MACEDON , 401—301 B.C.

 

CHAPTER VII . THE INAUGURATION OF JUDAISM

I.

THE HISTORICAL OUTLINES

 

THE little that is known directly of Syria and Palestine during I the Persian age is almost wholly concerned with the Jews. Although these lands, constituting, as they did, part of the fifth of the twenty satrapies of the Achaemenids, were involved in the larger history of Persia and the West, the Jews alone preserved their national consciousness, and formed a link between the Assyrian and Babylonian age and the events leading up to the rise of Christianity. Jerusalem, so sequestered as not to command the attention of the curious Herodotus—who does not name the Jews—stands out by reason of an achievement which sealed the long development of the religion of Israel: the inauguration of ‘Post-exilic Judaism.’ This event, remote though it is from the main historical theme of the present volume, was destined ultimately to shape the world’s history, and an account of it, so far as our scanty and difficult sources allow, must be given in this place.

A period which once seemed somewhat dull and lifeless is now found to be one of great permanent changes; and its most conspicuous monument is the Pentateuch. For, in the view of modern scholars, ‘the Mosaic history is not the starting-point for the history of ancient Israel, but for the history of Judaism.’ What was really a new stage in the religious development of Israel has been carried back and ascribed to the beginning of the tribal history, before the Davidic monarchy; and the Persian age is now the vantage ground from which the Old Testament viewed in the light of modern research becomes more intelligible.

The books of Ezra and Nehemiah, our main source, are an integral part of the ‘Chronicler’s History’, which passes from the capture of Jerusalem by the Babylonian Nebuchadrezzar (586 BC) to the return of Jewish exiles by the permission of Cyrus the first ruler of the Persian dynasty (538 BC). This history is that of the men who returned each to his own city, the rebuilding of the Temple in spite of continued opposition—the help of Samaritans being rejected—and the establishment of a distinctive community separated from the Samaritans and other strangers. The reader is looking at events through the eyes of uncompromising reformers whose horizon is strangely circumscribed. On the internal history of Palestine as a whole during the exile, on the prominence of the new Davidic scion Zerubbabel, and on the Messianic hopes of his supporters the ‘Chronicler’ maintains silence; though from the independent writings of the contemporary prophets Haggai and Zechariah (c. 520 BC) two facts emerge: (1) that no considerable or influential body of exiles could have returned, and (2) that Zerubbabel stands for a religious and political movement far more significant than our scanty narratives record. A renewal of the Davidic monarchy was evidently in the air. But some sixty years pass before the curtain is lifted again, and the Chronicler records that in the seventh year of Artaxerxes (458 BC) Ezra, a priest and scribe, receiving royal permission, returned accompanied by a body of priestly, temple and lay followers, with rich gifts for the temple, and extensive powers. His task was to inquire into the religious conditions, to instruct the people in accordance with the Law (Torah), and to appoint judges for all the Jews ‘beyond the River’. His mission is represented as the first step in the inauguration of post-exilic Judaism.

This benevolent action of the Persian king is the outstanding fact in the inauguration of Judaism. It is in contrast to the inveterate jealousy and hostility of the neighbours of the Jews, and to the story of Esther and the escape of the Jews from massacre in the reign of the preceding king Ahasuerus or Xerxes. How far such favour—which was also enjoyed by the colony at Elephantine—was influenced by merely political considerations it is difficult to say. Judah—Palestine in general—had traditional political relations with Egypt (whence the presence of the military colony in Elephantine), as also with Babylonia. Presumably it was affected by the revolts in Babylonia which compelled Xerxes to adopt a less conciliatory policy, as also by the intrigues of Inaros and Megabyxus in Egypt. The foreign policy of the petty peoples was rarely if ever unanimous and the revolts outside their doors were usually accompanied by serious dissensions within. Yet, however that may be, it appears that Ezra’s far-reaching plans with all the political consequences involved in them were frustrated, not by any political opposition, but by the internal conditions among the Jews themselves. There had been extensive intermarrying with strangers and, according to the narrative, almost his first step, instigated by the leading men in Judah, was to purge the community by the summary expulsion of the non-Jewish wives and their children (Ezra X).

At this point our narrative suddenly introduces us to quite another situation—the vivid story of Nehemiah’s vigorous efforts to revive a prostrate and defenceless Jerusalem. Thirteen years have passed. It is the twentieth year of Artaxerxes (445 BC; or twenty-fifth year, so Josephus) and Nehemiah the cup-bearer of the Great King at Susa is overwhelmed with grief at the news of the lamentable condition of the city of his fathers’ tombs—he was perhaps of royal ancestry. He gained the ear of the king—and of the queen: harem rule prevailed in Persia, and it is thought possible that he was a eunuch. Leave was granted him to return to rebuild Jerusalem. Like Zerubbabel he firmly refused aid from outside, and succeeded in arousing his disheartened and indifferent brethren. Despite continuous intrigue and opposition, he sufficiently strengthened the walls in the short space of fifty-two days, and then the blow fell. Opposed to him was a strong party, Sanballat, the Ammonite Tobiah, Gashmu the Arabian, and their supporters and kinsmen among the Jews. It was alleged that Nehemiah had bribed prophets to hail him king—a charge which recalls the enthusiastic anticipations of Haggai and Zechariah for Zerubbabel. No doubt there were fears of some fresh political aggrandizement, and specimens of the utterances of patriotic prophets may perhaps be recognized in Is. LX—LXIIl, where, though there is no Messianic figure, the supremacy of the holy city of Zion is awaited. But it was an empty city and Nehemiah’s task was to fill it. At this point the story breaks off; and Ezra suddenly reappears on the stage.

Now at last the Law is read, and in accordance with its pre­scripts the ‘seed of Israel’ observed the national Feast of Tabernacles as never before ‘since the days of Joshua.’ They separated themselves from strangers, and a covenant was solemnly drawn up. Its chief terms were the avoidance of intermarriage with the heathen, no Sabbath trading, the observance of the Sabbatic year, the remission or rather suspension of debts every seventh year, and various regulations for the maintenance of the Temple. That the remarkable powers conferred upon Ezra by Artaxerxes were fully utilized does not appear; but the occasion, as is shown by the list of those who signed it, was regarded as epoch-making, and it culminated in the determination never to forsake the ‘house of our God’ (Oct. 445 BC).

Again there is an abrupt change in the narrative—the city is being repopulated, the newly built walls are dedicated, and Nehemiah makes arrangements for the temple ministrants. On the strength of the Deuteronomic law the Jews separated themselves from Ammon, Moab and other strangers. In some way twelve more years have passed, and Nehemiah, who had returned to Persia, obtained leave in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes to revisit the city (433 BC). Grievous sights met his eyes. The sanctity of the Sabbath was being pro­faned by Jewish and Tyrian traders, the Hebrew language was dying out owing to intermarriages, the temple service was crippled, the high priest Eliashib was allied by marriage with the Ammonite Tobiah whom he had installed in one of the temple-chambers, and a son of Eliashib’s son Joiada was son-in-law to Sanballat. The zealous governor remedied matters in his own vigorous way, and with his work in purging the priesthood and re-establishing the temple organization, his lively story ceases with the prayer: ‘Remember me, O my God for good.’ A place must be found somewhere in the history for a striking narrative, now strangely inserted in the midst of the hasty rebuilding of the walls of the city, where he tells of his generous measures on behalf of his poorer brethren, and his integrity and hospitality during a twelve years’ governorship. The solidarity of the people had been broken by class-differences and reckless divorces (denounced by the evidently contemporary ‘Malachi’), and a new social covenant also stands to his credit. Thus does the personality of Nehemiah stand out, more clearly than most characters in the Old Testament; and although, as will have been seen, the chapters relating to him do not furnish a simple outline of events, they afford the starting-point for any discussion of the history of the reign of Artaxerxes.

Certain facts can be clearly recognized: the fortification of Jerusalem, the reorganization of the Temple, its personnel and cult, the importance attached to the Sabbath; the introduction of the Law, the divorce of foreign wives and the separation from strangers, and the formation of an exclusive Judaean community, almost an ecclesiastical community. But difficult problems at once arise. Thus Nehemiah’s last step—the purging of the priesthood— appears to have some reference to the great Samaritan schism, when the intermittent hostility between Judah and Samaria led to the subsequent enmity of two closely-related though rival sects. So at least the Jewish historian Josephus understood the schism, although in his version it is placed about a century later, in the days of Joiada’s grandson Jaddua and the invasion of Alexander the Great. According to this writer, at a time of fierce animosity between Samaria and Jerusalem, Sanballat, then an old man, sought to win over the Jews by marrying his daughter Nikaso to the priest Manasseh, the brother of Jaddua. This was bitterly resented in Judah, and at last Manasseh, with sundry priests and Levites who had married strangers, migrated to Samaria where Sanballat built a temple for them on Mt Gerizim. The story is circumstantial, but such was the ignorance which came to prevail concerning the Achaemenid dynasty that it is not easy to decide when the final separation actually occurred. Certainly the slumbering jealousy between north and south readily burst into flame as occasion offered, but the acceptance by the Samaritans of the Pentateuch, together with other evidence, points to one or more periods of rapprochement.

Some light has more recently been thrown upon the age by the Jewish papyri discovered at Elephantine (mainly in 1904—8), and in particular by the appeals sent to Jerusalem and Samaria after the destruction of the local temple of Yahu (Yahweh) by the Egyptians in the reign of Darius II (411 BC). For some reason no notice was taken of the first appeal addressed to Jehohanan (John) the high-priest of Jerusalem and to Ostanes, whose brother Anani is specially mentioned, and may therefore have been Zerubbabel’s descendant of that name. On the other hand, a sympathetic reply was received from one of the two sons of Sanaballat (a more correct spelling of the name) and from the Judaean governor Bagohi. The events belong to the generation after Nehemiah. Sanballat is presumably represented by his sons, and these would be brothers-in-law of the renegade son of Joiada (the son of Eliashib) or of Manasseh the son of Johanan (so Josephus) the leading figures in the two versions of the Samaritan schism. It is of course possible that there were two Sanballats, and certainly the name Bagohi was not a rare one. Further, Josephus tells of a Bagoses a military commander, evidently of the time of Artaxerxes II (404-358 BC.), who proposed to replace the high-priest John by his brother Joshua (Jeshua); and who, when John slew the latter within the sacred precincts, severely punished the crime, enslaving the people and imposing heavy tribute upon the daily sacrifices in the temple. Josephus, while condemning Bagoses for having ‘polluted’ the temple by entering it, does not conceal his abhorrence of the fratricide, which he places immediately before the Samaritan schism. Such an incident must reflect far-reaching political and religious differences between the governors and priests of Judah. The more exclusive policy of Nehemiah, like the failure of the Jerusalem high-priest to respond to the appeal from Elephantine, thus stands in contrast to the action of Sanballat and his two sons—both of whom have distinctly Jewish names—and of the Persian governor Bagohi. It would be tempting to speculate further upon the attitude of the Jews of Elephantine to Persia, and upon both the more exclusive and the more conciliatory tendencies which can so easily be recognized; but it is difficult to frame a consistent chronological reconstruction of the course of events and of the relations between Jews and Samaritans.

The Jewish Canonical History ended with the significant reforms of Nehemiah, aimed at Samaritans and other non-Jews. But at a much later date the series of documents, Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah, was artificially divided and the halves transposed, so that in the Hebrew Bible Chronicles now stands after its sequel in Ezra-Nehemiah. In consequence of this division, the Bible of the scattered Jews of subsequent centuries ended appropriately on a happy note, with the rise of a new and friendly empire and the opportunity to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple. On the other hand, the incomplete First Esdras of the Apocrypha—which breaks off in the middle of a sentence—has an order of its own, and represents the increasing tendency to place Ezra’s work before Nehemiah’s. This tendency grew, and Josephus places Ezra wholly before Nehemiah, and Ezra’s work very fittingly ends, as has been seen, with the vow to cherish the Temple. Thus there are different tendencies and arrangements in order to give the first position to Ezra or to find some suitable climax, and in giving effect to this or the other intention alterations have been made sometimes of a very intricate character.

While Josephus has concentrated the chief events upon the coming of Alexander the Great, other late Jewish writers made Ezra the predominating figure. Not only is he supposed to re­write the Sacred Books which had been burnt with the temple, but others besides (24 canonical and 70 esoteric works). He also introduces a new script, the Aramaic ancestor of the ‘square’ Hebrew in the place of the older which was retained by the Samaritans. To him is also ascribed (by a dubious interpretation of Neh. VIII, 8) the Targum or popular Aramaic version. In fact Ezra becomes a hated figure among the Samaritans for his activity in intensifying the differences between them and the Jews1. Here tradition has concentrated on one figure and on one age changes which were spread over a considerable interval; and the same possibility applies to the earlier tradition preserved in the biblical books.

In contrast with this exaltation of the priest Ezra the layman Nehemiah is the more important figure in earlier tradition, and Ezra is not named by Ben Sira in his list of post-exilic heroes. Nehemiah, it was said, actually built the Temple and the altar, he resumed the sacrifices, and collected ‘writings concerning the kings and the prophets, and the books of David and letters of kings about sacred gifts’. He is thus a forerunner of Judas Maccabaeus who collected the books that survived the ravages of war; and it is noteworthy that even in the Old Testament some building or repair of the temple is ascribed to the reign of Artaxerxes I (Ezra VI, 14). There is a growing consensus of opinion that the account of the work of Ezra presupposes that of Nehemiah: the soil has been prepared, the city is populous, conditions are more stable, the political opposition has been put down; religious changes alone remain to be carried out, and they are willingly effected. The work of Nehemiah, in turn, presupposes more disturbed conditions; the energetic layman seems to precede the priest. It is very generally agreed, therefore, that Ezra did not return before Nehemiah, though it is disputed whether to place the priestly scribe between the first and second visits of Nehemiah, or after Nehemiah and under the Second Artaxerxes, or even to reject the story of Ezra as a later invention.

Whichever of these views be adopted, we have still to seek the cause of the scenes of desolation and despair which confronted Nehemiah—must we look back nearly a century and a half to the Fall of Jerusalem (586 BC), or was it more recent ? A valuable Aramaic fragment, now out of place in the account of the rebuilding of the temple by Zerubbabel in the time of Darius, tells of an important return of Jews in the reign of Artaxerxes to rebuild the walls, though curiously enough the version in 1 Esd. II, 18, 2.0 refers to the temple. Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabel and other officials, it is said, wrote to the King to protest that these Jews were rebuilding a city which had a reputation for its intransigence, and that if this were done it would be a danger to the empire; Artaxerxes, having ascertained that Jerusalem had indeed been rebellious and the seat of powerful kings, gave orders for the work to be stopped forcibly until instructions were sent. So runs the fragment, which has been utilized to explain the cessation of the building of the temple between the reigns of Cyrus and Darius. By some it is thought to explain the unhappy conditions which confronted Nehemiah. But a better place for it would be after Nehemiah’s return, at the point where the story abruptly ceases. The opposition probably reached its height with the allegation that political aims were on foot, and Nehemiah himself states, ‘Tobiah sent letters to put me in fear’. Fortified though Nehemiah was with the King’s authority, the accusation of disloyalty and rebellion might well alarm the King; and Tobiah, whose letters so disturbed the honest governor, has a name which is the Hebrew equivalent of  the Aramaic Tabel who was among those who formally complained to Artaxerxes. Nehemiah himself was obliged to return to the King; and since he reappears on his second visit in a stronger position, it may be assumed that Artaxerxes satisfied himself of the governor’s loyalty. But it is also possible that the fears of Artaxerxes were aroused and that care was taken to preclude any monarchical aspirations: certainly the later governor Bagohi seems far less of a Jew than either Zerubbabel or Nehemiah.

In any case, the story of Ezra represents the sort of ecclesiastical movement that could follow the more primitive activities of a Nehemiah who—if only perhaps by reason of his ancestry— laid himself open to the suspicion of nationalistic activities: contrast Bagohi’s association with the son of Sanballat. The story of Ezra is also the prelude to the subsequent theocracy. It is virtually the description of the inauguration of Judaism; and when Ezra reads the Book of the Law, the narrator is evidently referring to the Pentateuch as a whole, even as it was Deuter­onomy which, according to an earlier writer, had been ‘rediscovered’ in the reign of Josiah.

All the main traditions converge upon the reign of Artaxerxes I. Thenceforth there is silence, unless, as some scholars urge, the account of the favour shown by the King of Persia to Ezra belongs to the reign of Artaxerxes II, in which case his return should be dated to 397 BC. The latter king is, however, notorious for his recognition of Mithra and the goddess Anahita by the side of the supreme god Ahura-mazda, and images of the goddess were set up in the larger Persian cities, in Damascus, and as far afield as Sardes. While there was much in the character of the ethical and imageless All-Creator Ahura-mazda with which Jews could sympathize, the addition of an intermediary and redeeming god Mithra, and, in particular, the religious prostitution associated with Anahita, a goddess of the Ishtar type, would inevitably provoke the Jews who had come under the influence of the prophets and the Deuteronomic reforming movement, and fierce opposition is only to be expected. Direct evidence is wanting, although mention should perhaps be made of the view that the religious changes led to a crisis in Judaism which forms the historical basis of the highly embellished traditions of Jewish persecution and reprisals in the book of Esther.

Later, the separatist movements in Egypt and the West shook the Persian empire. The revolt of Evagoras (389 BC) extended to Phoenicia and Palestine, and the unrest of c. 366—60 BC, like the Phoenician revolts and the re-organization of Egypt 343—2 BC, doubtless had their repercussion in Palestine. According to a late and rather dubious tradition, recorded by Eusebius, Jericho was captured and Jews carried off to Hyrcania and elsewhere. In the romance of Judith, too, traces of historical events of the time of Artaxerxes Ochus (358—38) have been conjectured. Not unnaturally has it been thought that those Old Testament passages which relate to the sufferings of the Jews and to the anticipations of deliverance, and which, on internal grounds, appear to be later than the sixth century BC and the time of Zerubbabel, really belong to this later period. In this way the age of Artaxerxes III and the advent of Alexander the Great, with all its promise of a new epoch, can, in the opinion of some scholars, be illustrated by passages which otherwise might seem to belong to the rise of the Persian Empire itself, when Cyrus was the expected saviour. In default of contemporary external evidence the most valuable criteria are to be found in the history of religious ideas and the literary growth of the Old Testament, although intricate problems of the development of thought are involved. But something will have to be said on these, so vital and suggestive are they; they serve to fill the gaps in the narrative, and the nature of these gaps will be realized when one looks back to the Fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC, the scanty facts of Zerubbabel and the Second Temple (520—16 BC), and, travelling over the obscure history of Nehemiah and Ezra, passes through some two or three blank centuries before the historical narrative is resumed in the days of the Maccabees (Antiochus Epiphanes, 175 BC).

 

II.

THE JEWS AND THEIR NEIGHBOURS

 

Leaving the historical narratives we turn, first, to a considera­tion of the general conditions. The satrapy of which Palestine was part included Syria, Phoenicia and Cyprus; Arabia was independent. ‘Transpotamia,’ to give it a name, extended from Posidium on the Orontes to the border of Egypt, and this single political unit, after the late writer in 1 Kings IV, 24, would correspond to Solomon’s realm from Tiphsah to Gaza. The constituent provinces enjoyed a certain freedom; each had its prince (nasi) or governor appointed by Persia, and one of the Jewish families is even named after the governor of Moab (Pahath-Moab). The feelings of native states were so far considered that Zerubbabel, and possibly Nehemiah, were of the old dynasty; and, as was usual, for example in the Amarna age, the states would have their representatives at the suzerain’s court. Samaria was in several respects of greater political importance than Jerusalem; but still more powerful was the north, e.g. Damascus, the seat of the satrap, Aleppo, and Hierapolis-Mabbog, famous later for its temple. The satrap, who travelled around maintaining order (like Tattenai in Ezra), seems to have had a seat at Mizpah, like Gedaliah of old. There was an elaborate organization for the collection of taxes, toll and tribute, and to control the supplies (e.g. wheat, wine, oil, salt). Babylonian and Persian names are conspicuous among the officials, whose titles become increasingly Persian. It is noteworthy that Shimshai, the Samaritan scribe or secretary in the time of Artaxerxes has, like the scribes at Elephantine, a Babylonian name, and that it is only an older form of that given to David’s scribe. Although the tribute paid by Palestine was perhaps not heavy relatively, the land lay too near scenes of revolt and warfare to escape other burdens; the frequent passage of armies and warring-bands, taxation, debt, and bad harvests would crush the unfortunate peasants, forcing them to sell their children as slaves to their richer brethren. The officials were maintained by the royal purse, and a generous governor would refrain from exacting supplies and would entertain a large body of pensioners. Garrisons, as at Elephantine, received monthly payments in money or kind; passports and troops would guarantee a safe journey; letters of recommendation were in use, and special permits were necessary, for example, before timber could be obtained. There was an elaborate system of reports, and the formal procedure of the satrap Tattenai at the suspicious conduct of the Jews stands in marked contrast to the realistic account of the intrigues against Nehemiah. If Artaxerxes did indeed grant Ezra supplies of money, wheat, oil and salt, free the temple-personnel from taxes, and even permit him to set judges over all the Jews in Transpotamia, it is at least obvious that such remarkable generosity to the Jews and their temple at Jerusalem would provoke the keenest resentment and bitterness among their opponents. Needless to say the Persian administration was not without red tape, and the meticu­lousness, of which the Elephantine papyri give an extraordinary example, repeats itself in the fondness for specifications, attested by Ezra VI, 3, 17; VII, 22, and in certain portions of the biblical narrative and law now ascribed to the ‘Priestly’ source, commonly known as ‘P’).

The army was under a separate administration, and although aristocratic and landed families formed the governing class, a military type of settlement can be traced—at least in Elephantine. Here the garrisons lived a settled life, with land and houses of their own; and, as in P’s accounts of the Israelite journey into the Promised Land, men were distributed by ‘flags’ (degel, cf. Num. II) which, in the former case, are known by Persian or Babylonian names. The province (medinah) was, as the word shows, the unit of jurisdiction; and although in Judah the priestly Levites come to be regarded as lawgivers, religious and civil cases (and in Elephantine military cases) would be kept separate. The Jews had their edah, a ‘Congregation’ with superior powers; but the supremacy of the priestly over the secular officials is relatively late. Each had its own sphere; Nehemiah, as it would seem from Neh. VI, 10, had no right to enter the Temple, and Bagoses by his presence there was held to have polluted it (see above). The King and the governors would recognize and control the cults, as is evident from the acts of Nehemiah, Bagohi and Bagoses (if the last two are not identical); and it is in the name of no less than Darius himself that a document is sent in 419 BC to Arsames, and thence by one Hananiah to the priest Yedoniah at Elephantine, instructing them to keep the Feast of the Unleavened Bread. Consequently even the more extravagant decrees in the Old Testament which purport to come from Cyrus, Darius or Artaxerxes, may have behind them genuine decrees of a more modest character; and the extent to which the cults were or could be patronized, regulated or controlled, however profitable to the Jews at times, would also strike at the religious freedom claimed by a community so proud of its religious prerogatives as was the seed of Israel.

Fragments of two copies of the Aramaic version of the inscription of Darius at Behistun have been found at Elephantine: a striking illustration of a procedure, utilized by the romantic writer of Esther, which was calculated to weld together a vast empire. Aramaic was the lingua franca, it was becoming the language of the people. As an international language as far as Sardes and Elephantine, it united the disparate elements of the Persian Empire, and not least the widely-severed Jews; these were not lost sight of, and prophets could look for the return of exiles alike from Sardes and Syene. Everywhere local types of culture would persist, but the fact that even at Elephantine the legal usages betray distinct Babylonian ancestry suggests that the Persians took over the judicial system of their predecessors. Moreover, Palestine itself would doubtless have similar laws for contracts, loans, building rights, dowries, etc., and consequently their almost complete absence from the ‘Mosaic’ legislation—in contrast to their presence in Talmudic literature—does not mean that they were unknown among the Jews of the homeland. In all the more important towns the population was mixed (for Samaria see Ezra IV, 9), and at Elephantine the ‘Judaeans’ (the older form of the word ‘Jew’)—or ‘Aramaeans,’ as they are more widely called—mingle with Babylonians, Persians and Egyptians. The actual conditions in the towns and the inevitable intermarriages would be detrimental to the growth of Jewish exclusiveness, and the keen bitterness provoked in such circumstances by the forcible acts of separation that mark the inauguration of Judaism can be readily imagined. In fact the hostility would be the stronger in view of the free social intercourse and the distinctly higher position of women under the Persians.

At Elephantine the women hold and convey property, and carry on business, like the ‘Virtuous Woman’ of Proverbs. In the marriage contracts provision was made for divorce by either party, and the woman can formally ‘divorce’ (the word is ‘hate’) her husband in the ‘Congregation.’ The prophet’s denunciation of the common divorce of the evidently less protected Jewish wives in Judah—sometimes in order that the husband could marry a stranger—will point to a rather different social environment; while the abhorrence for the ‘Canaanite’ and other traders—such as the husband of the Virtuous Woman was—reflects a very characteristic feeling, but it is only a partial aspect of the many-sided life of the Palestinian world.

To judge from the personal names as a whole, the Jews in both Elephantine and Nippur formed a self-conscious community: it is worth noticing that at the former the custom of naming a child after the grandfather was already in vogue. The Egyptian priests are described, even in contracts, as Kemarim, a term which, however inoffensive primarily, came to have a derogatory application among the Jews. Whatever the cause of the outbreak leading to the destruction of the temple of Yahu, the religion of the colonists was not uninfluenced by its environment. Fervent worshippers of Yahu, the ‘god of heaven,’ they none the less freely recognized ‘the gods,’ and the personal names include foreign gods, like the local Khnub (Khnum), the famous potter-god, creator of the world. A woman, prominent in the business documents, in separating from her Egyptian husband, swears by Sati the great consort of Khnum; but the witnesses do not have Jewish names—the Jews perhaps held aloof. But the Jews themselves took oaths by Herem-bethel, by ‘the shrine (masgeda) and by Anath-Yahu’, and a unique document of 419 BC divides the contributions to the Temple between Yahu, Ashima-bethel and Anath-bethel, in the ratio of I2’5, 7 and 12. It is a remarkable triad, and it corresponds precisely to the local Egyptian triad Khnum, Anuki and Sati, where the last two were respectively mother-goddess and nurse (or concubine), representing the same social conditions as Abraham with his Sarah and Hagar. This not unexpected syncretism is enhanced when a late local Greek inscription identifies the Egyptian triad with Ammon (Zeus), Hera (Sati) and Hestia (Anuki), inasmuch as a tendency to equate Yahweh with Zeus arose under Greek influence, and a unique drachma (probably of Gaza) in the British Museum represents a solar Zeus who is explicitly styled ‘Yahu’ in Aramaic lettering of about 400 BC. But whereas the ready identification of Zeus and Yahweh came to prevail in the Greek period, now it is that of Yahu (Yahweh) and Khnum which might well have provoked the Jews in Elephantine, even as the prominence throughout the Persian Empire of the majestic Ahura-mazda would cause resentment among the more nationalistic Jews. The marked favour shown to the Jews by the Persians must be regarded as of exceptional importance for the inauguration of Judaism, but the exalted character of the supreme Persian god brought new and difficult problems into the religion of Israel.

 

III.

EDOM AND SAMARIA

 

Phoenician sea-power gave the coast-lands a political importance of which they were not slow to take advantage, although rivalry among the ports precluded any lasting achievements. The rivals Tyre and Sidon differed temperamentally. Tyre had its age-long connections with Jerusalem; Sidon—temporarily eclipsed when it paid the penalty for revolt in 345—4 BC— was now the leader: wealthy, cosmopolitan and philhellene. The influence of Phoenicia readily extended southwards along the Philistine coast, and by Sea to the Delta; and Phoenician jar­handles, indications of the Sidonian wine-trade, have been found as far south as Elephantine. From time to time the closer political interrelations between Phoenicia, Philistia and the South of Palestine (Edom, etc.) had vital consequences for Israel and Judah, whose security depended upon the goodwill of these dangerous neighbours. Gaza held an important position as the meeting-place of trade-routes to Syria, the Levant, Egypt and Arabia. The ‘Arabs’ were always a force to be reckoned with; but the precise application of the term is sometimes doubtful, as in the case of the ‘king of the Arabs’ who aided Evagoras against Persia. More is now being heard of Arab tribes and states (Dedan, Sabaeans, Minaeans, etc.), and various Old Testament passages testify to a steady pressure upon, if not rather a penetration into, Southern Palestine and Transjordania.

In the Greek age the Nabataeans held sway in Transjordania from Petra northwards to Damascus; and, like other Semitic states with convenient bases (Jerusalem, Palmyra, etc.), were able to exercise influence far beyond their own territory. Such are the natural advantages of the Edomite area between Egypt, Palestine and Arabia, and so established the valuable trade in gold, incense and spices, that after the decay and downfall of the powerful Judaean monarchy and before the age of the Nabataeans—who come before us as the heirs of an old tradition—the Edomite area must have played a prominent part in the political history. The Minaeans and Sabaeans of South Arabia traded with Egypt and Gaza, and at a Minaean colony of el-Ola, some 400 miles south of Gaza, inscriptions of uncertain date refer to the male and female temple-servants of the god Wadd, and their name strikingly resembles that of the Levites who are explicitly con­nected with the South of Palestine. Farther north of el-Ola lay Tema (Teima), also on a trade-route; it was the home for a few years of the Babylonian antiquarian king Nabonidus, and its Aramaic inscriptions, of the sixth or fifth century BC, manifest the influence of both Babylonia and Egypt upon a culture which has an individuality of its own.

Thus it was in a busy world that Judaism grew up as an exclusive if not intolerant faith with its undying hatred of Edom and of Samaria. Relations between Judah and her neighbours naturally varied from time to time, periods of alliance and of enmity alternated. But it is difficult, as already seen in the case of the Samaritans, to trace with any precision the history of these ‘canonical’ animosities as they might be called. Now it is noteworthy that Nehemiah’s Judah is remarkably circumscribed: Jericho, Mizpah, Keilah and Beth-sur are roughly its limits. The land has been stripped by envious rivals, and the question is a vital one—whether this was Judah’s normal condition after the fall of the Monarchy. Its desolation is commonly ascribed to the destruction of Jerusalem no less than some 140 years previously. Much more probable, .however, is the view that there was some quite recent disaster, although the incident in Ezra IV, 7—23 can hardly be cited in explanation. About three centuries later there was some extension of Judaean territory, into Hebron and Lod or Lydda; and under the ambitious Hasmonaeans the old glories of Israel seemed likely to revive. Certain late writings manifest a keen interest in a larger Israel; and traditions in Chronicles and the story of Judith suggest that Judah was politically not unimportant. On occasion the Samaritans would seize Judaean territory, and even the Maccabees appear to regain in Gilead and Galilee districts where Judaean influence had not had time to die out. The Jews of the time of Alexander the Great were an influential body; and, after all, the wealth and importance of the Temple at Jerusalem point to an authority which was not merely spiritual. Whether or not Ezra was actually authorized by the Great King (Artaxerxes I or II) to appoint judges over the Jews throughout Transpotamia, Jerusalem had a reputation for unruliness, and extensive political combinations arise and fall with equal suddenness in the East. We may be sure that the Jews were as prompt to seize an opportunity for the extension of power as their enemies were ready to combine and crush them. In a word, the fall of the Monarchy (586 BC), the time of Nehemiah (445 BC) and the Hasmonaean period are too widely severed and the facts too scanty for us to base our conceptions of the fortunes of Judah upon them alone.

Whatever the internal conditions in Palestine after the Fall of Jerusalem in 586, later we may recognize closer relations between Judah and Israel—a new all-Israel, such that the subsequent bitterness between Judah and Samaria was the reaction after a closer alliance. Direct evidence is wanting, but even the little that can be seen of the age of Zerubbabel is sufficient to emphasize the gap between the triumphant completion of the Sacred Temple under what seemed to be the beginning of a Second Monarchy and the desolation that over­whelmed the patriotic Nehemiah. Not unnaturally, therefore, has it sometimes been conjectured that there was a fresh disaster to Jerusalem arising out of the political and priestly rivalries of the time of Zerubbabel.

The view that Nehemiah’s Jerusalem was suffering from some recent catastrophe seems to be borne out by the ‘Trito-Isaiah’. This group of chapters reflects a disillusionment after earlier hopes. We have pictures of anguish and humiliation; there had been a new outburst of Yahweh’s wrath: a short affliction. Yahweh’s attitude, as has been well remarked, is now less eager and enthusiastic, it is more reserved. There was sectional or sectarian strife, though it is difficult to identify the parties with certainty. There is poignant grief, which we may date, not at the Fall of Jerusalem, but after some later disaster. To the laments of the people comes the reply that their sins—their failure, for example, to observe the Sabbath—have severed them from Yahweh: there is a ritualistic note in the Trito-Isaiah. The people’s confession leads up to Yahweh’s intervention and the promise of a Redeemer, even as the Chronicler’s History places the people’s penitence for intermarrying with foreigners and Ezra’s marriage reforms before the visit of Nehemiah. If the people are in despair, the approaching vengeance upon Edom is foreshadowed; if they feel neglected, the punishment of Edom proves that Yahweh hated Esau and loved Jacob. Edomite aggression is the keynote in several undated passages which seem to refer to events later than 586. Edomites even seized Judaean cities, and Edom’s hostility to Israel is the more treacherous by reason of the traditional brotherhood of Esau and What this kinship means is clearly seen from the genealogies of Judah, where a sadly decimated tribe, before the Monarchy—? not of David but of Zerubbabel—has been largely reconstructed by means of Caleb, Jerahmeel and other more or less Edomitic clans of the South of Palestine. Such a Judah could not afford to throw stones at the mixed population of Samaria, and whereas the Chronicler’s History tells of the work of re-organization by those of the old Judaean kingdom who returned to their cities, traces of the Calebite or semi-Edomitic infusion can be found in the independent lists of the men who helped Nehemiah to rebuild the wall and to repopulate the city. On the other hand, very few of the names in these lists can be identified with the families who are supposed to have re­turned from Babylon. That is to say, just as the sons of Jacob (Israel) go down into Egypt and return as the Israelite tribes, so Judah and Jerusalem are carried off into exile in 597 and 586, and their descendants are supposed to return and restore the continuity of history—and in each case the people of Palestine are ignored. Here are explicit artificial theories which give a one­sided conception of the history, and allowance has to be made for them. They obscure the importance of the native population; and we should probably recognize that it was a semi-Edomitic Judah, rather than the pre-exilic Judaean state, upon which the attack by the Edomites—perhaps forced by the pressure of the Nabataeans —would leave so lasting a memory of unbrotherly conduct.

Edom, it would seem, had taken advantage of Judah’s extremity, and if Judah’s sufferings were the consequence of a revolt against Persia and a punitive captivity it is possible to explain why characteristically Jewish names appear more or less suddenly in the Nippur contract-tablets of Artaxerxes I and Darius II. In any case, the Trito-Isaiah depicts an oppressed Judah and Jerusalem, hemmed in on all sides and deserted. Neglected by Israel (Jacob) and by Abraham—the ancestral figure at Hebron, now in Edomite hands—they appeal to Yahweh. For ‘a little while’ only had Yahweh’s holy people possessed their inheritance and now he had cast them off as those that had never been his. How different had he been when he brought them up out of Egypt, and ‘the angel of his presence’ saved them. Had he hardened their hearts as he had hardened Pharaoh’s? Jerusalem was, as Nehemiah learns, ‘in great reproach,’ and well did the saviour of the city of his fathers’ graves deserve his significant name of ‘Yahweh comforteth’.

This Edomitic-Judaean phase in the history upon which we can lay our finger, thanks to the genealogical lists, is not wholly unique—a few centuries later the Idumaean Antipater founded the Herodian dynasty. But it is of the greatest significance, because all the evidence suggests that it belongs to a crucial stage in the growth of the Old Testament. It seems to explain various specifically South Palestinian features in the biblical narrative. At the outset, it is to be observed that, although the internal social changes due to captivity and immigration in and about the sixth century BC can hardly be reconstructed in detail, traces are to be found not only of aristocratic and military social organization, but also of local communities (as for instance Jericho, Neh. III, 2) and, what is more noteworthy, of guilds. Trades and professions were largely hereditary, and the scribes, to judge from their names, were Babylonian in Samaria and Elephantine, whereas in Judah there were families of scribes of Kenite, Calebite and semi-Edomitic origin. How far such facts would account for the Babylonian and for the South Palestinian lore in the Old Testament can scarcely be determined, but the presence of the latter can easily be seen. Thus, an Edomitic figure Othniel has been placed at the head of the ‘judges’ of Israel, and South Palestinian features are conspicuous in the accounts both of the patriarchs (Abraham and Isaac) and of the journey into Palestine. Moreover, in the Cainite (Kenite) and related traditions we can discern traces of an ambitious account of the origins of culture: Cain the first builder, Tubal-Cain the metal smith, Jabal probably the herdsman, Jubal the inventor of musical instruments, and Na'amah (‘beloved’), probably a reference to the temple-women. We have a far-reaching view of the rise of civilization—for the name Tubal refers to the Tabal and other iron-working tribes of Asia Minor—and although analogies to the scheme can be found in late Phoenician and, to a less degree, in Babylonian lore, it is a South Palestinian version of origins, which presumably owes its presence in our Old Testament to the prominence of clans and guilds from southern Palestine who were subsequently settled in and around Jerusalem. A Calebite Bezaleel is commemorated as the chief metal-worker in the Tabernacle in the wilderness, and not only would the Second Temple as naturally require skilled workmen as did the First, but portable sanctuaries were known, and the late Post-exilic and Priestly account of the Tabernacle may, amid much that—since the days of Bishop Colenso—has been found untrustworthy, reflect an acquaintance with actual usage among the desert peoples outside Palestine.

The interest in guilds and in the origins of culture is in accord with what we know of the Temple-personnel. The Chronicler’s lists closely connect the Levitical classes of the Temple with South Judah and South Palestine, and they ascribe their origin to David, who himself is spoken of as a famed maker of musical instruments. The Chronicler takes a peculiar interest in the Temple musicians and singers; and some of these guilds (e.g. Korah, Ethan) can be traced back to the south. Nor is this true only of music and psalmody; to the Kenite father-in-law of Moses was due a judicial system, and the Levites were also reputed teachers. Indeed, to the desert itself belongs all that was best in the sphere of wisdom; so that, although Palestine had a cultural history going back to the Amarna period and beyond, the influence of South Palestine, which was of course not confined to any one age, is most explicitly associated with the account both of the beginnings of Israel and of the Davidic monarchy and temple, and with the new developments of about the sixth century BC. That is to say we have to deal with a literary phenomenon which can be co-ordinated with the vicissi­tudes of that age: and the problem of the literary analysis of the biblical narrative and the problem of the actual history in the sixth century are essentially one.

David and Levi—the monarchy and the temple—are coupled in the Chronicler’s account of the rise of the first monarchy, and in the prophet’s anticipations of the Messianic restoration; but, on various grounds, there is reason to suppose that this very interesting combination is a late one. It is not the one that prevails in the Old Testament. The evidence throughout is extremely intricate, it reflects struggle and defeat, victory and compromise between those responsible for this southern and Edomitic phase and their rivals and opponents. The Edomitic Caleb, once connected with Hebron—which becomes increasingly prominent in the later accounts of the patriarchs—must have played a far more important part than is allowed by those writers who have subordinated him to the Ephraimite Joshua, and Joshua to the High-priest. For his faith Yahweh’s ‘servant,’ Caleb, was promised the land he had once entered, whereas to the exiles—who plumed themselves on their superiority—the new inhabitants of the land, (presumably these southern immigrants) were pagan interlopers. The latter, proud of their new inheritance, felt themselves to be the heirs of Abraham—though other writers denounce their irreligion. But the time came when those who had looked to their ancestors, Abraham and Sarah of Hebron, were overwhelmed with disasters, and felt that even Abraham had forgotten them.

Other vicissitudes are suggested by other details. The supre­macy of the Jerusalem priesthood of Zadok over the faithless Levites is set forth in the priestly prophet’s scheme, and is evidently reflected in the story of the degradation of Abiathar in favour of Zadok in the days of Solomon. But a compromise can be recognized when a list of the priestly courses allows eight to the family of Abiathar (Ithamar) as against the sixteen of the Zadokites (, and Zadok is made a descendant of Aaron. Aaron, however, is hardly prominent in the older narratives; the Levitical families are Mosaite, and the tendencies to make them Aaronite and to elevate the ‘priestly’ Aaron over the more ‘prophetic’ figure Moses belong to the later stages in the growth of the Old Testament.

Meanwhile there are varying attitudes to the northern tribes and Samaria which are as difficult to interpret as those just noticed. The prominence of Shechem and the all-Israelite standpoint of the book of Deuteronomy are in marked contrast to the anti­Israelite and anti-Samarian treatment of the history of the divided monarchies in the books of Kings, where ‘Israel’ is used in a restricted sense. The prophets’ interest in (north) Israel contrasts both with the harsh repudiation of the Samaritans who desired to assist in rebuilding the Temple and with the insistence in later Deuteronomic literature upon Jerusalem as the only place where Yahweh could be worshipped. Bethel and its priesthood naturally gained increased authority when Jerusalem was weak, and Aaron himself, as has been conjectured, was perhaps a Bethelite figure who came to be placed even above the Jerusalem Zadok. But this is not the place to enter into details, and it must suffice to remind the reader that prolonged analysis of the internal difficulties of the Old Testament has proved that important historical facts, on the nature of which one can only speculate, account for the complexity of our evidence. Much is quite uncertain and obscure, but the extreme exclusiveness which marks the isolation of Jerusalem and the inauguration of Judaism, though it has shaped the biblical narrative, did not have the last word.

 

IV.

RELIGIOUS TENDENCIES

 

At its worst, Israelite or Jewish exclusiveness manifests an intolerance and vindictiveness illustrated in stories of Rechabite and Levitical reformers, the Deuteronomic theory of the invasion of Palestine and the destruction of its inhabitants, the story of the campaign against Midian, certain prophecies against the ‘Gentiles,’ and in Luther’s bugbear Esther, with its ‘too much heathen naughtiness.’ But this megalomania always had its opponents, especially the prophets, the most uncompromising of anti-Semites, with their conviction that Israel had neither merits nor claims but depended upon Yahweh’s grace. So too the beautiful idyll of Ruth the Moabitess, the ancestress of David, is best understood and becomes most telling when its conclusion is read in the light of the uncompromising aversion from foreign marriages. Also the Midrash, or didactic story, of Jonah culminates in an impressive question which a self-centred Judaism had to answer. No religion develops consistently. The merchants and foreign caravans that helped to enrich Jerusalem and its Temple also brought much that was distasteful to the stricter Jew, and Persian patronage itself, which was so powerful—and perhaps, as some scholars think, so indispensable—a factor in the growth of Judaism was not an unmixed boon.

The Persian Empire and its centralizing policy, and the widespread recognition of a God of Heaven, or Sky-god, combined to foster the belief in a Universal Deity. And Jewish universalism, indeed, shows itself in the conviction that Yahweh was not the god of Israel alone, and that his name was great among the Gentiles. The supremacy of the Persian Ahura-mazda meant the supremacy of many fine ethical ideas, and in this syncretizing age there would be a tendency to relate one to another all the great gods—Yahweh, Khnum of Elephantine, Baal of Phoenicia, Hadad of Syria and others. But whether there was one God with many names or many gods depended upon one’s standpoint. Universalism has its price. A universal God cannot have a narrowly national history, and the wider became Yahweh’s supremacy outside the Jews, the more were Jewish prerogatives endangered, and the weaker became the old characteristic bond between the worshipper and his god. The Jew would find that his God had no particular distinctive attributes, and there was the risk that the God who had hitherto been indissolubly connected with his nation would soon be fused with other gods.

The Jews, like the Semites in general, were virile, passionate, intense—men of great driving power. They prospered even in exile. Their financial ability was bound up with their religion, and religion inculcated loyalty to their new homes. Their prosperity and their extreme self­conscious claims provoked bitterness even in pre-Christian times. The Semite, more self-conscious than the Indo-European, tended to dogmas of exclusive rather than of universal gods; and the only natural compromise was a religious imperialism which led the Jews—especially (? or only) those of Judah—to see in Jerusalem the world’s religious centre, an inviolable Zion whither should resort tribute-bearing monarchs and pilgrims in search of divine truth. So there are dreams of an Israel served by aliens, of a priestly people performing priestly service on behalf of the world. Jerusalem is a mystical centre—one might almost say a magical one: ‘whoso of all the families of the earth goeth not up unto Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, upon them there shall be no rain’. In harmony with this is the theory of the priestly ritual and its remarkable efficacy. It is true that a prophet might dream of a grand alliance—Israel, Egypt and Assyria, a triple blessing to the world; but this would destroy the unique status of a people, the ‘peculiar (i.e. personal) treasure’ of its god, and the versions with one consent paraphrase the sentiment away. Yet as a protest and a protection against contemporary religion a vigorously self-centred and self-conscious Judaism was as intelligible and as necessary then as it was later in the Maccabaean age. Isolation and concentration were necessary if Israel was to fulfil her destiny.

Licentious cults apparently continued to be practised at the ‘high places’ and under the trees. The cult of Anath, evidently still alive at Elephantine, was strengthened when Artaxerxes II officially recognized Anahita (Anaitis, Nanaea), a goddess like Ishtar and Astarte, whose name, only accidentally as it would seem, resembles that of Anath. Near by, Askalon was to become famous for the fish-goddess Derceto (Atargatis), and the cult of Semiramis was perhaps already familiar (? in the Levitical name Shemi-ramoth). The recognition of the redeeming solar god Mithra by both Artaxerxes II and Artaxerxes III would strike at Jewish monotheism as surely as the Assyrian cult of Marduk had done. Tables were spread, not to Yahweh, but to Gad, the god of Luck; and wine was poured out to Fortune (Meni), the equivalent of the later Greek Tyche. Children were slain—perhaps to the grim Molek or Melek, the king-god; and there were mysterious cults in gardens (‘behind one in the midst’), and strange rites connected with dogs and swine. If the reference is to mystic brotherhoods, it is tempting to recall the contemporary guild organization, the evidence for animal cults at the Temple, and the recurrence of animal names in South Palestine (for example Caleb, the ‘ dog ’). In any case, the picture is one of remarkable cults, and a religiosity which laid the emphasis upon ritual ‘holiness,’ thus justifying those who denounced a ritual which was illegitimate or indifferent, or which gave the second place to ethical demands. So the faithless are rejected, and a new community of ‘Yahweh’s servants’ are to possess the land and be rewarded for their faith.

The ‘prophetical’ teaching of the Deutero-Isaiah enhanced ideas of Yahweh’s supremacy and paved the way for the more ‘priestly’ endeavour to ensure his transcendent holiness. Through the elevation of the national god, intermediary beings were more prominent; the ‘angel of Yahweh’ became a less intangible conception, and in time an elaborate angelology was developed. Here and elsewhere Judaism may have been influenced by Zoroastrianism, though the most striking examples occur in the literature after the Persian age. While  Zoroastrianism as a practical religion was for a pastoral and agricultural people, a general influence may be expected, and in particular we may point to the emphasis which that religion laid upon Moral Right (Ashah), of which Ahura-mazda was the source. Asha was an eternal principle working in the Universe, and in the form Arta—e.g. Artaxerxes means ‘the true kingdom’—the term can be traced back some eight or nine centuries to the age when interrelated ideas of law and order and right can be recognized over a wide area in South-west Asia. But the idea of an inflexible law, now as then, could take other than distinctively ethical forms, of far-reaching consequences for religious and other thought. Moreover the very transcendence of the god Yahweh led to the avoidance of the ineffable Name, and the use of the less distinctive El and Elohim—names compounded with El becoming more frequent—tended to alter the tone of the religion.

The universalizing tendencies encouraged a rather colourless theism and a somewhat international type of literature, distinctive as regards neither age nor place, and inculcating practical worldly wisdom in the conviction that good conduct, humanity and prosperity went hand-in-hand. Thus, in the famous Story of Ahikar, to which reference is made in the Apocryphal book of Tobit, the absence of any specific religious or national background is most marked. In the Old Testament, Wisdom is especially connected with tribes and places which, though outside Palestine proper, were, as has already been seen, not necessarily remote from the culture of Egypt and Babylonia. Indeed, the recent discovery of the teaching of an Egyptian sage Amen-em-ope has revealed what was evidently the origin of a small section of the book of Proverbs. But the Hebrew scribe has ignored the Egyptian gods and such distinctive Egyptian ideas as the Judgement of the Dead, and he has adapted his material to Hebrew metre and thought, as also did the original author of Psalm civ who was perhaps acquainted with Ikhnaton’s hymns. A similar free use of borrowed material characterizes alike the formation of the North Semitic alphabet, and the Mesopotamian (Babylonian) myths of Creation and Deluge, etc., in the Old Testament.

Typical of the many-sidedness of an age which was preparing the way for Greek rationalism is the book of Job, noteworthy for its desert atmosphere. In this, one of the masterpieces of the world’s literature, disillusionment and scepticism reach their depth, and Semitic religious intimacy takes its most striking form. The once rich and fortunate Job, suffering beyond endurance, and unconscious of offence, despite his friends’ conviction that he is being punished for his sins, arraigns his God. It is not that there is no God—Job is no atheist—it is God’s dreadful unfairness which overwhelms him. Yahweh’s absolute and neutral ‘righteousness’ as taught by the great ethical monotheists, has become to the sceptic an amoral ruthlessness. Job had acted up to his ethical principles—and they compel admiration; but God is not merely unfair, His government of the world is non-moral. He shoots His arrows at Job as at a target, and there is no escape from his vindictiveness. Job’s old fellowship with the Almighty is in bitter contrast to His determined hostility; God is Job’s terrible friend. There is—there can be—no mediator or ‘daysman’ between God and man. If only God would be judge and not accuser; for though there is no justice on earth, there is justice! Yet the vindictive God is not the God: and behind Job’s present unhappy experiences of God’s ways there is the God of his early days, who would vindicate him in the future. Job’s God is a twofold one—as in the Koran: ‘there is no refuge from God but to Him.’

The solution of Job’s problem recalls that of Paradise Lost—man’s insignificance before God’s omnipotence. The Semite has no selfless interest in the Universe; nature and history are interesting only from a narrowly personal point of view. And when God answers Job, it is to ask him what part had he taken in the creation of the world or in the processes of nature? What knowledge had he of the mysteries of the world about him, or of the growth of the herbage on which the wild animals lived? Did he feed the lions or give the cubs their food? Could he do what God did? Had he the right to condemn a Universe in which he was so insignificant and helpless?

A Job whose ‘righteousness’ might be expected to benefit others was ranked with Noah and Daniel; and in the prose Prologue and Epilogue his acquiescence in his lot is followed by his successful intercession on behalf of his friends and a twofold recompense. But the great drama is not content with so simple a solution. It does not inculcate the caution of the sage praying for neither poverty nor wealth, nor has it the patience of the Psalmist: it is not that death will redress misfortunes, but that, even as the Psalmist’s visit to the sanctuary brought home to him the justice of divine rule, so Job gained some new insight into God’s power in the world, and, no longer self-centred, found his consolation in his new knowledge. The book of Job has points of contact with the Deutero-Isaiah, and especially with the problem of the Suffering Servant: but the emphasis is different, and Job’s drama may be interpreted as that of an Israel, once basking in the favour of Yahweh, unconscious of fault, and now unable to find a place in religion or philosophy for grievous misfortune. It is, it may be conjectured, an Israel for whose benefit all the processes of history are guided, a rather self-centred and spoilt Israel, with that narrowness of outlook that is rebuked in the story of Jonah. Both Job and Israel judge the world from their private conditions—it was incredible that a God who so loved his ‘servant’ or his ‘son’ should give him up to death! It is the old­time problem, which began with Amos. But if this inter­pretation be right and if Job be a type for an Israel, lamenting, as was her wont, her truly grievous disasters, the teaching, like that of the ‘Servant of Yahweh’ itself, can hardly be said to have been woven into the texture of early Judaism, and even ‘Yahweh’s servants’ are promised most tangible blessings, while their enemies will fall by the sword and leave their name for a curse

 

V.

THE PRIESTLY SOURCE (‘P’) AND THE PENTATEUCH

 

The outstanding feature of the age, one which set its mark upon the history of the religion of Israel, is ‘P.’ It is the work of a priestly body which succeeded in impressing itself upon contemporary life and thought. By P we mean the series of narratives and the groups of laws which can be readily distinguished in the Pentateuch, the narrative itself extending to the book of Joshua. P’s record, from Creation to the settlement of the tribes in Palestine, is distinguished by a fondness for stereotyped phrases and formulas, by tables, numbers and specifications which give it a certain monotony. It is methodical and apt to fall into repetition, the worst examples being Num. VII, and Exod. XXXV—XXXIX compared with XXV—XXXI. With an imposing and circumstantial chronological system and a schematic view of events, P is the ‘groundwork’ giving unity to the Pentateuch. History is divided into stages marked by the figures Adam, Noah, Abraham, Jacob (Israel) and Moses, and by steps in the self-revelation of God (Elo­him, El Shaddai, Yahweh). It leads up to the Sinaitic legislation, the formation of the Israelite congregation and the ‘theocracy.’ The standpoint differs from, and the details often conflict with, the earlier sources. The patriarchal figures become somewhat abstract types and their imperfections are ignored. Anthropomorphic features are reduced to a minimum, and are incapable of being misunderstood in a material, physical sense. Theophanies are not described. God ‘speaks,’ He creates by the ‘word,’ and things have a divine origin—like the pattern of the Tabernacle. None the less, God abides in the midst of the people. He is the God of the individual, there are no intermediaries, no dream or angel; but He is transcendent, apart, and hedged around. He is a Holy God amid a Holy People, and this holiness must be secured. Of supreme value, therefore, are the religious institutions, the priests and the sacrificial system; the immense claims of the priesthood and the elaborate sacrifices are characteristic of the period.

The interest in the priestly ritual was partly theoretical, partly practical, and it is due to this that there are noteworthy differences between the book of Ezekiel and P (e.g. as regards the Levites), and of a kind that seriously perplexed the Rabbis of old. But while Ezekiel offers a programme for the future, the tendency reflected in P throws its ideas back into the past. The festivals are now due to divine commands, dates and quantities are fixed, and they are associated with the traditional history. The Sabbath is especially holy, and of immemorial antiquity. Circumcision is more symbolical than before; and here as elsewhere the teaching of the prophets has borne fruit. Uncleanness and purification are of fundamental significance, and moral and ritual offences are one. ‘Morality was not indifferent to our legislating priests, but it was not, if one may say so, upon their agenda paper’. No secular ruler is contemplated, the High Priest stands at the head of the people, a priest with almost kingly powers, an echo of the former monarchy. The post is unique, much sought after, and, on occasion, the centre of intrigue; but it was not secured by any dynastic idea, except in so far as the holder was an Aaronite. A rigid line comes to be drawn between priestly and non-priestly Levites, and this development, like Ezekiel’s elevation of the Zadokites, which P simply presupposes—it is a conspicuous difference between the two authorities—is only one of very complex vicissitudes in the later history of the priesthood, the details of which are still obscure.

Judaism is a ‘theocracy’ which had its authority, partly—but not always—in the secular arm, but more especially in the impressive convictions of the power and value of the sacrificial system as a whole. The system had an almost magical potency. To withhold the tithes and temple offerings was dangerous; the temple-ritual removed sin, and sin—ritual or ethical—precluded prosperity. The sacrifices are centralized, and are less of a communal character. The burnt-offerings, which are made wholly to Yahweh, have a new importance; it is on this account that they were perhaps wanting at the new temple at Elephantine. Sin and atonement hold a place that is not merely prominent, but, in a sense, even exaggerated. The High Priest replaces the earlier king as representative of the people, he bears the people’s guilt, and his sin brings guilt on the people. The great Day of Atonement becomes the supreme day of the year, and there developed a more or less mechanical systematization as well as a deeply spiritual treatment of the ideas of sin and forgiveness. The problem of sin has been solved: God will no more destroy a wicked world, He has an eternal covenant with man, and sacrifice is ‘the divinely appointed means for the preservation and restoration of that holiness in virtue of which alone the theocratic community of Israel can realize its true ideal as the people of a holy God’. Israel belongs to Yahweh, everything is already his: hence the offerings of first-fruits, the surrogates for the first-born, the separation from the heathen—though proselytes are welcomed—and a practical social­religious organization which gave room for profound spirituality, extreme ritual scrupulosity, and a religiosity which, as among other Semites, permitted most incongruous types of conduct.

The priestly religion is, on the whole, rather shallow and abstract; we miss the depth, immediacy and warmth of the prophets and Deuteronomy. Revelation is written rather than oral, as will be seen by a contrast of Ezekiel III, 1 with Jeremiah I, 9. We have the religion of the book; and while the emphasis on ritual and the written word led easily to magic, and exclusiveness and spiritual arrogance had their dark sides, the priestly regime preserved Jewish monotheism even as Zoroaster’s teaching may be said to have been secured by the ritual of the Vendidad.

The spiritual superiority claimed by the Jewish exiles in Babylonia and their return to raise the level of a population of mixed blood, living on what they regarded as a lower religious plane, are the outstanding factors in the rise of Judaism. It is possible that life in some ‘Congregation’ remote from actual Palestinian conditions—like the colony of Levites in Ezra VIII, 1—will account for the rather doctrinarian character of some of the ideas of the priestly revolutionaries. But precisely what literature Ezra, or other exiles, brought back from Babylon is uncertain. The book of Ezekiel, for example, is marked by a certain scholarliness, and distinctive Babylonian traits have been noticed in it. Others also recur in the book of Job; and, although features of apparent Babylonian origin (e.g. the mention of months by their number instead of by their name) are more prominent in the sixth century and later, we have no right to assume that all Babylonian parallels necessarily come direct from Babylonia or belong only to this late period. It is easy to exaggerate the debt of Judaism to Babylonia, or Egypt, or Persia; an antipathy to external culture may be said to characterize Judaism, and the differences prove more essential than the points of contact.

It is impossible, indeed it would be unjust, to attempt to limit Judaism by a formula. Not P but the Pentateuch is its charter, and the difference between the two is that between a caste religion and the religion of a people. ‘ The general principle of the priestly legislation surrounds the holy things of Israel by fence within fence, and makes all access to God pass through the mediation of the priesthood’ (Robertson Smith). P is the true ancestor of the much later Book of Jubilees, which goes farther in carrying back the origins of Mosaism, or rather of Judaism, but won little favour and soon fell out of use. On the other hand, P, which of itself could hardly live apart from the Temple of Jerusalem and its priesthood, and as such was of local and temporal value, was preserved by the fact that it was combined with those earlier and fresher sources that have always been read with delight and edification. The resultant Pentateuch with its diverse and even discordant elements was, intentionally or not, a compromise representing different needs, interests and attitudes, and corresponding to the many-sidedness of Judaism as a working institution. P’s characteristic legalism was certainly a decisive phase, and legalizing tendencies persisted; yet, on the one hand, the Law was a joy and delight to its devotees, inspiring many Psalms, and, on the other, not only was it modified by the later Scribes, but it never expelled tendencies of an antilegalist nature. Outside Jerusalem synagogues were springing up; and, as apart from the more national religious organization with Jerusalem as its seat, a deeper personal religion was manifesting itself, of which the Psalms afford so many impressive examples.

In point of fact, the Pentateuch as a whole contained in narrative and in law, in precept and in example, a treasure upon which the worshipper of Yahweh, as an individual or as a member of the religious community, could draw inexhaustibly. The grand conceptions of the discipline of history which give unity to the Pentateuch have compelled admiration for their sweep and reverence for their profundity. And, as frequently elsewhere in the Old Testament, questions arise as to the historical circumstances that lie behind the great ideas. So, the deliverance from Egyptian bondage, the tedious journey into the Promised Land, the rivalries, the promises and covenants, the discipline of both people and leaders—these not only gain an entirely new interest when read in the light of the disintegration and constructive efforts of the sixth and fifth centuries BC, but as has been seen, they are con­tained in very composite sources which were only then assuming their present form.

Further, the Pentateuch breathes a fine universalism when it opens, as it does, not with Yahweh and Israel, but with Elohim and Mankind; but the God who destroys a sinful world and undertakes never to repeat the catastrophe is, in the sequel, Yahweh, who is uniquely the god of Israel. And when mankind, a universal brotherhood, essays a fresh start, and, arrogantly striving to transcend human limitations, builds a tower to reach unto heaven, the races of mankind are scattered, and this new divine judgment prepares the way for the subsequent appearance of Abraham and the first beginnings of the history of a chosen people. Here, whether Israel—and who represented the true Israel was quite another question—was to be a prophet-people with a mission, or a priest-people with saving-rites, there are in either case sweeping conceptions of God, the Universe and Israel; and .these come fittingly, not as part of the catastrophes of the early exilic age (at or shortly after 597 and 586 BC), but more probably after a new and unsuccessful attempt at reconstruction and a fresh calamity, at a rather later age, the age of (or after) Zerubbabel, and prior to the supremacy of the exclusive and legalizing priestly phase (p. 183 above). There are, at all events, facts to be explained, and the explanation, in the nature of the case, becomes increasingly hypothetical as one seeks to fill in the gaps; but it can safely be said that the complete Pentateuch in its present form, with P as its framework, belongs to the Persian age, and after the age of Nehemiah, and that its literary growth and the great events of the sixth and fifth centuries BC are linked together. This is the starting-point for reconstructing the history of Israel on the basis of the criticism of the Old Testament.

The Samaritans did not refuse the Pentateuch. Deuteronomy probably arose in the north, and the Samaritans were eager to assist in rebuilding the Temple. But it is significant that, whereas on internal literary grounds we may speak of the ‘Hexateuch’—the Pentateuch and Joshua—as a single unit, the line has been so drawn that the first part of the Jewish Canon ends, not with the solemn covenant of all Israel at the ancient Samaritan sanctuary of Shechem, but more neutrally, after the death of Moses beyond the Jordan. Although the actual history of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah had been full enough of events to stimulate religious teaching and literary activity, the story of the monarchies leaves relatively little impression upon later generations; and the most impressive memories are of a neutral and much more remote age before the division of a united people. The religious history upon which psalms and prayers love to dwell is common ground to an All-Israel, and, so far as can be seen, both the biblical account of that past itself and the most pregnant ideas enshrined in it were of relatively recent inception.

The Pentateuch was the book of both Judaism and Samaritanism, rival sects which grew further apart until this book alone united them. And if Jewish exclusiveness—and Jerusalem—must be held responsible for this, the fact remains that the Samaritans who rejected the other writings which the Jews added to their Canon, played no part in history, and that Judaism was preserved by its exclusiveness, self-consciousness and intensive development. It was the nationalistic Jews who fought with indomitable courage and unquenchable enthusiasm to preserve the heritage of their fathers; and the stalwart fight of the Maccabees against tendencies which would have destroyed all, that was best in Judaism forms the next chapter in the vicissitudes of an Israel jealous of its name, its past, and its destiny.

Thus does the history of a petty people hidden away in the vast Persian Empire raise the profoundest problems of national genius, its contribution to the world’s history, and the price it has to pay. The genius of Israel showed itself in her prophets, story-tellers and psalmists, and in her ideas of religion and history.

Genius has its conspicuous defects: that of the Semites, and especially Israel, not least of all. Yet through her genius Israel’s history was what it was; and she was able both to interpret and to shape her history in a way no other people has done or could do. No other people found and made their national history so supremely significant, so worthy of interpretation and of preservation. She alone of all peoples earned the right to set forth for mankind that which she had learnt at the cost of heavy sacrifices. Poignant experiences and their re-expression in a theistic exposition of history constitute Israel’s unique contribution, and this gift becomes doubly precious as fuller knowledge of the facts of ancient history is bringing a re-interpretation of the past which is placing the Old Testament and the function of Israel in a new and larger framework.

 

APPENDIX

THE ELEPHANTINE PAPYRI (p. 172)

 

Of the appeal of the Jews of Elephantine to their brethren in Judah and Samaria two drafts were found (Cowley, Aramaic Papyri of the Vth Cent. B.C., nos. 30, 31). They are from the same papyrus roll and contain slight variants, some of which are indicated in the following translation, where references are made to various interesting terms which recur in the Old Testament. Like the other papyri, they are in an Aramaic dialect philologically earlier than the Aramaic of the book of Ezra (including the permits and documents quoted therein), and still more so than the Aramaic of the book of Daniel (dated on internal grounds to the second century BC).

 

“To our lord Bagohi, the governor (pehah) of Judah, thy servants Yedoniah and his colleagues (Ezra IV, 23), the priests who are in Yeb, the fortress (Neh. II, 8 ‘castle’). The peace of our lord may the God of Heaven grant greatly at all times, and give thee favour before Darius the king and the members of the house—a thousandfold more than now, and long life may he grant thee, and be thou happy and prosperous at all times. Now thy servant Yedoniah and his colleagues thus say: In the month of Tammuz, the fourteenth year of Darius the king, when Arsames went forth and departed to the king, the Kemarim of the god Knub in the fortress of Yeb gave money and property to (Waidrang who was governor here (saying), ‘let them take away thence the temple of Yahu the god which is in the fortress of Yeb.’ Then this accursed (?) Waidrang sent a letter to Nephayan hisson who was commander in the fortress of Syene, saying ‘let them destroy the temple of the god Yahu which is in the fortress of Yeb.’ Then Nephayan led the Egyptians together with other forces; they came to the fortress of Yeb with their weapons, they went up into this temple, they destroyed it to the ground, and the stone pillars there they broke. Also it came to pass that the five great gates of stone built of hewn blocks that were in this temple they destroyed and their doors they (?), and the hinges of these doors were of bronze and the roof of cedar wood, the whole, with the rest of the detail, and the other things which were there they burnt with fire, and the bowls of gold and silver and whatsoever was in this temple they entirely took and made it their own. And from the days of the king of Egypt our fathers had built this temple in the fortress of Yeb, and when Cambyses came to Egypt 'he found this temple already built, and the temples of the gods of Egypt they wholly destroyed and no one did aught of harm in this temple. And when they had done this, we together with our wives and sons were putting on sackcloth and fasting and praying to Yahu the Lord of Heaven who showed us our desire this hound (?) Waidrang. They (? the hounds) removed the chain from his feet (i.e. they degraded him), and all the wealth which he had acquired they destroyed, and all the men who had sought evil against this temple were all of them killed; and we saw our desire on them. Also before this, at the time when this evil was done to us, we sent a letter to our lord and to Yehohanan the high priest, and his colleagues the priests that were in Jerusalem, and to Ostanes the brother of Anani, and the nobles of Judaea—no letter did they send unto us. Also, from the month of Tammuz, the fourteenth year of king Darius even unto this day we have been wearing sackcloth and fasting, our wives are made as widows, with oil we do not anoint ourselves, and wine we do not drink. Also from that time even to this day of the seventeenth year of Darius the king, meal-offering, and incense and burnt offering are not offered up in this temple. Now, thy servants, Yedoniah and his colleagues, all citizens (baals) of Yeb, say thus: If it seems well to our lord, take thought concerning this temple to build it, inasmuch as they do not allow us to build it. See thy well-wishers and friends that are here in Egypt, let a letter be sent from thee unto them concerning the temple of the God Yahu to build it in the fortress of Yeb according as it was built aforetime; and meal-offerings and incense offerings and burnt offerings shall they offer upon the altar of the God Yahu in thy name, and we will pray on thy behalf at all times, we, and our wives and our sons, and the Jews all that are here. If thou wilt so do that this temple shall be built, there shall be merit to thee before Yahu the God of Heaven more than a man who should offer him burnt offering and sacrifices worth as much as a thousand talents of silver. And concerning the gold, in reference to this we have sent and made known1. Also all the words in a letter in our name did we send unto Delaiah and Shelemaiah the sons of Sanaballat the governor of Samaria. Moreover, concerning this that was done to us Arsames knew nothing at all. On the 20th of Marheshwan, the seventeenth year of Darius the king”.

The answer was a favourable one, and the messenger’s formal document, corresponding to the tablet of earlier days, ran as follows:

“Memorandum (record, Ezra VI, 2) of Bagohi and Delaiah. They said to me, Memorandum, It shall be for thee in Egypt to say to Arsames concerning the altar-house of the God of Heaven which had been built in Yeb the fortress from of old before Cambyses, which that accursed (?) Waidrang destroyed in the fourteenth year of Darius the king, to build it in its place as it was afore­time, and meal-offerings and incense-offerings may they offer upon that altar according as it formerly used to be done”.

 

CHAPTER VIII

THE RISE OF MACEDONIA