gnable fortress for the people of Israel, holy
and no longer polluted by the presence of heathen invaders. Peace and
prosperity shall then be the lot of Jehovah's people. Above all he will
pour out his purifying, enlightening spirit upon all classes, so that
young and old, slave and free, shall be inspired by the consciousness of
his message and presence in their hearts.

V. Rule of the High Priests. The few facts that have been preserved
regarding the external history of the Judean community during the last
century of the Persian rule are in striking contrast to the inner life and
hopes of the people. At their head were the high priests, whose names we
know, Eliashib, Johanan, and Jaddua. They constituted a hereditary
aristocracy intrenched in the temple, which controlled not only the
religious but also the civil life of the Jews. Like all hierarchies it
lacked the corrective influence of a superior civil authority. The one
safeguard of popular liberties, however, was the written law, which was
fast becoming the absolute authority in the life of the community. To it
the people could appeal even against the decisions of the priests. It
therefore kept alive that inherited democratic spirit which had been the
priceless possession of Israel through all its history.

There is every reason for accepting the detailed account which Josephus
has given of the quarrel between the high priest Johanan and his brother
Joshua which resulted in the murder of the latter within the sacred temple
precincts. Such an opportunity would naturally be improved by the greedy
Persian official to impose an onerous tax upon the Jews. The Elephantine
letter establishes the fact that Johanan was high priest in 411 B.C. and
that Baghohi (of which Bagoses is the Jewish equivalent) was the Persian
satrap. It thus directly confirms the testimony of Josephus. References in
late Greek writings (Solinus XXXV, 6; Syncellus I, 486) suggest that the
Jews about 350 B.C. were involved with the Phoenicians in the rebellion
against Persia. These historians state that at this time Jericho was
captured and destroyed and that a part of the Jewish people were
transported to the province of Hyrcania at the south of the Caspian Sea.
The rebellion was instigated by Tachos, the ruler of Egypt, who about 362
not only shook off the rule of Persia, but invaded Syria and stirred up
the Phoenicians to defy the Persian king. Artaxerxes III, popularly known
as Ochus, proved, ho