hat even from his
boyhood Jeremiah must have been familiar with the life and trade of the
capital; and as his name is not mentioned in connection with the discovery
of the Law-Book on which the reforms were based, and neither he nor his
biographer speaks of that discovery, it is probable that as yet he had not
entered upon residence in the Temple-precincts. A natural occasion for the
migration of his family and himself would be upon Josiah's
disestablishment of the rural sanctuaries and provision for their priests
beside the priests of the Temple.(264) In any case we find Jeremiah
henceforth in Jerusalem, delivering his Words in the gateways or courts of
the Temple to all classes of the citizens as well as to the country-folk,
who under the new laws of worship thronged more than ever the City and her
great Shrine.

There is general agreement that _the Book of the Law_ discovered by the
Temple-priests in 621-20 was our Book of Deuteronomy in whole or in
part--more probably in part, for Deuteronomy has been compiled from at
least two editions of the same original, and the compilation may not have
been made till some time later. Many of its laws, including some peculiar
to itself, have been woven out of more than one form, and there are two
Introductions to the Book, each hortatory and historical and each covering
to some extent the same ground as the other. We cannot tell how much of
this compilation was contained in the discovered Book of the Law. But this
Book included certainly _first_ the laws of worship peculiar to
Deuteronomy, because the reforms which it inspired carried out these laws,
and probably _second_ some of the denunciations which precede or follow
the laws, for such would explain the consternation of the King when the
Book was read to him.(265)

Deuteronomy is fairly described as a fresh codification of the ancient
laws of Israel in the spirit of the Prophets of the Eighth Century. The
Book is not only Law but Prophecy, in the proper sense of this word, and a
prophetic interpretation of Israel's history. It not only restates old and
adds new laws but enforces the basal truths of the prophets, and in this
enforcement breathes the ethical fervour of Amos and Isaiah as well as
Hosea's tenderness and his zeal for education.

Deuteronomy has three cardinal doctrines: The One God, The One Altar, and
The One People.

_First_, The One God. Though slightly tinged with popular conceptions of
the existence of ot