TEE BIBLE. 



291 



written legal collections of greater or less extent 

 from the time of Moses downward. 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 ac- 

 knowledged part of the law of the land, make 

 it probable that legal provisions, which the 

 prophets and their priestly allies felt to be neces- 

 sary 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 reformation, began from 

 the eighth century, if not still earlier, to commit 

 their oracles to writing ; and these written 

 prophecies — 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 relig- 

 ious 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 efforts of priests and 

 prophets. In spite of the crass and unspiritual 

 character of the mass of the people, the noblest 

 traditions of national life were entwined with re- 

 ligious convictions, 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 efflo- 

 rescence 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 lie- 

 brew commonwealth popular literature had not 

 yet sunk to represent the lowest impulses of na- 

 tional 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 judg- 

 ment 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 absurditv. Faith in 



the covenant God was impossible except on the 

 principles of spiritual belief. Nor did the resto- 

 ration by Cyrus affect this result. No political 

 future lay before the returning exiles, and con- 

 tinued confidence in the destiny of the race was 

 not separable from the religious ideas and Mes- 

 sianic hopes of the prophets. To obey the law 

 of Jehovah, and patiently to await the coming 

 deliverer, was the only distinctive vocation of the 

 community 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. a). 

 But with this victory the spiritual I'eligion passed 

 into a stationary state. The spirit of prophecy, 

 long decadent, expired with Malachi, the younger 

 contemporary of Nehemiah ; and the whole con- 

 cern of the nation from this time downward was 

 simply to preserve the sacred inheritance of the 

 past. The exile had so utterly broken all con- 

 tinuity 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 guid- 

 ance. The books that had upheld the exile's 

 faith, when all outward ordinances of religion 

 were lacking, were also the fittest teachers of the 

 restored community. Previous reformers had 

 been statesmen or prophets. Ezra is a scribe 

 who comes to Jerusalem armed, not with a fresh 

 message from the Lord, but with " the book of 

 the law of Moses." This law-book was the Pen- 

 tateuch, and the public recognition of it as the 

 rule of the theocracy was the declaration that 

 the religious ordinances of Israel had ceased to 

 admit of development, and the first step toward 

 the substitution of a canon or authoritative col- 

 lection 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 exter- 

 nal authority. He, it is said, collected a library 

 which, besides documents of temporary impor- 

 tance, embraced " the books about the kings and 

 prophets, and the writings of David " (2 Macca- 

 bees ii. 13). Certainly a complete bedy of the re- 

 mains 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 im- 

 portance 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 



