as the king, the princes, the priests, the judges or elders—they made it the common good of the whole people, and the feeling of personal responsibility for this good became much deeper than before. Thus it came to pass that whilst, during the first temple, the apostasy of kings and aristocracy involved the entire people, so that the words “And he (the king) did evil in the sight of the Lord,” embrace the whole nation, during the second temple it was no longer of much consequence which side the political leaders took. Both during the Hellenistic persecutions, as well as afterwards in the struggles of some Maccabean kings with the Pharisees, the bulk of the people showed that they considered religion as their own personal affair, not to be regulated by the conscience of either priest or prince. It is true that this success may be largely ascribed to such contemporary religious factors as the Synagogue with its minimum of form, the Scribes with their activity as teachers, and the Psalmists with their divine enthusiasm; but the very circumstance that these factors arose and flourished under the influence of the Priestly Code would suffice to prove that its tendency was not so sacerdotal as some writers would have us believe. Jewish tradition indeed attributes the composition of the daily public prayers, as well as of others for private worship, to the very men whom modern biblical criticism holds responsible for the introduction of the Priestly Code. Now this fact may perhaps be disputed, but there is little doubt that the age in which these prayers were composed was one of flourishing legalism. Nor is there any proof that the synagogues and their ritual were in opposition to the temple. From the few documents belonging to this period, it is clear that there was no opposition to the legalistic spirit by which the Priestly Code was actuated. This would prove that legalism meant something more than tithes and sacrifices for the benefit of the priests.