by the powerful words with which it was recommended, it was natural that all the persons in Jerusalem who then set their hand to national reform, should be most deeply moved by this portion of the work; and the result was precisely what the Deuteronomist had aimed at in designing the whole of his great book of law. Nor could the discovery of this book in the temple ever have produced such a great effect, had not the king and many of the nobles, as well as a considerable portion of the people at large, been for a long time disposed at heart for a frank and complete return to the strictness of the ancient religion. The spiritual tendency of the age, however, received the most valuable aid from this book, the language of which was as tender as it was threatening; and an event was thus brought about which proved as fertile in its consequences as any other in the course of Israel's history.

The only question which remains is how the book came into the temple and into the hands of the high priest Hilkiah. The best answer that can be given is already implied in the explanation of the origin of the work itself. If it had been written in Egypt thirty or forty years before, so that the author might have been dead some time already, and it had only been slowly circulated, and had reached Palestine by a sort of chance, a copy of it might have been brought by some priest into the temple, and there discovered by the high priest. A vigorous renovation of society under the ancient law, which was the thing most needed, of course possessed a much greater force and stimulus than all the ways and means in which it was sought to be, and finally was, attained; and the institution of learned investigations into the age and authorship of a work was not yet included among the wants of the age. We must, however, be on our guard against wantonly clouding the memory of this event by the wholly incorrect notion that the high priest had himself written the book, but had concealed the fact of his authorship. The want of historical conscientiousness cannot be more painfully displayed than in suppositions like this, which are in every respect without foundation, and, moreover, highly unjust.

1 P. 220 sqq.

2 We need not therefore suppose that this book was placed in the temple with the purpose for which the Greeks said Heraclitus had concealed his work on philosophy in the temple of Artemis at Ephesus, μυστηριωδῶς ὅπως ὕστερον ἡ ταύ

της έκδοσις γένηται, Tatian ad Graec. iv. We may compare the way in which the ancient Romans found and brought out their sacred books; cf. C. Alexandre in his edition of the Orac. Sibyll, ii. p. 2 sq., 68, 170.

III. NATURE OF THE REFORMS. DEATH OF JOSIAH.

1. At length, then, a reform was to be carried out, not only of public religion, but, inasmuch as this was inseparable from the national life, of the whole state as well. It was a reform which the older prophets had long ago desired; and which, not a century before, king Hezekiah had been the first seriously to undertake. Errors and abuses, which will always in the course of time creep in and increase, were to be more vigorously exterminated; and the whole state placed once more on its better foundations with more sincere resolve. The greater part of the people at large met these new arrangements with alacrity half way, and a pious king was ready to devote to this great task those energies which age had not yet exhausted. Never could the endeavours of all the good have celebrated a more glorious victory.

Nor ought we to mistake the great advantages which were involved in this turn of events. Once more did the Theocracy, while the human monarchy still subsisted within it, struggle energetically with its aid out of the corruption into which it seemed to have been falling for centuries more and more irretrievably; and inasmuch as everything was tending to inevitable dissolution, and the nobler foundation of the Davidic kingdom of Jahveh seemed unable to escape being completely overgrown with the weeds of false aspirations, it made one more effort to rid itself of these at a single powerful blow. An attempt designed with so much resolution and sincerity, whatever immediate consequences it might have, could not fail to exercise a salutary influence on the general course of events. Such an effort to give predominance to whatever was intrinsically good in the past order of things would at any rate result in giving it a more rigid cohesion and impelling it to fresh developments; and if under the pressure of other unfavourable circumstances it should be unable in the long run to counteract the growing dissolution of what is then a whole, it would at any rate be seen more clearly what deep needs still adhere to this whole before it can be strong enough to make a fresh start on a permanently improved footing.

In spite of the necessity for reform, and the great amount of good which it accomplished, it was impossible for it on the Deuteronomic basis from which it started, thoroughly to re

1 P. 173.

move the deeper deficiencies of the age, or to save the kingdom effectually from its approaching ruin. Like the age of which it was the product, Deuteronomy was caught in the dilemma of being unable to carry out with sufficient firmness the improvements which it saw to be wanting in the ancient religion. It recognises love as supreme, and purposes to strip off the elements of violence which still adhered to the ancient faith just as to every religion which is merely prophetic, but here it remains stationary. This is specially evident in its treatment of the infinite varieties of heathen superstition as well as of some foreign tribes which are to be excluded from the community; ' and it is therefore incapable, in this important respect, of liberating the faithful from those close and narrow bounds within which religion had originated and grown up. In the course of time, certainly, these merely historical limits of the ancient religion had become more rigid and difficult to break through in proportion to the danger of the forcible re-entrance of every kind of heathenism, and in the last century since Manasseh a struggle really of life and death had arisen between the heathen and the strict religious tendencies; so that the one would not hesitate to make the utmost exertions to rid itself of the other. But this only deepened the injuries inflicted by the re-awakening of the violence of the primitive ages of the community, which could, it is true, instantly remove the evils out of sight, but could not stop their sources; and this inevitably threw the organisation of the kingdom into still greater confusion. Such, at any rate, had been the nature of the attempts of Manasseh and Amon to promote heathenism; but the true religion could only damage its own advance by clinging to the early limitations of its youth in times so distant, and in other respects so much changed.

All the particulars with which we are acquainted of the reformation executed by the king have about them the mark of violence. It was earnestly intended, it was thorough, it was comprehensive, but it was above everything violent. The high priest Hilkiah, with the other priests employed in the temple, was obliged first of all to remove all the vessels used in the heathen rites which had been conducted in the temple itself, burn them in the fields on the banks of the Kidron on the north side of Jerusalem, and transport the ashes out of Judah to Bethel, the ancient seat of the lower religions; 2 these various forms of worship, accordingly, were immediately discontinued, at

3

6

4

least in the temple. The next step was to remove from the temple the statue of Astarte, which Manasseh had been the first to set up within the sacred precincts,' and also the little houses belonging to it. This was also burned by the Kidron, and its dust was scattered on the graves of the lowest of the people.2 The two high altars which were erected before the two gates of Jerusalem, as well as those scattered throughout the country of Judah, were defiled by throwing human bones upon them. Many of these were very ancient sanctuaries, in which Jahveh himself was worshipped; now, however, they stood in contrast to the great temple, and all sorts of superstitions had gathered around them. The more artistic varieties of heathenism introduced by Ahaz, Manasseh, and Amon,5 the symbols of which had been set up in the temple and in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, were abolished in like manner by desecrating their different localities; nor did the sanctuaries erected for heathen deities by Solomon escape. Even the high altars in Bethel and other places built in bygone days by the kings of the Ten Tribes met the same fate at the hands of Josiah, as these districts were at that time attached to the kingdom of Judah; and it was then that the unexpected event took place with the bones of an ancient grave in Bethel, which has been already mentioned. Other varieties of ancient or modern superstition were included in the same proscription. Further, all the priests of these heathen or heathenised religions in Judah and Jerusalem, as well as in what had formerly been Samaria, were put to death, as though these false priests at any rate must fall as sacrifices for all their followers among the people. Only the hereditary Levites, whose misconduct rendered them ineligible for the priestly functions of sacrifice, escaped execution, no doubt from reverence for the family of Aaron. They were never again, however, allowed to touch the altar of Jahveh; but, like those who were unclean without personal guilt, they received at Jerusalem in accordance with ancient custom a scanty subsistence from the bread of the sanctuary."-Such was the kind of violence employed in the abolition of heathenism, and it was in a similar spirit that the characteristics of the ancient religion itself had

7

they were common at that time. At most (and) might have fallen out before the last ; yet, according to 2 Kings xii. 5, even this is unnecessary.

5 P. 169.

4 Vol. iii. p. 306 sq. 6 Vol. iii. p. 297. 7 P. 227. 8 P. 30 sqq. 9 This is the meaning of 2 Kings xxiii. 5, 20, 8 sq.; cf. 2 Chron. xxxiv. 4 sq.

to be formed anew. The strictness with which it was intended henceforth to maintain the usages of the religion of Jahveh, was indicated all the more forcibly in the immediate celebration of the passover, since this was originally designed to serve as an expiation and purification on entering on a new stage of existence; and it is expressly observed that, since the time of the Judges, there had never been such a celebration of the passover, in such strict accordance, that is, with the prescriptions of a sacred book, as that which now took place.1

The deficiency of our information renders it no longer possible for us to pursue in detail the various transformations consequent on this great change. Josiah himself lived in entire conformity with the new national law; by the careful administration of justice he alleviated the distress of the more helpless of his subjects, and he won the esteem of all by his gentle yet active sway. It is certain, however, that in spite of the excellent intentions of this pious king, a series of new evils began to develope themselves in the kingdom and among the people. There were, first of all, those which arise wherever a sacred book is made the basis of all public life,-conceited wisdom of books, and hypocritical scripturalism. In earlier ages there was no danger to the people from these evils, as the course of their history has shown. With the exception of the Oracle, the reach of which was limited, and the royal mandate, only short isolated laws like the Decalogue possessed any public authority; but even the commands of the Decalogue were not strictly observed always and everywhere, as is proved by the example of Jeroboam I.,3 and by the lamentations of the great prophet Hosea over the general neglect of the recorded divine utterances. Large books of law similar to the present Pentateuch were certainly in existence long before the time of Josiah, but they possessed no binding authority, still less were they sacred. As soon, however, as a book was raised into the position of fundamental law of the realm, especially a book so comprehensive in its history and jurisprudence as the Pentateuch, there necessarily arose a new power in the state, viz. book-learning. This coalesced with a literature already very extensive and

5

12 Kings xxiii. 21-23. The Chronicler, 2 Chron. xxxv. 1-18, seizes this opportunity to give a full account of all the usages of the passover practised at this time, which are not further alluded to in the Pentateuch; they are, indeed, represented here with greater plenitude of detail than in the life of Hezekiah, p. 189 sq.-The State-annals can only suppose the pass

over had never been kept so before in reference-1) to the additional sacrifices besides the paschal lamb, Deut. xvi. 2; and 2) to the strict unity of the place of the celebration, Deut. xvi. 5.

2 Especially according to Jer. xxii. 15 sq. 3 P. 25 sq.

4 Hos. viii. 12.

5 P. 190 sqq.