A work which inculcates the dependence of the state upon the purity of its ruler is the unfinished book of Kings with its history of the Davidic dynasty and the Temple. Its ideals culminate in Josiah (§ 16, end), and there is a strong presumption that it is intended to impress upon the new era the lessons drawn from the past. Its treatment of the monarchy is only part of a great and now highly complicated literary undertaking (traceable in the books Joshua to Kings), inspired with the thought and coloured by language characteristic of Deuteronomy (especially the secondary portions), which forms the necessary introduction. Whatever reforms Josiah actually accomplished, the restoration afforded the opportunity of bringing the Deuteronomic teaching into action; though it is more probable that Deuteronomy itself in the main is not much earlier than the second half of the 6th century B.C.[43] It shows a strong nationalist feeling which is not restricted to Judah alone, but comprises a greater Israel from Kadesh in Naphtali in the north to Hebron in the south, and even extends beyond the Jordan. Distinctive non-Judaean features are included, as in the Samaritan liturgical office (Deut. xxvii. 14-26), and the evidence for the conclusion that traditions originally of (north) Israelite interest were taken over and adapted to the later standpoint of Judah and Jerusalem (viz. in the Deuteronomic book of Kings) independently confirms the inferences drawn from Deuteronomy itself. The absence of direct testimony can be partially supplied by later events which presuppose the break-up of no inconsiderable state, and imply relations with Samaria which had been by no means so unfriendly as the historians represent. A common ground for Judaism and Samaritanism is obvious, and it is in this obscure age that it is to be sought. But the curtain is raised for too brief an interval to allow of more than a passing glimpse at the restoration of Judaean fortunes; not until the time of Nehemiah, about 140 years after the fall of Jerusalem, does the historical material become less imperfect.