Chapter VII: Concluding Remarks

WE add the following remarks in the nature of a general review and inference, which are more appropriate to this era of the Jewish history than to any other.

=1. There never was a time= when the Jewish people exhibited such a humble and yet determined spirit of obedience to the Mosaic Law as when they returned from the Captivity. All the history of those times as derived from the Jewish writings, both sacred and secular, fully attests this spirit. All their hopes for the future, both political and religious, were conditioned upon outward obedience to the requirements of the Law as explained by the teachings of their ancient prophets or illustrated and made more impressive in the Psalms or songs of Israel and pictured to them in the happier days of the Temple service. All that appertained to the history of the past was precious. This fact, as we have shown, was illustrated in many ways.

=2.= Moreover, from the Scripture history of Ezra and Nehemiah, it is plain that a large body of skilled men, ably instructed in the Law and acquainted with the sacred writings of the Jewish people, were among the captives before the close of the Captivity. The Levites and priests were in existence, and the prophets were among them, and they met in various places for worship and for the songs of Zion. The condition of the Jews in Babylonia and elsewhere was favorable to the cultivation of their literature, and they were allowed many privileges.

It is plain from the letter of Artaxerxes, Ezra 7:11, and from other testimonies, that not only Ezra but many others studied the Jewish writings long before the close of the Captivity. The Samaritan Pentateuch in its letters may offer evidence on this point, for the new letters in which the Law and the canonized books were written very probably found their origin in the reverence in which the Jews held the sacred writings during the Captivity.

These new letters, as we have said, are called the “square form,” but they were called by the early Jews[149] “the Ashuri” character, Ashuri meaning, according to Maimonides, the sacred character, and they were probably invented specially for sacred writings.

The old Samaritan letters were not sacred. They were used in various modifications by the Canaanites; they were used by the Moabites, as we see on the Moabite stone, discovered in 1868 at Dibon, east of the Dead Sea; they were also used by the Phœnicians,[150] and have been found upon Assyrian weights associated with the cuneiform, probably for the convenience of the merchants and tradesmen,[151] upon the coins of Judæa, and upon one coin of Jehu, king of Israel.[152] It was therefore a common character, and it was strictly in keeping with the Jewish sentiment of exclusiveness and separation of themselves from all the nations around that they should clothe their sacred writings in a letter peculiarly sacred. At any rate we have no other origin for this new form of lettering, which was never known before the Captivity, and which was used after the Captivity exclusively for the sacred writings, as we learn from the Talmuds of both Jerusalem and Babylonia.[153]

=3.= The various sects of Pharisees, with their oral tradition and “unwritten law,” and the Kabalists, with their fanciful and secret interpretations, had not arisen at the time of Ezra. The Scriptures were gathered and copied mainly for instruction; and, as we learn from Ezra and Nehemiah, the people were as earnest as the teachers in their desire that the Scriptures should be known and distinctly understood, and this object appears to have been sincerely pursued in the work prosecuted at that time. At this period the exclusive demand was for those writings which should enlighten the people as to duty, both in regard to the divine law and providence, and for such writings as should illustrate their history as under the Law and as seen in God’s dealings with their fathers. That the influence of the Law and of the teachings of their prophets powerfully controlled their actions and lives is evident from the fact that they never again fell into idolatry. Their truthfulness to their promises and their good faith as a people were so apparent that these traits frequently led to their appointment to positions of trust and privilege among several of the surrounding nations.

=4.= It was under these conditions of character and motive that the learned scribes of these times made the first general collection of Hebrew literature then existing. The names of several books[154] which were extant either at the time of this gathering of the Canonical Books or before, are mentioned in the Scriptures; but if they had been considered worthy of the Canon they would probably have been preserved by copy or repetition. All that was valuable or important to the histories which were preserved in the Scriptures was extracted from them and contained in the Canonical Books as we have them at present.

Judging from certain statements in the genealogies and in the concluding history, the book of Chronicles was the last that was written. The book of Nehemiah however has some additions, Neh. 12:10, 11, 22, of genealogies which bring the high-priests down to the time of Alexander the Great, as Josephus (Vol. V., Book II., ch. 8) shows, who states that Jaddua, whose name occurs in the book of Nehemiah, was high-priest and the last under the Persian rule, and must therefore have lived in the time when Alexander the Great, after the battle of Issus, B. C. 334, visited Jerusalem, B. C. 332, during the high-priesthood of Jaddua.

It is narrated that this high-priest was succeeded by Onias, his son, and he by “Simon the Just,” who was called by the Jews the last of the men of the Great Synagogue. It was during the priesthood of this Simon that, according to the general opinion of both Jewish and Christian writers, the final addition was made to the Canon of the Old Testament. Simon, who was not only high-priest, but a man of great learning and of most fervent piety and devotion to the Law, is said to have added the books of Chronicles, of Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, and the prophecy of Malachi; after which, as Josephus writes, there was no further change, omission, or addition. The Old Testament Canon was closed then for ever.

PERIOD VII.

THE NEW TESTAMENT ERA.

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF OUR SAVIOUR.

THE PLANTING OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.