These psalms were originally written in Hebrew during the middle of the first century B.C.; concerning these two points there is a general consensus of opinion. Whether the hand of one or more writers is to be discerned is an open question. The mental background of these Psalms is one of sorrow occasioned by the capture of Jerusalem by Pompey and his desecration of the Temple. But this event is represented as the just punishment of God, for instead of a Davidic king the Hasmonæans were rulers, and they had assumed the high-priestly office although they were not of high-priestly descent. The ruling house was supported by the Sadducees; it is this which causes the sorrow of the writer, or writers, to be mixed with bitter resentment. These Psalms thus give us a picture of the Pharisees and Sadducees, but from the Pharisaic point of view; so that neither the portraiture of Pharisaic piety nor yet that of Sadducæan wickedness must be taken _au pied de la lettre_. The general point of view of the book has been well summed up by Buchanan Gray thus: “It is the Pharisaic piety that breathes through the Psalms; it is their opposition to the worldly, non-Davidic monarchy, and to the illegitimate high-priesthood of the ruling Hasmonæan king, Aristobulus, that finds expression here; the Messianic hope (especially xvii. 23 ff.), the firm belief in a future life which characterizes them later, and renders them naturally political quietists and indifferent to political schemes, are already conspicuous here. And, again, the later attitude of the Pharisees in the matter of free-will as described by Josephus (_Bell. Jud._, II, viii. 14)—these ascribe all to fate and to God, and yet allow that to act as is right, or the contrary, is principally in the power of men: although fate does co-operate in every action—is almost exactly paralleled by two passages in the Psalms, v. 4, ix. 6.”[296] (_e_) THE BOOK OF JUBILEES [LITERATURE.—Schürer, II, iii. pp. 134-141, German ed., III, pp. 371-384; Littmann, in Kautzsch, II, pp. 31-119; Charles, _The Book of Jubilees_ (1902); Leszynsky, _Op. cit._, pp. 179-236; Charles, in _The Apocr. and Pseudep. of the O.T._, II, pp. 1-82.]