month, in commemoration of Esther's message to Mordecai-" Go, gather together all the Jews that are present in Shushan, and fast ye for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day; I also and my maidens will fast likewise” (Esth. iv. 16). But, the fast over, all restraints upon disorder and impropriety seem to have been broken through. Feasting and drinking to excess marked the time. Israel was not able to bear the want of law; and when no Divine fences hedged them in, the people were destitute of the power of self-control. The Feast of Purim, accordingly, is said to have degenerated into a kind of Saturnalia. We have only to add in regard to it that when the 14th Adar fell upon a Sabbath the feast did not begin until the following day. Although, as we had occasion to notice in a former paper, the Sabbath of the Jews was a day of hilarity, and of giving and receiving such simple entertainments as were compatible with the law as to the preparation of food, it was felt that the feasting of Purim was of a different and more worldly kind, and that, even if it could have been carried out upon that day of which God had said that it was to be called "the holy of the Lord and honourable" (Isa. lviii. 13), it would have been wholly inconsistent with its character.

Such was the Feast of Purim. It is an interesting question, whether it is at any time alluded to in the New Testament, and a supposition very generally adopted is that we have such an allusion in John v. 1— "After this there was a feast of the Jews; and Jesus went up to Jerusalem." This feast, it is said, can be no other than that of Purim. On the other hand, many eminent scholars urge that we have here the Feast of the Passover; and, though other feasts also have been fixed on, the two now mentioned may be said to divide the suffrages of the most able critics of the New Testament. The main interest of the question lies in its bearing on the duration of the earthly ministry of Jesus. If the feast referred to be that of the Passover, then four Passovers are mentioned in the Gospel of St. John (ï. 13; v. 1; vi. 4; xiii. 1); and, as that feast occurred only once a year, the ministry of our Lord must have extended over at least about three years and a half. On the other hand, if it be the Feast of Purim, then the probability is that it fell between the Passovers of John ii. 13 and vi. 4, and the ministry of our Lord must, so far at least as depends on intimations in the New Testament, be reduced by a year. The question, however, is also interesting on other grounds, for if Purim be the feast, the fact of Christ's going up to Jerusalem to be present at a feast not enjoined in the law would illustrate the strength of His sympathy with the history and feelings

of His people.

We have not space in a paper such as this to go into the question at the length necessary to vindicate any positive conclusion respecting it. Let it be enough, therefore, to say first that the feast referred to can hardly be the Passover. Even supposing that we were to insert with many critics the definite article, and to read not "a feast" but "the feast," the insertion would be almost fatal to the idea of which it is often brought

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forward as the main defence. Neither the New Testament in general, nor the Gospel of St. John in particu lar, knows anything of such a method of expression as would characterise the Feast of the Passover simply as "the feast." Read "a feast," and it may have been the Passover; read "the feast," and the words are simply unintelligible. A feast," however, is the true reading; yet it is in a high degree unlikely that the reference is to the Passover. When St. John speaks of the Passover, he names it (ii. 13; vi. 4; xiii. 1); and any apparent exceptions to this rule, such as the words of xiii. 9," Buy those things that we have need of against the feast," arise from the circumstance that the particular feast has been mentioned in the previous context, and that there can be no doubt on the mind of any reader which it is. Besides this, there is absolutely nothing in the narrative to suggest the thought of the Passover. Is it then Purim ? Both remarks now made with regard to the Passover apply with equal force to this idea, while it has also to contend with special difficulties of its own. Thus it may be doubted whether, in the eyes of St. John, Purim would appear "a feast of the Jews" at all. It was not a theocratic, but a popular, festival. It was not associated with the thought of those religious guides and rulers of Israel to whom the term "the Jews" is always applied in the fourth Gospel. It had to do with political deliverance rather than religious freedom. In addition to this, it is at least improbable that our Lord should have gone up to Jerusalem to express sympathy with the people in the celebration of a festival observed with so much gluttony and excess. We conclude that, if not the Passover, it was still less Purim.

In the present state of the question, so far as public expression has been given to any definite views, the true solution appears to be that the Evangelist has intentionally kept us ignorant of the feast of which he thought. Mention of it might have led to a misunderstanding alike of the miracle at the pool of Bethesda, and of the whole chapter of which it forms a part. It would be foreign to our present object to say more upon the point. Returning to what immediately concerns us, we come to the conclusion that Purim, though its origin and nature are so fully described to us in the Old Testament, is not once alluded to in the New.

The second of the two sacred seasons of which we proposed to speak is known as the Feast of the Dedication. No reference can be made to it in the Old Testament, for it did not come into existence till long after the last of the prophets had written; but it is spoken of in John x. 22, 23-" And it was at Jerusalem the feast of the dedication, and it was winter, and Jesus walked in Solomon's porch;" and its origin is fully described to us in the Old Testament apocryphal book of

1 The argument here employed derives some confirmation from the fact that when the Evangelist, at x. 22, mentions the feast of the Dedication, which, though quite as eagerly observed by Israel as any other, had not been instituted by God himself, he does not call it "a feast of the Jews."

1 Maccabees. It was indeed in that most remarkable, the Maccabean, period of Jewish history, that it was instituted. The cruelties and profanities of the mad Antiochus Epiphanes, who had penetrated southward from Syria, and had subjugated Judæa and Jerusalem, could be no longer borne. That prince had not been content with merely putting to death, it is said, 40,000 of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and selling as many more into slavery, after his capture of the city; he had also made the most wanton and unprovoked attacks upon the Jewish faith, wounding the people in their tenderest susceptibilities, and treating with brutal profanity all that was most holy in their eyes. As described in 1 Maccabees, he " entered proudly into the sanctuary, and took away the golden altar, and the candlestick of light, and all the vessels thereof, and the table of the shewbread, and the pouring vessels, and the vials, and the censers of gold, and the veil, and the crowns, and the golden ornaments that were before the temple, all which he pulled off; " nay, not only so-after he had returned to his own country with his spoils, "he sent letters by messengers unto Jerusalem and the cities of Judah that they should follow the laws and rites of the strangers of the land, and forbid burnt-offerings, and sacrifice, and drink-offerings in the temple; and that they should profane the sabbaths and festival days, and pollute the sanctuary and holy people, set up altars, and groves, and chapels of idols, and sacrifice swine's flesh and unclean beasts; that they should also have their children uncircumcised, and make their souls abominable with all manner of uncleanness and profanation, to the end they might forget the law, and change all the ordinances. And whosoever would not do according to the commandment of the king, he said, he should die (1 Macc. i. 21, 22, 44—50).

Tyranny of this kind draws a swift Nemesis in its train. It was most certainly so in the present instance, and the family of Mattathias, belonging to the priestly line, raised the standard of revolt. It would be foreign to our present purpose to follow the party attaching itself to them, and taking the name of Maccabees, through all their varied and romantic fortunes, while they strove to expel the intruder from their soil and to regain for their brethren freedom to worship God. Suffice it to say that the end was at last effectually accomplished, the Syrians were expelled, and amidst great solemnity and rejoicing the Temple was cleansed from its pollutions. "Now on the five and twentieth day," it is said, " of the ninth month which is called the month Casleu (or Chisleu), in the hundred forty and eighth year, they rose up betimes in the morning, and offered sacrifice according to the law upon the new altar of burnt-offerings which they had made. Then all the people fell upon their faces, worshipping and praising the God of heaven, who had given them good success. And so they kept the dedication of the altar eight days, and offered burnt-offerings with gladness, and sacrificed the sacrifice of deliverance and praise. They decked also the forefront of the Temple with crowns of gold, and with shields, and the gates

and the chambers they renewed and hanged doors upon them. Thus was there very great gladness among the people, for that the reproach of the heathen was put away" (1 Macc. iv. 52, 53, 55-58). Thus the Temple was cleansed and the worship of the true God restored, and to commemorate the event the Feast of the Dedication was instituted. "Moreover, Judas and his brethren, with the whole congregation of Israel, ordained that the days of the dedication of the altar should be kept in their season from year to year by the space of eight days from the five and twentieth day of the month Casleu, with mirth and gladness" (1 Macc. iv. 59).

Such was the institution of the Feast of the Dedication about the year 164 B.C., and it will be observed that it fell in the month Chisleu, the ninth month of the Jewish year, corresponding to the close of our November, when "it was winter." The feast was known to Josephus under the name of "Lights," and he imagines that this name was given to it because at the time when it was appointed, liberty beyond all their hopes was recovered by the people (Ant., xii. 7, 7).

Whether the conjecture of Josephus be correct or not, it is at least worth observing that a vessel of oil was said to have been found in the Temple at the time when it was cleansed, the only vessel of the kind which had not escaped pollution, and that it miraculously supplied the lamps of the sanctuary for eight days. It is to this miracle that Maimonides refers in a passage which at the same time shows us how much the Feast of the Dedication was understood to have been honoured among the Jews before his day, and how much it was still honoured in his own. "The precept," he says, "about the lights in the Feast of Dedication is very commendable; and it is necessary that every one should rub up his memory in this matter, that he may make known the great miracle, and contribute towards the praises of God, and the acknowledgment of those wonders He doth amongst us. If any one have not wherewithal to eat, unless of mere alms, let him beg or sell his garments to buy oil and lights for this feast. If he have only one single farthing, and should be in suspense whether he should spend it in consecrating the day or setting up lights, let him rather spend it in oil for the candles, than in wine for the consecration of the day. For, as they are both the prescription of the scribes, it were better to give the lights of the Encenia (that is, the Feast of the Dedication) the preference, because you therein keep up the remembrance of the miracle." 991

The festival indeed was one of great joy, resembling in many respects, it is said, the Feast of Tabernacles. Like the great feasts of Israel it lasted eight days.

We have already had occasion to quote those words in which this feast is alluded to in John x. 22. The most interesting inquiry in connection with them would be— What is the Evangelist's object in introducing them as he does into his narrative? It is hardly possible to think that they are introduced by him for the simple

1 Quoted in Lightfoot's Hor. Hebr., Works, xii. 342.

purpose of marking the season of the year. It is not in St. John's manner to deal with facts of that kind only as facts. He everywhere beholds in connection with them profounder meanings, deeper and more mysterious intimations, symbols of other and more important parts of that great plan of God which comprehends both the worlds of nature and grace, and expresses itself after a similar manner in both. The intimations of what this thought is, in the present instance are, however, so slight that it is not easy to come to any definite conclusion on the point. It is possible that the Evangelist sees in Jesus, as He walks in the Temple at the Feast of the Dedication, the true consecration of God's house, the true Priest and Victim of His people, the Redeemer in whom Israel ought to rejoice as the Perfecter of its privileges, the Bestower of a freedom which is freedom indeed. But, while he sees this, he remembers Israel's blindness and coldness and hardheartedness-"it is winter." And what a winter it is! To the very Jews to whom Jesus would so fain make Himself known in all the fulness of His grace and love, He is obliged to say, "Ye are not of My sheep "(ver. 26). The very persons whom He would so eagerly welcome to His fold "take up stones to stone Him" (ver. 31), and when He urges home His words upon them anew, they seek again to take Him, and He must needs escape out of their hand (ver. 39). Yes, it is winter-winter though Jesus would so fain make it spring-a winter of the heart, a winter of national life to God's ancient people, a winter cold and desolate and full of storm. We do not venture to say that this is the real meaning of the statement of St. John, that it was the Feast of the Dedication and that it was winter at this time. But some such meaning we are persuaded there is, and we commend the subject to the reader's thoughts. Words of a precisely similar nature will be found in xiii. 30 with reference to Judas: He then having received the sop went immediately out; and it was night." That the Evangelist beheld this deeper meaning at this time in the feast before us, and in the season at which it occurred, is, however, something entirely different from his seeing in it any "fulfilment," in the proper sense of that term. As already stated, it is not possible to speak of either Purim or the Feast of the Dedication as fulfilled" in Christ. They were not Divinely instituted parts of that ancient economy whose meaning is to be sought mainly in the fact that it was a preparation for "Him that was to come."

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Thus, then, we bring to a close what we have to say of the Sacred Seasons of Israel. It is obvious that the function performed by them for that people was one of extreme interest and value. They not only preserved religious feeling alive and prevented the secularisation of life, but they all pointed onwards to the hope of a better and a brighter day. They were an earnest, teaching that a whole would yet be given; an antepast, containing the pledge of the perfect feast. That they would convey such ideas only to the more spirituallyminded is true, but even to the many who might not comprehend their real purport, in whose hands they might degenerate into merely superstitious rites or

carnal ordinances, they were a standing lesson to be interpreted and applied, as fitting opportunities arose, by the higher knowledge and more penetrating insight of the few. Ill understood as they might often be, it was far better for the people to have them than to be left destitute of any religious arrangements but such as they might themselves devise. Appointed by Him, the principles of whose government of His Church have always been the same, they were a distinct point of connection for the full unfolding of His plans; and, when they received the reflex light of the advancing development of His kingdom, the very harmony of the past and of the present, the very sight of the eternal purpose running through so many ages, would tend at once to heighten the sense of its importance, and to bring it home more powerfully to the heart.

And now they have all passed away, and in the form of actual ordinances have left no successors. It might seem at first sight as if the Christian Church were left more destitute than the Jewish, as if equally careful provision had not been made for her strength and comfort. The explanation is to be sought in the fact that that Church is no more a child, no longer like an heir under tutors and governors until the time appointed of his father, but come to her inheritance, and required to administer it in the wisdom and strength of ripened years. If that wisdom and strength are not always actually, they are at least ideally, hers; and it is her special province and responsibility to realise ever increasingly in act what thus belongs to her in idea. She lives in the Spirit, let her walk in the Spirit.

Not indeed that the Church of Christ may not appoint festivals of her own. The early Church, in the first freshness of her Christian instinct, rightly apprehended this when, keeping firm by the eternal truth involved in the institution of the Sabbath, she yet departed from the day expressly named in the fourth commandment, and set apart the first instead of the seventh day of the week as the Christian Lord's Day. She saw it again when she introduced her great Christian festivals of Christmas, Easter, and so on, all the leading festivals of the Christian year, to commemorate in a distinct and individual manner the great facts upon which she rests, the leading doctrines of her faith. And, though the privilege has been at times abused, though ceremonies have been multiplied, and days made sacred to the memory of men who, had they known what awaited them, would have acted the part of St. Paul and Barnabas at Lystra (Acts xiv. 14, 15), and disowned the honour, the remedy is not to be sought in extinguishing altogether a privilege which flows directly from the reality and earnestness of the Church's life. It is to be sought rather in a truer and deeper cultivation of the spirit, as falsehood is not to be expelled by the destruction of truth, but by giving truth a constantly more extended range, and clothing it with a constantly increasing power.

One thing only the Church is ever to bear in mind, that her rites and ceremonies and festivals must be the simple and natural expression of the Spirit of Christ

within her. They must be the cloth which Christian thought weaves, the skins which Christian wine fashions for itself; for, when this is not the case, a new patch

sewn upon an old garment makes the rent worse, and new wine put into old skins bursts the skins, so that both it and the skins perish.

A

N interval of more than two centuries divides Malachi from Zephaniah; and during this interval grave changes took place in the history of the Hebrew nation. The captivity, threatened by the earlier prophet, had been endured; the redemption from that captivity, which he had foretold, had been accomplished. The Temple of Jerusalem had been rebuilt under Zerubbabel; the walls of the city under Nehemiah; the worship of Jehovah had been resumed: and though as yet the seed of Abraham were under the sceptre of the Persian despot, they had, in Nehemiah, a clement and generous governor of their own race.

Malachi is the last of the prophets, and is therefore called "the Seal," his book closing the Old Testament canon. Like Habakkuk, he is, in so far as his personal history is concerned, "a name, and nothing more." The Sacred Chronicles, even in the Book of Nehemiah, do not so much as mention him, although he was a zealous fellow-labourer with that patriotic governor, and greatly aided him in his endeavours to secure a willing and grateful obedience to the Divine law. In this, however, he does but share the fate of those Psalmists who, on the return from the Captivity, composed many songs for the Temple service. They, too, are unknown to fame. Their songs found a place in the Hebrew Psalter, but no chronicle carried down their names to after ages. "Dead to name and fame," they are not dead to " use." Even to this day their works do follow them. But though history says nothing of Malachi, tradition, which ever babbles most freely where history is dumb, has much to tell us of him. According to tradition, speaking by many voices, he was a member of the Great Synagogue,' ," "a Levite of the tribe of Zebulun;" he was Ezra, he was Mordecai, he was Zerubbabel, he was Nehemiah. Nay, he was even "an angel," at least in the view of some ancient and of some modern commentators—a view by no means complimentary to the angelic host, since the style and poetry of Malachi are confessedly inferior to those of most of the inspired authors. This view, however, is a mere inference from the meaning of the prophet's name. Malachi means messenger," and is probably a contraction from Malachijah, or messenger of Jehovah," just as Abi (2 Kings xviii. 2) is contracted for Abijah (2 Chron. xxix. 1). The Septuagint translates the Hebrew words for "by Malachi" by Greek words which mean "by the hand of his angel," or messenger; and on this slender founda

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tion the whole fable of an angelic authorship has been built up. The simple fact is that we know nothing of the personal history of Malachi, and cannot even be sure whether "Malachi" is a proper name or an appellative. The Old Testament closes, as the New Testament opens, with the words of one who is "a voice" to us rather than a man.

But though we know nothing of the author, we can fix the date of this prophecy with reasonable accuracy. Indeed, it dates itself. All the notes of time it contains point steadily, and with one consent, to the second sojourn of Nehemiah in Jerusalem, i.e., about B.C. 420. It may even be said that the prophecy of Malachi, the last of the prophetic books, is simply a commentary on Nehemiah, the last of the historical books. From the whole tone of the prophecy it is obvious that the Temple had been long rebuilt, its worship long restored-long enough for grave abuses to have crept in, and to have become habitual. Among these abuses were the violation of the Sabbath law, the offering of maimed and unclean sacrifices, the withholding of tithes, indifference deepening into weariness of the worship of the Sanctuary, and intermarriage with heathen races on the part of the priests as well as the people. These are the sins which Malachi denounces, and these were the sins with which Nehemiah had painfully to contend.' It grieved him much, on his return from Babylon, to find that the priest who had the oversight of the chambers of the House of God" was allied with Tobiah the Ammonite, and had even allotted that crafty and unscrupulous heathen "a great chamber" in the Temple, which aforetime had been used as a storeroom for the vessels and tithes of the Sanctuary. No sooner had the incensed governor "cast out the household stuff" of Tobiah, and restored the chamber to its original and sacred use, than he perceived there was little need of a storeroom for tithes, &c., since " the portions of the Levites were not given them," and the famishing Levites had fled the service of the Temple to till their fields. He recalled them, "set them in their place," compelled all Judah to bring tithe of their corn and new wine and oil into the Temple treasuries, and appointed faithful men to guard the treasuries, and "to distribute unto their brethren." He then discovered that the Sabbath was habitually profaned, the Jews treading their winepresses on that day, and bringing into the city sheaves "and all manner of burdens on their laden beasts, and even holding a public market for “ 'fish and all

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1 Neb. xiii.