=12. From what we have now said=, it is evident that no one was more competent for the work of gathering these records than were Ezra and his associates, and the Jewish records assert that he, with Nehemiah and others, performed this work of gathering and selecting, and thus forming that collection of the ancient writings which not only he, but those of this the most learned and devout age, considered to be truthful, and, as Josephus says, “directions of God,” or as Eusebius quoted him, “justly considered divine.” =13. When these writings were gathered= and pronounced to be the books which, Josephus says, were those “comprising a record of all time and justly confided in,” as he declares, “no one ever after ventured to add anything to them, nor take away from them, nor alter them.”[123] The Old Testament was now formed and settled and the Canonical period was closed. THE INSTITUTION OF THE SYNAGOGUE. =14. The meaning of the word synagogue= is simply “a gathering together,” but the name became, in after years, a term for the place and building where the Jews gathered for worship, and this meaning continues to the present day. =15. After the exile began=, the Jews, having no temple in Babylonia, may have had meeting-places, but the synagogue, as it existed in the time of our Saviour and since, does not appear to have been instituted till long after the return from the captivity. =16. Immediately after the captivity= the synagogue became fully organized as a place where the Jews gathered to read the law, and have it read and explained in the language of the people; for during the captivity the ancient pure Hebrew was to a great extent forgotten among the common people, and the Chaldæan language, which was that of their conquerors, was adopted. This language was unlike the ancient Hebrew, and was called the Aramæan or Aramaic, and after the captivity, at the synagogues, there were always present some who were able to read and explain the books of the law in both dialects,[124] Neh. 8:8. Although the institution of the synagogue, simply as such a gathering as we have just mentioned, took place before the second Temple was finished, it was continued ever afterward. =17. The distinctive purpose of the Temple= was for the offering of the sacrifices, and that of the synagogues was for prayer and hearing the Scriptures. In later times, just before and after the Christian era, it became in addition a place for the meeting of Jewish courts, and not only was sentence pronounced in these courts, but punishment followed upon sentence immediately. Hence we read that scourging might, at some time, be inflicted there. See Matt. 10:17; Mark 13:9, and elsewhere. WHO WERE THE SAMARITANS?