Jews of the Dispersion and of the outlying districts of Palestine, in the scattered communities where in course of time synagogues were erected in which both for religious service and popular education Scripture was read and cherished. Such communities had less use, relatively, for such rules and rituals as in the Pentateuch are associated with Temple and clergy, and more relative regard for the fervid ideals of the prophets, with their more spacious interpretation of life. Such differentiation of literary interests would produce its own type of emphasis and sentiment. We see the effect of this different attitude in the time of Jesus' ministry, when he and his Galilean disciples were imbued with prophetic ideas, while the Jews of the capital, with whom they came in contact, had become hard and intolerant in their narrow regard for the law of Moses and the usages of ecclesiasticism. The Line of 2. Here, however, we must take renewed note of the distinctive Hebrew genius. In the mind of the Jewish scholars prophecy was intimately involved in history; history-their history at least—was essentially prophetic. It was luminous with the mind and purpose of Jehovah. They regarded their greatest lawgiver as their greatest prophet (cf. Deut. xxxiv, 10); they Evolution 1 For remarks on the Hebrew genius for history and prophecy, as compared especially with the Greek genius for philosophy, see above, pp. 37-39. accepted the prophets as interpreters of events (cf. Amos iii, 7); and when later their body of literature assumed the form. of a canon the collection of books narrating the nation's history (Joshua to Second Kings) was counted as prophecy, being called "the earlier prophets" (n'bhi'im r'shonim), while the prophets proper (Isaiah to Malachi) were called "the later prophets" (n'bhi'im aḥaronim). This shows how liberally and honorably the idea of prophecy was construed. Nor were the prophets proper ranked as mere augurs and diviners, like the professional fortune tellers of other nations; such, in fact, came to discredit and shame (cf. Jer. xxvii, 9; Zech. xiii, 3-5); rather, they were regarded as spokesmen of Jehovah, interpreting the meaning and tendencies of historical conditions and events. As a recent writer has put it, "Rightly regarded, prophecy is the statement of eternal truth in a form suited to an immediate occasion."1 So intimate, in the matured scholarly view, was the blending of prophecy and history; so reverent the spirit accorded to both. As such interpreters the prophets proper had their degree of authority, an authority adequate for present faith and stimulus; but the history itself, with its developed laws and proved lessons, came to have an authority still greater. It was the authority of fact illuminated by values, the values of a divinely guided evolution. Such liberal estimate of the past led these old-time scholars to deal fairly, rigidly indeed, with the records in their hands. In compiling the annals of their leaders, judges, and kings they did not take liberties with their historical material; did not twist or deny its statements. They had gathered it from many sources documentary and traditional, ranging from state archives to personal and family narratives, and they were content to set the stories side by side, ignoring the risks of discrepancy and relative authenticity. Hence the impression we get of a 1 See above, pp. 127, 141. The quotation is from an article by Theodore H. Robinson in The Interpreter (July, 1917), p. 137. thoroughly honest history, free from obtrusion of the historians' personal notions, and preserving to large degree the contemporary tone and color of its venerable sources. Yet also it is eminently homogeneous, consistent, continuous; and as to literary artistry, its masterly selection of relevant and essential material from so vast and varied a mass is evinced in the fact that it has told the story of a race from prehistoric and patriarchal times through many centuries, from Chaldea to Chaldea again, in a compass which in our day makes up only a section of a single volume. This is no place to go into detail; it is sufficient, in estimating the work of these nameless scholars and scribes, to take note of this general mastery of the historic sense and method. Law-ordered First Claim As standards of orthodoxy and authority, however, the works of the prophets were not the first to be gathered for the uses of an eventual Scripture canon. The History the condition of things in the recolonized homeland, already described, called for an initiative of another kind from Babylon. There were other works that had a prior claim; namely, the laws of Moses, embodying the code and constitution of Israel, with the primitive histories that led up to and accompanied them. These seem to have been in more mixed and chaotic condition than the prophecies; in more need therefore of the organizing touch of scholarship. There was more need also of vigor and system in preparing them for renewed use; for the restored community in Jerusalem was growing lax and loose for want of them, and must needs be brought to a sense of their uncompromising authority (cf. Jehovah's warning, Mal. iii, 6). One body, or version, of Mosaic law was already well known : that book of the law which was found in the temple in the time of Josiah, and which we identify with the Book of Deuteronomy.1 Perhaps also Ezekiel's visionary sketch for the reorganization of the cultus, Ezek. xliv to xlvi, had been 1 See "The Book Found in the Temple," pp. 220-228 above. taken back to the homeland for use in starting anew. But the rebuilt Temple with its usages, and the church now in the governance of High Priests, which had replaced the Jewish state, required more articulated and systematized legislation than this Book of Deuteronomy could supply; and Ezekiel's scheme, drawn up largely, it would seem, from his memory of priestly usages, could only be preliminary; the cultus must have more ancient and tested authority than a hasty sketch could give it. To collect and codify the scattered laws of a people must be the work of scholars, and it must take time and study. How many scribes were engaged on. this work we do not know, nor how long their researches took; its results appear in the work and influence of one man, Ezra, "a ready scribe in the law of Moses" (Ezra vii, 6), who in 458 B.C., sixty years after the dedication of the rebuilt Temple, appeared in Jerusalem with the completed law of Moses in his hand. "For Ezra had set his heart to seek the law of Jehovah, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and ordinances " (Ezra vii, 10). II Ezra Scribe and Scholar. Ezra's arrival in Jerusalem from Babylon was in many ways auspicious. Of priestly lineage direct from Aaron, he seems from his eminent learning and piety to have obtained the esteem of King Artaxerxes, who by royal letter authorized him to act as special lawgiver and magistrate, with power both to promulgate and enforce the law of his God and of the king. There accompanied him about fifteen hundred like-minded men, volunteers from leading priestly and Levitical families, who in the troublous years that ensued proved a strong nucleus and support in the reformed doctrines and customs thus introduced from Babylon. They took with them a handsome subsidy of gold and silver for the maintenance |