=9.= Nearly four centuries later (640-630 B. C.), while the righteous king Josiah occupied the throne of Judah as a part of divided Israel, Hilkiah the high priest and father of the prophet Jeremiah found in the temple "a book of the law of the Lord,"[741] which was read before the kings.[742] Then, during the fifth century B. C., in the days of Ezra, the edict of Cyrus permitted the captive people of Judah, a remnant of once united Israel, to return to Jerusalem,[743] there to rebuild the temple of the Lord, according to the law[744] of God then in the hand of Ezra. From this we may infer that the written law was then known; and to Ezra is usually attributed the credit of compiling the books of the Old Testament as far as completed in his day, to which he added his own writings.[745] In this work of compilation he was probably assisted by Nehemiah and the members of the Great Synagogue,--a Jewish college of a hundred and twenty scholars.[746] The book of Nehemiah, which gives a continuation of the historical story as recorded by Ezra, is supposed to have been written by the prophet whose name it bears, in part at least during the life of Ezra. Then, a century later, Malachi,[747] the last of the prophets of note who flourished before the opening of the dispensation of Christ, added his record, completing, and virtually closing the pre-Christian canon, with a prophetic promise of the Messiah and of the messenger whose commission would be to prepare the way of the Lord. [741] II Chron. xxxiv, 14-15; see also Deut. xxxi, 26. [742] II Kings xxii. [743] Ezra i, 1-3. [744] See Ezra vii, 12-14. [745] The Book of Ezra. [746] This historical information is given in certain of the apocryphal works; see II Esdras. [747] Mal. iii, iv. =10.= Thus, it is evident that the Old Testament grew with the successive writings of authorized and inspired scribes from Moses to Malachi, and that its compilation was a natural and gradual process, each addition being deposited, or, as the sacred record gives it, "laid up before the Lord," in connection with the previous writings. Undoubtedly there were known to the Jews many other books, not included in our present Old Testament; references to such are abundant in the scriptures themselves, which references prove that many of those extra-canonical records were regarded as of great authority. But concerning this we will enquire further in connection with the Apocrypha. The recognized canonicity of the Old Testament books is attested by the numerous references in the latter to the earlier books, and by the many quotations from the Old Testament occurring in the New. About two hundred and thirty quotations or direct references have been listed; and in addition to these, hundreds of less direct allusions occur.