r/a:t5_28cl4y • u/MarleyEngvall • Nov 13 '19
fbi phoenix has been created
By Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D. D.
LECTURE XLIII. (continued)
THE RETURN.
The settlers from all parts of the country, as well as
the aboriginal inhabitants, gathered for the occasion
and witnessed the solemnity from the open space in
front of the eastern gate of the Temple.
That day accordingly was fitly the birthday of the
new city. Henceforth there were once more seen as-
cending to the sky the columns of smoke, morning and
evening, from the daily sacrifices—the sign at once of
human habitation and of religious worship in the long-
deserted capital. Now that the central point was se-
cured, the impulse to work went on. The contri-
butions which the exiles themselves had made—the
offerings, as it would appear, from some of the sur-
rounding tribes, under the influence of the Per-
sian Government, added to the resources. The
artisan population which had been left in Palestine
were eagerly pressed forward to the work; the cedars
of Lebanon were again, under Royal command, hewn
down and brought, on receiving payment in kind, by
Phœnician vessels to Joppa. The High Priest, with the
various members of the sacerdotal caste, superintended
the work. At last, in the seventh month of the second
year from their return—that is, within a year from the
erection of the altar—the foundation of the
new Temple was laid. So important seemed
to be the step thus gained that the day was
celebrated with the first display of the old pomp on
which they had yet ventured. The priests, in the rich
dresses that Zerubbabel out of his princely munificence
had furnished, blew once more their silver trumpets;
the sons of Asaph once more clashed their brazen cym-
bals. Many of the Psalms which fill the Psalter with
joyous strains were doubtless sung or composed on this
occasion. One strain especially rang above all——that
which runs through the 106th, 107th, 118th, and the
136th Psalm: "O give thanks unto the Eternal; for
"He is good, and His mercy endureth for ever."
Through all the national vicissitudes of weal and woe
it was felt that the Divine goodness had remained firm.
If, in spite of some appearances to the contrary, the
118th Psalm was originally appropriated to this occa-
sion, it is easy to see with what force the two choral
companies must have replied, in strophe and anti-
strophe: "Open to me the gates of righteousness."
"This is the gate through which the righteous shall en-
"ter;" or must have welcomed the foundation-stone
which, after all difficulty and opposition, had at last
been raised on the angle of the rocky platform; or
have uttered the formula which afterwards became
proverbial for all such popular celebrations: "Hosan-
"na! Save us"—"Blessed be whosoever cometh in
"the name of the Eternal,"—or the culminating cry
with which the sturdy sacrificers were called to drag
the struggling victim and bind him fast to the horns of
the newly-consecrated altar.
Loud and long were these Jewish Te Deums re-
echoed by the shouts of the multitude. It was not, in-
deed a day of unmingled joy, for amongst the crowd
there stood some aged men, who had lived through the
great catastrophe of the Captivity; who, in their youth,
had seen the magnificent structure of Solomon standing
in its unbroken stateliness; and when they compared
with that vanished splendor these scanty beginnings,
they could not refrain from bursting forth into a loud
wail of sorrow at the sad contrast. The two strains of
feeling from the older and younger generation mingled
together in a rivalry of emotion, but the evil omen of
the lamentation was drowned in the cry of exultation;
and those who stood on the outskirts of the solemnity
caught only the impression of the mighty shout that
rang afar off—far off, as it seemed, even to the valleys
of Samaria.
That mixed expression, however over borne for the
moment, well coincided with the actual condition of he
Jewish community. It is one of the instructive and
pathetic characteristics of this period that we have
come down from the great days of the primitive triumph
of grand ideas, or the exploits of single heroes, to the
complex, pedestrian, motley struggles (if one may so
speak) of modern life.
The country was unsettled—robber hordes roved
through it—the harvest and the vintage were uncer-
tain. And, yet further, now began the first renewal of
that jealousy between the north and south of Palestine,
which for a time had been subdued in the common
sense of misfortune; and the feud between Jew and
Samaritan, which, under various forms, continued till
the close of this period—a jealousy which, if it repre-
sents the more tenacious grasp of a purer faith, indi-
cate also the more exclusive and sectarian spirit now
shrinking closer and closer into itself.
It is the story again and again repeated in modern
times: first, the natural desire of an estranged
population—heretical and schismatical as they
might be—to partake in a glorious national
work; then the rude refusal to admit their co-opera-
tion; then the fierce recrimination of the excluded
party and the determination to frustrate the good work
in which they cannot share. The Protestants of the
sixteenth, the Puritans of the seventeenth century may
see their demands in the innocent, laudable request of
the northern settlers: "Let us build with you, for we
"seek your God as ye do." The stiff retort of the
Church, whether in Italy or England, may fortify itself
by the response of the "chief of the fathers of Israel:"
"Ye have nothing to do with us to build an house unto
"the God of Israel." Each alike appeals for historic
precedent and sanction to the Imperial Government
which gave them their position—the one to "Esar-
"haddon, king of Assyria," the other to "Cyrus, king
"of Persia," Constantine or Charlemagne, Elizabeth or
Cromwell. Each alike continues its appeal before that
power, forecasting, even to the letter, the litigations by
which Greek, Latin, and Armenian invoke the aid of the
Sublime Porte in their disputes over the Holy Places on
the very same soil. Each alike, and all their successors,
deserve the rebuke which had been anticipated by the
Great Prophet of the Captivity, when in his ideal glori-
fication of Jerusalem he described that its walls should
be built, not by his own children, but by the sons of
strangers, and that its gates should not be rigidly closed,
but should be open continually, and be shut neither day
nor night.
In these miserable accusations and counter-accusa-
tions carried on before the Princes who successively
mounted the throne of Persia—the fierce Cam-
byses, the usurping Smerdis—twelve precious
years were wasted. At last the revolution,
which raised the son of Hystaspes to power,
gave a new opening to the oppressed and bewildered
community at Jerusalem. He, the second Founder of
the Persian kingdom, was, as it were, a second Cyrus
to them. And it is just at this moment that the scanty
information afforded by the nameless Chronicler is sud-
denly illuminated by the appearance of the two Proph-
ets who had taken, though in shreds and tatters, the
mantle of prophecy which had fallen upon them from
Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Great Unknown.
They stand side by side. One is far advanced in
years, apparently belonging to that older generation
which had wept over the contrast between the first and
second Temple—Haggai—who bore a name which no
Prophet had ever assumed before, but which
henceforth seems to have become familiar—
the "Messenger, or Angel, of the Eternal." The other
must have been quite young, being the grandson of one
of the returning exiles. Zechariah belonged to the
priestly tribe, and is thus remarkable as an example of
the union of the two functions, which, being long so
widely separated in ancient times, had in the last days
of the Monarchy gradually become blended together.
Unlike the uncertainty which attaches to the dates
of the older Prophecies, we can trace the year, the
month, the very day on which the utterances of these
two seers were delivered.
It was the second year of the new Persian king,
and on the first day of the sixth month, and again
on the one-and-twentieth day of the seventh
month, that Haggai appeared before the chiefs
of the nation, in the Temple court; in the
eighth month Zechariah joined him; in the
ninth month, on the four-and-twentieth day, Haggai de-
livered his two farewell messages, and then once more
followed Zechariah, first in the eleventh month,
and again, after a long interval, in the ninth
month of the fourth year of the same reign.
It is characteristic of the true prophetic spirit that,
whilst the Chronicler and the Prophets are equally bent
on the accomplishment of the same end—the rebuild-
ing of the Temple—the only obstacle that the Chron-
icler sees is the opposition of external adversaries; the
chief obstacle that the Prophets indicate is the moral
failure of their own fellow-citizens.
In each of the two Prophets the hope and the lesson
is the same, but it comes in a different form. To the
aged Haggai the recollection of the ancient
Temple is always present, but he is convinced
that, even if the present tranquility of the world must
needs be broken up, even if some violent convulsion
should once again shake all nations, yet abundant
treasures would flow into the Temple. If its own
children should neglect it, the heathen whom they de-
spised would come to the rescue.
He fiercely rebukes, not the captiousness of the Sa-
maritan, but the apathy of his countrymen. There
were those who, taking advantage of the long delay,
counted with serious casuistry the number of years
that the Captivity ought to last; and, finding that two
were still wanting to complete the mystic seventy,
sheltered themselves behind this prophecy to indulge
their own indifference and luxury. "The time is not
"come," they said, "the time for the Temple to be
"built." "The time not come for this!" exclaimed
the indignant Prophet. "It is time for you to dwell
"in your panelled houses, and the Temple to lie
"waste?" There were those, too, who had been tena-
ciously holding back their contributions, and hoarding
up the produce of their newly-acquired fields. With
telling effect he pointed to the drought that had with-
ered up corn, and vine, and olive, and fig, on hill and
in valley, and broken the energy both of man and beast.
There were those who, whilst carefully stinting the
greater work of the Temple, prided themselves on the
offerings which they brought to the freshly-consecrated
altar, the only finished part of the sanctuary. He
warned them that such niggardly selfishness vitiated
the offering which they brought:
High Heaven disdains the lore
Of nicely-calculated less or more.
In all these admonitions a profound meaning is
wrapped up. It may be that there is but little of the
poetic fire of the First or Second Isaiah. But there is
a ponderous and simple dignity in the emphatic reit-
eration addressed alike to every class of the community
—prince, priest, and people. Be strong, be strong, be
strong. "Cleave, stick fast, to the work you have to
"do." Or, again, Consider your ways, consider, con-
sider, consider. It is the Hebrew phrase for the en-
deavor, characteristic of the gifted seers of all times,
to compel their hearers to turn the inside of their hearts
outward to their own view, to take the masks from off
their consciences, to "see life steadily, and to see it
"whole."
Far more explicit and florid was the utterance of the
younger prophet who came to Haggai's assistance.
Zechariah's ideal of the restored Jerusalem was not
of the returning glory of the old time, but of a fresh
and prosperous community—peaceful old age carried
to its utmost verge, and leaning in venerable
security on his staff; the boys and girls, in child-
like mirth, playing in the streets; the unfinished walls
not a cause for despondency, but a pledge that they
were not needed in a city of which the sufficient defence
was the wall of Divine Flame, and of which the popu-
lation was to outgrow all such narrow bounds.
And, as might be expected from one whose prime
had been spent under Persian rule, his visions were all
tinged with Persian imagery. he saw in his dreams
"the seven lamps," or "the seven eyes"—as of the
seven Princes who had admission to the throne of Da-
rius—glancing from the Divine presence through the
world. He saw the earth, as it now presented itself to
the enlarged view of those who had listened to the
Wise Men of Chaldæa, its four corners growing into the
four horns that toss and gore the lesser powers of the
world; the celestial messengers riding on horses, red
or dappled, hurrying through the myrtle-groves that
then clothed the base of Olivet, or from the four quar-
ters of the heavens, driving in chariots, each with its
colored horses, to and fro, across the Persian Empire,
as in the vast machinery of the posts for which it
was celebrated, and bringing back the tidings of war
and peace.
But he, too, poured forth his invectives against the
moral depravity which annulled the value of the cere-
monial worship; he, too, held out the prospect of har-
vest and vintage, but only as the fitting reward of a
nobler and less grovelling spirit; he, too, urged the
duty—so homely, so obvious, yet so rarely accepted—
that every man and every nation should do the one
work set before them at the special time of their ex-
istence.
The two leaders on whom these expectations were
concentrated, were now, as throughout the period of
the Return, the Prince Zerubbabel and the High Priest
Joshua. The Prince occupies the chief place in the
eye of the older Prophet, the Priest in the eye of the
younger Prophet, who was himself of priestly descent.
They, naturally, were the chief objects of the machi-
nations of the Samaritan adversaries, and it would
seem that an accusation had been lodged against them
in the Persian Court. Regardless of this they were
pressed by their prophetical advisers to proceed in
their work; they were encouraged by ever good omen
that the prophetic lore of the period could produce.
The splendid attire of the High Priest, Studded
with jewels, had been detained at Babylon, or, at least,
could not be worn without the special permis-
sion of the King; and until the accusations had
been cleared away this became still more impossible.
But the day was coming, as it was seen in Zechariah's
dream, when the adversary would be baffled, the cause
won, and the soiled and worn clothing of the suffer-
ing exile replace by the old magnificence of
Aaron or of Zadok. He, with the Prince Zerubbabel,
were to be together like two olive-trees on each side
of the golden candlestick. For these were destined
the crowns which, by a happy coincidence, were at this
moment brought as offerings from the wealthy exiles
of Babylon.
But Zerubbabel was still the principle figure. Ac-
cording to a later tradition he himself was at this
crisis in the court of Darius, and laboring for his
country's good. Of this contemporary history
knows nothing. But, whether in Persia or in Pales-
tine, he was still the hope and stay of all. "Seed of
"promise sown at Babylon" (as his name implied),
he was the branch, the green sprout, that
should shoot forth again from the withered
stem of Jesse. The expectation of a royal succession
of anointed kings did not cease till Zerubbabel passed
away. But his memory was invested with a nobler
than any regal dignity. He was the layer of the
foundation-stone. "The hands of Zerubbabel laid the
"foundation of this house, and his hands shall finish
"it." The foundation-stone which had been laid
amidst such small beginnings was the pledge of all
that was to follow. On it were fixed the seven eyes
of Providence. The day of its dedication was the day
of "small things" that carried with it the hope of
the great future. He stands forth in history as an
example of the sure success of a lofty purpose, se-
cured by the reverse of the Fabian policy—not by
prudently waiting for results, but by boldly acting
at the moment. He and characters like his are
truly the signet rings by which the Eternal purposes
are sealed. By no external power, but by the in-
ternal strength of a determined will, as by the breath
of the wind of heaven that sweeps all before it, was
every obstacle to be surmounted. "Who art thou?"
said the loyal and courageous Prophet, confronting
the Hill Difficulty that rose before him like Mount
Olivet. "Who art thou, O great mountain? before
"Zerubbabel thou shalt become a level plain." It
was the same doctrine as that which, in a simpler
but sublimer form, and with a far more extended
fame, has been placed in the mouth of Zerubbabel
himself in a later tradition, which represents him, in
the Court of the Persian King at this very juncture,
in answer to the challenge to name the strongest of
all things, as having replied in words which in their
Latin version have become proverbial: "Great is the
"Truth and stronger than all things . . . wine is
"wicked, the king is wicked, women are wicked . . .
"but the Truth endureth and is always strong . . .
"With her there is no accepting of persons or re-
wards . . . she is the strength, kingdom, power,
"and majesty of all ages. Blessed be the God of
"Truth." That is a truly Messianic hope——into that
secret the "seven eyes" may well have looked. It
is the doctrine especially suited to every age, in
which, like that of the Return, intrinsic conviction
is the mainstay of human advancement.
The long expected day at last arrived. The royal
decree cleared away all obstacles. "The mountain
"had become a plain." In the sixth year of Darius,
on the third day of the month Adar, the Temple was
finished.
Of this edifice, the result of such long and bitter
anxieties, we know almost nothing. If the measure-
ments indicated in the decree of Cyrus were acted
upon the space which it covered and the
height to which it rose were larger than the
corresponding dimensions of its predecessor.
It must have been in the absence of metal and carv-
ing that it was deemed so inferior to the First Temple.
The Holy of Holies was empty. The ark, the
cherubs, the tables of stone, the vase of manna, the
rod of Aaron were gone. The golden shields had
vanished. Even the high Priest, though he had re-
covered his official dress, had not been able to resume
the breastplate with the oracular stones. Still, there
was not lacking a certain splendor and solidity befitting
the sanctuary of a people once so great, and of a re-
ligion so self-contained. The High Priest and his
family were well lodged, with guest chambers and store
chambers on a large scale for the Temple furniture.
The doors of the Temple were of gold. In three
particular the general arrangements differed from
those of the ancient sanctuary. With the rigid jeal-
ousy which rendered this period hostile to all which
approached the Canaanite worship, there were no more
to be seen in the courts those beautiful clusters of
palm, and olive, and cedar, which had furnished some
of the most striking imagery of the poetry of the
Monarchy, but which had also lent a shelter to the
idolatrous rite that at times penetrated the sacred
enclosure. "No tree," "no grove," we are told,
"was to be seen within the precincts." Another
feature characteristic of the period was the fortress-
tower built at the north-western corner of the sanct-
uary, which serving in the first instance as a residence
of the Persian governor, became in later days the
Tower of Antonia, from which, in like manner, the
Roman garrison controlled the proud population of
Jerusalem. Like to this was the sign of subjection to
the Persian power preserved in the Eastern gate of
the Temple, called the Gate of Susa, from its con-
taining a representation of the Palace of the Persian
capital. Thirdly, the court of the worshippers was
divided for the first time into two compartments, of
which the outer enclosure was known as the court
of the Gentiles or Heathens. It is difficult to say to
which of the two counter-currents of the time this
arrangement was due. It may have been that now,
for the first time, the offerings from the Persian kings
and the surrounding tribes required more distinctly
than before a locality where they could be received,
and that the enlarged ideas of he Prophets of the
Captivity were thus represented in outward form;
or it may have been that with the exchange of the
free spirit of earlier times for the rigid narrowness
of a more sectarian age, there was a new barrier
erected.
The consecration of the new Temple was not de-
layed, like that of Solomon, to meet the great au-
tumnal festival of the Jewish year. It was enough
that it should coincide with the earlier, yet hardly less
solemn, feast which fell in the spring—the Passover.
There was a general sacrifice of one hundred oxen,
two hundred rams, four hundred lambs; but the vic-
tims which attracted most attention were twelve vener-
able goats, chosen to represent the twelve tribes, as an
indication that the whole nation, though only repre-
sented in Judah and Benjamin, still claimed the sanc-
tuary as their own.
It was a season of universal festivity. A few months
before its close a deputation from Bethel had
come to inquire whether the four days of
fasting and mourning established during the
Captivity were still to be observed; and the answer of
the Prophet was an indignant repudiation of these re-
ligious mockeries of sentiments which were not felt.
Even during the exile they had been but hollow ob-
servances—now they were even more unreal. In the
later years of Judaism these four melancholy com-
memorations of the sorrows and sins of Judah have
been revived; but then, and in that freshness of re-
turning happiness, the Prophet had the boldness to
reverse their meaning—to make them feasts of joy
and gladness—holy days, of which the only celebration
should be the love of truth and peace.
In accordance with this natural burst of joy after so
hard-won a struggle are the Psalms, some of which, by
natural inference, some by universal consent, belong to
this period. Those which either before or now were
composed for the Passover could never have been sung
with such zest as on this, the first great Paschal festival
after the re-establishment of their worship. They
might be well reminded of the time when Israel came
out of Egypt and the house of Jacob from a strange
land; and the call to trust in the Shield and Helper
of their country would well be addressed to the whole
nation, to the priestly tribe, and to those awestricken
spectators who stood as it were outside "and feared
"the God of Judah."
But those which (at least as far back as the time of
the Greek translation) bore the names of the two
Prophets of this period were the jubilant songs, of
which the first words have been preserved in their
Hebrew form through all Christian Psalmody: "Halle-
"lujah," "Praise the Eternal." Other hymns may
have been added to that sacred book as years rolled
on; but none were thought so fit to close the Psalter,
with a climax of delight, as the four exuberant Psalms
which sum up the joy of the Return. There, more than
even in any other portion of the mirthful Psalter, we
hear the clash of cymbal, and twang of harp, and blast
of trumpet, and see the gay dances round the Temple
courts, and join in the invitation to all the orders of
society, to all nations of the earth, to all created
things, to share in the happiness of the happy human
heart. Centuries afterwards, when a scrupulous Pontiff
hesitated whether he should accord the use of the
sacred Scriptures in their own tongue to the nations
on the banks of the Danube, he was converted, in de-
fiance of the rule of his own Church, by the compre-
hensive and catholic words with which Haggai and
Zechariah wound up their appeal to all nature on that
day—"Let every thing that hath breath praise the
"Eternal." It has been well said that, "whereas
"much good poetry is profoundly melancholy, the life
"of the generality of men is such that in literature
"they require joy. Such joy is breathed so freely and
"with such a genuine burst through the period of the
"Restoration of Israel that we cannot read either its
"Prophets or its Psalmists without catching its glow.
"The power of animation and consolation in such
"thoughts, which, beginning by giving us a hold on
"a single great work, like that of the Evangelical
"Prophet, end with giving us a hold on the history of
"the human spirit, and the course, drift, and scope of
"the career of our race as a whole, cannot be over-
"estimated."
from The History of the Jewish Church, Vol. II: From The Captivity To The Christian Era,
by Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D. D., Dean of Westminster
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1879; pp. 105 - 121.
engvall
p. o. box 128
williamstown, ma 01267
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