We have also to remember that at this period the zealous observers of the Law can only have formed a portion of the community, corresponding roughly to the regular attendants at public worship in a Christian country. Beyond and beneath the pious legalists were “the people of the land,” those who were too careless or too busy to attend to ceremonial; but for both classes the popular and prominent ideal of religion was made up of a magnificent building, a dignified and wealthy clergy, and an elaborate ritual, alike for great public functions and for the minutiæ of daily life. Besides all these the Jewish community had its sacred writings. As one of the ministers of the Temple, and, moreover, both a student of the national literature and himself an author, the chronicler represents the best literary knowledge of contemporary Palestinian Judaism; and his somewhat mechanical methods of composition make it easy for us to discern his indebtedness to older writers. We turn his pages with interest to learn what books were known and read by the most cultured Jews of his time. First and foremost, and overshadowing all the rest, there appears the Pentateuch. Then there is the whole array of earlier Historical Books: Joshua, Ruth, Samuel, and Kings. The plan of Chronicles excludes a direct use of Judges, but it must have been well known to our author. His appreciation of the Psalms is shown by his inserting in his history of David a cento of passages from Psalms xcvi., cv., and cvi.; on the other hand, Psalm xviii. and other lyrics given in the books of Samuel are omitted by the chronicler. The later Exilic Psalms were more to his taste than ancient hymns, and he unconsciously carries back into the history of the monarchy the poetry as well as the ritual of later times. Both omissions and insertions indicate that in this period the Jews possessed and prized a large collection of psalms. There are also traces of the Prophets. Hanani the seer in his address to Asa(99) quotes Zech. iv. 10: “The eyes of the Lord, which run to and fro through the whole earth.” Jehoshaphat’s exhortation to his people, “Believe in the Lord your God; so shall ye be established,”(100) is based on Isa. vii. 9: “If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established.” Hezekiah’s words to the Levites, “Our fathers ... have turned away their faces from the habitation of the Lord, and turned their backs,”(101) are a significant variation of Jer. ii. 27: “They have turned their back unto Me, and not their face.” The Temple is substituted for Jehovah.