ancient Passover. The rejoicings over the deliverance from Egypt in their early days now gathered round their redemption from the distresses of Persia; and while the venerable festival of the spring was necessarily left in undisturbed dignity, as the ancient religion and the sacred law ordained, it still seemed fitting to solemnise a similar feast with reference to the recent events more intimately affecting them, which should harmonise more closely with the disposition and feelings of the present. The Pûrîm thus grew into a sort of preliminary celebration of the Passover. Occurring exactly a month earlier, it was placed on the same days, the fourteenth and fifteenth, which ancient usage had consecrated for the purpose.1 Even before the composition of our book, it must have been kept with great interest in this light,2 though it is plain that however high it may have stood in general favour, its celebration was purely popular and voluntary, and without the intervention of the priests, which our book, moreover, nowhere prescribes.3 The story, then, might easily arise that on the thirteenth of the last month of the year, the same day which Haman, after long and scrupulous calculation, had superstitiously fixed upon, by casting lots in his heathen fashion, as the proper day for destroying the Judeans, the double lot had suddenly turned against him and in favour of Israel. At the special request of Esther in Susa, and as a special act of grace, Xerxes had permitted the people to celebrate a festival of revenge, which did not come to an end till the fifteenth; and this was the reason why the annual commemoration was fixed to begin on the fourteenth and conclude on the fifteenth. These, then, were the materials which the author had before him. What must be ascribed, however, individually to him is the working up of these scattered materials into a whole which accomplishes in the most beautiful and captivating manner its prescribed design, viz. to compose, in the new spirit of the Greek age, a little book explaining and recommending the general celebration of this This connection between the Pûrîm and the Passover I explained as early as 1835; see the Morgenländische Zeitschr. iii. p. 415. The fact that it is not brought into prominence in this book of the feast only proves that the Pûrîm had been celebrated on the fourteenth long before it was written, a conclusion which other circumstances also enable us to arrive at. This important fact may be inferred with certainty from the cursory mention of the village Judeans who in their simplicity limited the feast to the fourteenth, without carrying it on to the fifteenth, ix. 19; comp. with ver. 1-18, 20-32. J. D. Michaelis once expressed surprise that in the account of the great victory over Nicanor, which, according to 1 Macc. vii. 40-50, was won near Adasa on the thirteenth of Adâr, no mention was made of the feast of Pûrîm, and even threw out the conjecture that possibly the whole story of Esther might only have arisen out of that event. He did not, however, suspect that it was only the fourteenth which was regularly kept, and that even with this the priests had nothing to do. Cf. 2 Macc. xv. 36. festival. In reality there is still much creative genius, even in this late work. Even supposing that there were no Persian or Indian tales which might serve the author as patterns of charming representation,2 he has here produced a style of narrative which certainly is as different from the old-Hebrew as night from day, but which in its peculiar way cannot be more perfect. And if it is possible to glorify a disposition which finds its noblest utterance in Esther's words : 'Oh! how could I endure to see it?-the evil which is coming on my people!' 'Oh! how could I endure to see it ?-the destruction of my kindred!' 4 but whose true nobleness of action is shown in the midst of violent and bloody revenge on the heathen enemy, and even on his children, by scrupulously keeping from all baser gain, it cannot be done more beautifully and candidly than it is in this little book. It is in fact the marvellous freedom and frankness with which this wholly new form of the old national spirit suddenly stepped forth prepared for all emergencies, which constitute its most notable and instructive features. But it proves that all the great men of old had disappeared, and a new race had grown up who seemed to have inherited nothing from their predecessors but the national name and the pride which was inseparable from it." When this feast, although celebrated without the priests, had thus established itself in the popular favour, and the little book of Esther had so charmingly glorified the disposition appropriate to it, it was natural that the work should be very widely read, and gradually also enlarged and reproduced. There are many signs that this process must have begun at an early This notion of a little Pûrîm-book is actually found in the oldest name which we can point to historically, σTOλh Tv Φρουρίμ, in the subscription of numerous MSS. of the LXX; the term 'letter,' like (risâlet), certainly means nothing more than a short treatise on a particular subject; in the same way, the second book of Maccabees also is designated 'Iovda Toû Μακκαβαίου πράξεων επιστολή (where Valckenär needlessly proposed to correct to ἐπιτομή). 2 The present state of our knowledge does not permit us to say anything further with confidence on this subject. Vol. i. p. 212 sq. The thrice repeated addition 'but on the spoil laid they not their hand,' ix. 10, 15, 16 (in noble contrast to Haman, iii. 9-11), reminds one forcibly of the inscription property is sacred' on the shops of the Paris, Berlin, and Frankfort revolutionists. 6 As the book still exhibits so much creative power, there are hardly any readily discernible echoes from earlier writings to be found in it; only the strange expression jy by, i. 19, ix. 27, sounds like an echo from one of the latest songs, Ps. cxlviii. 6. The origin of the book cannot, however, be placed later than the period assigned in the text, as is proved by the very different spirit exhibited by the later reproductions of it, which certainly belong to the last century before Christ. 2 period;1 it was simply the common fate of all favourite popular books. Many later writers thought it worth while merely to elaborate single passages of the narrative; others preferred investing it with a wholly new and still more brilliant grace.3 The chief reason why many readers seem to have desired the book to be recast at a time when grave disasters had again habituated men to think more of God, was that they objected to the entire absence of his name from one end to the other.1 This feeling gave rise to repeated additions and changes; and it was probably about the year 48 в.c. (judging by an old Greek subscription)," certainly not later at all events, that a copy of a Greek redaction was taken from Jerusalem to Egypt, and there extensively circulated; a similar redaction was followed by Josephus. All these alterations, however, destroyed its original design and simple beauty, and thus betrayed their relatively much later age. In the meantime it was easy to transfer the idea of the festival whose celebration it glorified to any other foreign nation which subsequently ruled over the Judeans; and in one of these later recastings Haman was transformed out of a Persian into a Macedonian, because after the Maccabean wars the Macedonians were identified with 'enemies of the Judeans.' But the way was being gradually prepared for a change of a very different kind from any which the book of Esther leads us to anticipate. Powerfully favoured by circumstances, the intrusion of Greek culture and art could not be averted, and now demands our attention. This may be gathered particularly from the MSS. of the LXX and the Itala. O. E. Fritzsche has endeavoured to restore two different Greek redactions in the book of EXOHP, Tur. 1848. The MS. of Josephus also had many details of its own. The larger additions separated by Jerome and Luther do not exhaust these later changes, which sometimes extend still further and can still be recognised. To these must be added finally the many kinds of paraphrasing and enlargement which the book underwent at a still later period, as may be seen from the Targums and other later Jewish books. The only peculiarity of the Chaldean fragments of the book of Esther published by De Rossi (in a second edition at Tübingen, 1783) is a later addition of the prayers of Mordecai and Esther. 2 The royal decrees in particular were thus elaborated. The chief instrument for this purpose was found in the vision of Mordecai, with which everything was to begin and conclude. 4 As the above-named Chaldean fragments show. This Greek translation and redaction proceeded according to this from a certain Lysimachus in Jerusalem, and was carried down to Egypt in the fourth year of Ptolemy and Cleopatra (that is, if the last Cleopatra is meant, about 48 B.C., when this Ptolemy seems to have died) by a Levite Dositheus and his son Ptolemy. The tenor of this subscription is remarkably circumspect, and there seems reason to doubt its historical character. If it could be proved that Ptolemy Philomêtor was intended, as Hody and Valckenär, de Aristobulo, p. 61, suppose, the subscription would fall in the year 178 B.C.; but this can hardly be established. no II. THE INFLUX OF GREEK CULTURE AND ART. This was promoted by the Greek dominion itself, whether its centre was in Egypt or in Northern Syria, and its force was increased by the proximity in which Alexandria and Antioch now lay to Jerusalem and Samaria. But a host of other important causes contributed to the same result. Among these must first be enumerated the Macedonian thirst for glory and power, combined with the Greek industry and propensity for building, which covered Palestine, like other conquered countries, with new cities erected in the most attractive localities, restored many which had fallen into ruin during the previous destructive wars, supplied them more or less with Greek manners and institutions, and, through every fresh opening for its extensive commerce, spread the Greek spirit too. A survey of the Greek dominion, which lasted for nearly three centuries from the conquest of Alexander, shows us at length the whole of Palestine sown with Greek names of cities, places, and streams, due in no small degree to the Greek craving to perpetuate its memory in public names. Many of the original names have been merely Grecised with easy changes arising out of various kinds of word-play, which, in the case of names in the district of Judah, clearly exhibit the desire to convey the idea of their peculiar sanctity. The special circumstances under which various Greek settlements were established are in many cases extremely obscure; moreover, this branch of the subject finds a more appropriate place in general history. It is clear, however, that many of these erections belong to the early days in which the MacedonianGreek passion for building was at the height of its energy. Many things seem, it is true, to have been ascribed to Alexander merely by the inconsiderateness of a later time. The This name, evidently originating in Egypt, becomes from this time the general designation. In spelling it, the Greeks probably had in their minds the word waλal, old, but the full name was originally the Syrian Palestine, i.e. the Philistine land belonging to Syria, as the Egyptians in the Persian age naturally described the whole of southern Syria by the name of the country of the Philistines immediately adjacent to themselves. Herodotus certainly heard the name used in this sense in Egypt, and applies it in the same way for the first time in i. 105; cf. ii. 106, iii. 5, vii. 89. 2 Cf. the formations Ἱεροσόλυμα, Ιεριχώ, the river 'lepoμát, and 'Apaípeua, p. 228. The stages of this progress may be estimated from the fact that 'Iepooóλvua does not occur in the LXX or Aristotle, but is found in the fragments of Hecatæus, Eupolemus, Lysimachus, and Agatharchides, as we now have them, and both names are interchangeable in the Apocrypha and the New Testament (in which latter their use is frequently determined intentionally by delicate differences). And yet the LXX have 'Iepoßáaλ for Jerubbaal, vol. ii. p. 380 sq., and Philo always calls Jerusalem simply Hieropolis. 5 important city of Gerasa, for example, on the east of the Jordan, which certainly has no historical existence till this period, was said to have been founded by the grey-headed men (Greek Gerontes) whom Alexander left behind there.1 We have already, however, adverted to the restoration of Samaria by Perdiccas. In the extreme north the ancient Dan3 gave way to a new heathen Paneas. In its neighbourhood a city named Seleuceia, at the northern end of the Lake of Jordan, was subsequently inhabited also by Judeans. Another, Philoteria, unknown to us at a later date, at any rate under this name, flourished in the third century on the lake of Galilee. Pella and Dion, on the east of the Jordan, betray their origin by their purely Macedonian names, the former, among others, being ascribed to Antigonus." In the same region the ancient Rabbath-Ammon was rebuilt as Philadelphia by Ptolemy II., and in the south Ar-Moab, as Areopolis. Hippus, Gadara, Scythopolis, all with Greek sounding names, lying together in the southern district of the Lake of Galilee, are subsequently reckoned entirely as Hellenic cities, and were, therefore, essentially transformed by Greek institutions. In Ptolemais, which subsequently occupied so important a place in Jewish history, one of the first Ptolemies revived the ancient Accho, the important harbour south of Phoenicia. Still further south some one erected Stratônos-Pyrgos, which was afterwards destined to become so celebrated as Cæsarea-upon-the-Sea; and between this and Joppa, also upon the coast, lay Apollonia, which boasted of having been founded by Seleucus." In the far south, after its conquest and destruction by Alexander, Gaza again arose in glory as a Hellenic city;10 and at no great distance, Anthedon" on the coast, and Arethusa 12 in the interior, disclose by their names their entirely Greek character. It is 8 fact all Palestine was proud of its wine; Pliny, Hist. Nat. v. 16; Solinus, Polyhist. cap. 45; cf. Tacit. Hist. v. 5. The situation of the city is more accurately stated in Pliny, v. 14 and Jos. Ant. xiii. 15, 4 than in the Bell. Jud. i. 8, 4; according to Appian, Syr. cap. 57, Seleucus I. might have founded it, unless some other town of this name is intended, for Appian expressly omits Phoenicia from among the countries occupied by Seleucus. 10 According to Jos. Ant. xvii. 11, 4; cf. xiii. 13, 3; Arrian, Hist. Alexandria, ii. 27, ad fin. Jos. Ant. xiii. 3, 3, 15, 4, xiv. 5, 3; Plin. Hist. Nat. v. 14. 12 Jos. Bell. Jud. i. 7, 7, Ant. xiv. 4, 4. |