=2.= Moreover, from the Scripture history of Ezra and Nehemiah, it is plain that a large body of skilled men, ably instructed in the Law and acquainted with the sacred writings of the Jewish people, were among the captives before the close of the Captivity. The Levites and priests were in existence, and the prophets were among them, and they met in various places for worship and for the songs of Zion. The condition of the Jews in Babylonia and elsewhere was favorable to the cultivation of their literature, and they were allowed many privileges. It is plain from the letter of Artaxerxes, Ezra 7:11, and from other testimonies, that not only Ezra but many others studied the Jewish writings long before the close of the Captivity. The Samaritan Pentateuch in its letters may offer evidence on this point, for the new letters in which the Law and the canonized books were written very probably found their origin in the reverence in which the Jews held the sacred writings during the Captivity. These new letters, as we have said, are called the “square form,” but they were called by the early Jews[149] “the Ashuri” character, Ashuri meaning, according to Maimonides, the sacred character, and they were probably invented specially for sacred writings. The old Samaritan letters were not sacred. They were used in various modifications by the Canaanites; they were used by the Moabites, as we see on the Moabite stone, discovered in 1868 at Dibon, east of the Dead Sea; they were also used by the Phœnicians,[150] and have been found upon Assyrian weights associated with the cuneiform, probably for the convenience of the merchants and tradesmen,[151] upon the coins of Judæa, and upon one coin of Jehu, king of Israel.[152] It was therefore a common character, and it was strictly in keeping with the Jewish sentiment of exclusiveness and separation of themselves from all the nations around that they should clothe their sacred writings in a letter peculiarly sacred. At any rate we have no other origin for this new form of lettering, which was never known before the Captivity, and which was used after the Captivity exclusively for the sacred writings, as we learn from the Talmuds of both Jerusalem and Babylonia.[153]