When the great synagogue ceased, there was an interval during which it is not clear whether the sacred books were neglected, except by private individuals; or whether they were studied, copied, and collected by a body of scribes. Perhaps the scribes and elders of the Hasmonæan time were active at intervals in this department. The institution of a senate by Judas Maccabaeus is supposed to be favored by 2 Maccabees (chapter i. 10-ii. 18); but the passage furnishes poor evidence of the thing. Judas is there made to write to Egypt in the year of the Seleucidae 188, though he died thirty-six years before, i.e., 152. Other places have been added as corroborative, viz., 2 Maccab. iv. 44, xi. 27; 1 Maccab. vii. 33. Some go so far as to state that Jose ben Joeser was appointed its first president at that time. The Midrash in Bereshith Rabba (§ 65) makes him one of the sixty Hassidim who were treacherously murdered by Alcimus; but this is neither in the first book of the Maccabees (chapter vii.) nor in Josephus,[46] and must be pronounced conjectural. It is impossible to fix the exact date of Jose ben Joeser in the Hasmonean period. Pirke Aboth leaves it indefinite. Jonathan, Judas Maccabaeus's successor, when writing to the Lacedaemonians, speaks of the gerusia or senate as well as the people of the Jews; whence we learn that the body existed as early as the time of Judas.[47] Again, Demetrius writes to Simon, as also to the elders and nation of the Jews.[48] After Jonathan and Simon, it may have been suspended for a while, in consequence of the persecution and anarchy prevailing in Judea; till the great Sanhedrim at Jerusalem succeeded it, under Hyrcanus I. Though the traces of a senate in the Maccabaean epoch are slight, the Talmud countenances its existence.[49] We believe that it was earlier than Judas Maccabaeus. Of its constitution nothing is known; but it was probably aristocratic. The Hasmonean [pg 027] prince would naturally exert a commanding influence over it. The great synagogue had been a kind of democratic council, consisting of scribes, doctors or teachers, and priests.[50] Like their predecessors of the great synagogue, the Hasmonæan elders revised the text freely, putting into it explanatory or corrective additions, which were not always improvements. The way in which they used the book of Esther, employing it as a medium of Halachite prescription, shows a treatment involving little idea of sacredness attaching to the Hagiographa.
We are aware that the existence of this body is liable to doubt, and that the expressions belonging to it in Jewish books, whether elders or gerusia, have been applied to the great synagogue or to the Sanhedrim at Jerusalem, or even to the elders of any little town or hamlet; but it is difficult to explain all on that hypothesis, without attributing confusion to the places where they occur. If the body in question be not allowed, an interval of about sixty years elapsed between the great synagogue and the Sanhedrim, during which the hagiographical writings were comparatively neglected, though literary activity did not cease. No authoritative association, at least, dealt with them. This is improbable. It is true that we read of no distinguished teachers in the interval, except Antigonus of Socho, disciple of Simon the Just; but the silence can hardly weigh against a reasonable presumption. One thing is clear, viz., that Antigonus did not reach down to the time of the first pair that presided over the Sanhedrim.
The contents of the third canon, i.e., Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Canticles, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Chronicles, the formation of which we assign to the Hasmonæan gerusia, were multifarious, differing widely from one another in age, character, and value—poetical, prophetic, didactic, historical. Such as seemed worthy of preservation, though they had not been included in the second canon, [pg 028] were gathered together during the space of an hundred and fifty years. The oldest part consisted of psalms supposed to belong to David. The first psalm, which contains within itself traces of late authorship, was prefixed as an introduction to the whole collection now put into the third canon. Next to the Psalms were Proverbs, Job, Canticles, which, though non-prophetic and probably excluded on that account from the second canon, must have existed before the exile. Enriched with the latest additions, they survived the national disasters, and claimed a place next to the Psalms. They were but a portion of the literature current in and after the 5th century b.c., as may be inferred from the epilogue to Ecclesiastes, and the Wisdom of Sirach. The historical work compiled by the chronicle-writer was separated, Ezra being put first as the most important part, and referring also to the church of the 6th and 5th centuries whose history had not been written. The Chronicles themselves were placed last, being considered of less value than the first part, as they contained the summary of a period already described, though with numerous adaptations to post-exile times. The youngest portion consisted of the book of Daniel, not written till the Maccabean period (between 170 and 160 b.c.);[51] and probably of several Psalms [pg 029] (44, 60, 74, 75, 76, 79, 80, 83, 89, 110, 118) which were inserted in different places of the collection to make the whole number 150. These late odes savor of the Maccabean time; and are fitly illustrated by the history given in the first book of Maccabees. The list continued open; dominated by no stringent principle of selection, and with a character somewhat indefinite. It was called c'tubim, i.e., writings[52] a general epithet suited to the contents.
Several books put into the third canon,—as Job, Proverbs, the greater number of the Psalms, &c.,—existed when the second was made. But the latter collection was pre-eminently prophetic; and it was that idea of the origin and contents of the books in it which regulated its extent. Bloch's supposition that the parts of the third collection then existing were not looked upon as holy, but merely as productions embodying human wisdom, and were therefore excluded, is improbable. We do not think that an alteration of opinion about them in the course of a century or more, by which they became divine and holy instead of human, is a satisfactory explanation. The Psalms of David and the book of Job must have been as highly esteemed in the period of the great synagogue's existence as they were at a later time. Other considerations besides the divinity and holiness of books contributed to their introduction into a canon. Ecclesiastes was taken into the third collection because it was attributed to Solomon. The Song of Songs was understood allegorically,—a fact which, in addition to its supposed Solomonic authorship, determined its adoption. And even after their canonical reception, whether by the great synagogue or another body, the character of books [pg 030] was canvassed. It was so with Ecclesiastes, in spite of the supposed sanction it got from the great synagogue contained in the epilogue, added, as some think, by that body to attest the sacredness of the book.[53]
While the third canon was being made, the soferim, as the successors of the prophets, were active as before; and though interpretation was their chief duty, they must have revised and corrected the sacred books to some extent. We need not hesitate to allow that they sometimes arranged parts, and even added matter of their own. In the time of the canon's entire preparation, they and the priests, with writers and scholars generally, redacted the national literature, excluding or sanctioning such portions of it as they thought fit.
At this time appeared the present five-fold partition of the Psalms, preceded as it had been by other divisions, the last of which was very similar to the one that became final. Several inscriptions and historical notices were prefixed. The inscriptions, however, belong to very different times, their historical parts being usually older than the musical; and date from the first collection to the period of the Hasmonean college, when the final redaction of the entire Psalter took place. Those in the first three books existed at the time when the latter were made up; those in the last two were prefixed partly at the time when the collections themselves were made, and partly in the Maccabean age. How often they are out of harmony with the poems themselves, needs no remark. They are both traditional and conjectural.
The earliest attestation of the third canon is that of the prologue to Jesus Sirach (130 b.c.), where not only the law and the prophets are specified, but “the other books of the [pg 031] fathers,” or “the rest of the books.”[54] No information is given as to its extent, or the particular books included. They may have been for the most part the same as the present ones. The passage does not show that the third list was closed. The better writings of the fathers, such as tended to learning and wisdom, are not excluded by the definite article. In like manner, neither Philo nor the New Testament gives exact information as to the contents of the division in question. Indeed, several books, Canticles, Esther, Ecclesiastes, are unnoticed in the latter. The argument drawn from Matthew xxiii. 35, that the Chronicles were then the last book of the canon, is inconclusive; as the Zechariah there named was probably different from the Zechariah in 2 Chronicles xxiv. None of these witnesses proves that the third canon was finally closed.
A more definite testimony respecting the canon is given by Josephus towards the end of the first century a.d. “For we have not an innumerable multitude of books among us, ... but only twenty-two books, which contain the records of all the past times; which are justly believed to be divine. And of them five belong to Moses.... But as to the time from the death of Moses till the reign of Artaxerxes, king of Persia, the prophets who were after Moses wrote down what was done in their times in thirteen books. The remaining four books contain hymns to God and precepts for the conduct of human life. It is true our history has been written since Artaxerxes very particularly, but has not been esteemed of the like authority with the former by our forefathers, because there has not been an exact succession of prophets since that time: and how firmly we have given credit to these books of our own nation [pg 032] is evident by what we do; for during so many ages as have already passed, no one has been so bold as either to add anything to them, to take anything from them, or to make any change in them; but it has become natural to all Jews immediately and from their very birth, to esteem these books to contain divine doctrines, and to persist in them, and if occasion be, willingly to die for them.”[55] This list agrees with our present canon, showing that the Palestinian Jews were tolerably unanimous as to the extent of the collection. The thirteen prophets include Job; the four lyric and moral books are Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Canticles.
It is not likely that the Hasmonæan senate had a long existence. It was replaced by the Sanhedrim, a more definite and state institution, intended as a counter-balance to the influence of the Hasmonæan princes. The notices of the latter reach no further back than Hyrcanus I., i.e., about 135 b.c.[56] Josephus speaks of it under Hyrcanus II.[57] It cannot be referred to an earlier period than Hyrcanus I. Frankel[58] indeed, finds a notice of it in 2 Chronicles xix. 8, 11; but the account there is indistinct, and refers to the great synagogue. The compiler having no certain information about what was long past, transfers the origin of the court he speaks of to Jehoshaphat, in order to glorify the house of David. It is impossible to date the Sanhedrim, with Frankel, in the Grecian era, in which case it must have been dissolved during the Maccabean insurrection, and afterwards reconstructed; it was not constituted till about 130 b.c. Whether it was modeled after the great synagogue or the Hasmonæan senate, is uncertain. The idea of it may have been suggested by the latter rather than the former, for its basis was aristocratic. The Hasmonæan gerusia [pg 033] must have been less formal and definite than the Sanhedrim; though the latter arose before the family ceased to be in power, and differed materially from its predecessor. It continued from 130 b.c. till a.d. 180, surviving the terrible disasters of the nation.[59]
The closing of the third canon cannot be assigned, with Bloch, to the great synagogue. If the college ceased with or before Simon, i.e., about 200-192, and the work of Daniel did not appear till about 170 b.c., twenty years at least intervened between the extinction of the great synagogue and Daniel's book. This holds good, whether we assume, with Krochmal, the synagogue's redaction of the work,—more correctly the putting together of the independent parts of which it is said to be composed; or equally so, if the taking of it into the canon as a book already completed, be attributed to the same body. But we are unable to see that Krochmal's reasoning about the synagogue putting Daniel's work together and one of the members writing the book of Esther is probable.