From all these indications it is not difficult to see that the elements for the formation of a distinct party in opposition to the _régime_ of Ezra and Nehemiah were present from the very beginning of the return from the Exile. For some considerable time, no doubt, the influence of Ezra succeeded in suppressing, though not in quenching, the opposition which he met with; but two diverging tendencies became rooted among sections of the people, and in course of time bore fruit in the formation of distinct parties. The distinguishing notes of these two tendencies can be discerned without difficulty; on the one hand there were, as can be seen from the quotations given above, the members of the aristocracy, i.e., the high-priestly families, who were friendly disposed to those of semi-Israelite and even non-Israelite origin. They were, from the point of view of their adversaries, lax concerning the observance of the Law (see, e.g., Neh. xiii. 15 ff.), though not necessarily antagonistic to it, but only to the Ezra conception of it; they could, for example, show that their foreign marriages were not contrary to the Law, while Ezra’s requirements went beyond the Law. On the other hand, there was Ezra, and his followers, strongly adverse to any intercourse between Jews and non-Jews, and painfully scrupulous regarding the minute observance of the Law (see, e.g., Neh. x. 28 ff.). Here, therefore, were the tendencies already in existence which, as time went on, continued to develop until they became the crystallized tenets of definitely opposed parties, whose watchwords were Universalism _versus_ Particularism, and whose attitude towards the Law differed in this respect, that the Universalists interpreted it in a limited sense, while the Particularists insisted on a laborious observance of it in all its minute details, which became greatly increased by their methods of interpretation. The process of the development of these tendencies can be seen in some of the books of the Old Testament; for example, in the Book of Haggai (ii. 10 ff.) we have indications of the importance laid upon minute legal observances by the priests, with whom, as already pointed out, the Scribes were associated; in the Book of Jonah, on the other hand, universalism is throughout the dominant note. (_b_) _The Apocrypha data._ The classical passage in the books of the Apocrypha concerning our present subject is Ecclesiasticus xxxix. 1-11, where the ideal scribe is described; in the passage which precedes this Ben-Sira insists upon the need of leisure for a scribe if he is to devote himself to the acquisition of true wisdom; he shows that the labourer and the artisan, while indispensable to society, are necessarily too much occupied with their callings to give any time to higher things. Then he continues: