leading position. They had previously been a party among many parties,
and their Judaism one of the many varieties. The Sadducees, their
chief opponents, had a literature of their own: the day upon which
their "Book of Decrees" was consigned to destruction was made a legal
holiday upon which fasting was prohibited. But even writings which
were lightly touched by the Sadduccee spirit were frowned upon: the
Siracide was barely tolerated on the outside because he made light of
individual immortality, and believed in the eternity of Israel and the
Zadokite priesthood. The Pharisees had been on the opposition during
the latter period of the Maccabeans: so with partisan ruthlessness
they excluded from the canon the writings commemorative of the
valorous deeds of those priest-warriors who freed the people from
foreign overlordship and restored the Davidic boundaries of the realm.
Because the apocalyptic visions inclined to teachings not acceptable
to the dominant opinion, they were declared not only heterodox,
heretical, but worthy of destruction. Had the stricter view prevailed,
the sceptical Preacher--now, to quote Renan, lost in the canon like a
volume of Voltaire among the folios of a theological library--would
have shared the fate of Sirach and Wisdom and the other writings which
Egypt cherished after Palestine had discarded them. And there were
mutterings heard even against the Song, that beautiful remnant of the
Anacreontic muse of Judaea. It was then that Akiba stepped into the
breach and by bold allegory saved that precious piece of what may be
called the secular literature of the ancient Hebrews.

The process concluded by the Pharisees had begun long before. The
Pharisee consummated what the scribe before him had commenced, and the
scribe in turn had carried to fruition the work inaugurated by the
prophet. Just as the Pharisee decreed what limits were to be imposed
upon the third part of the Scriptures, the scribe in his day gave
sanction to the second, and at a still earlier period the prophet to
the wide range of literature current in his days. Sobered by national
disaster, the scribe addressed himself to the task of safeguarding the
remnant of Judaea in the land of the fathers. There were schisms in the
ranks, and all kinds of heresies, chief among which stood the
Samaritan. The nation's history was recast in a spirit showing how
through the entire past faithful adherence to Mosaism brought in its
wake national st