Exile brought back to life again that which had become dead. The divine chastisement did not fail to produce the effect de- signed. Even though it should not admit of proof, that many of the Psalms have had portions added to them, from which it would be manifest how constantly they were then used as forms of supplication, still it is placed beyond all doubt, thatthe Psalter contains many psalms belonging to the time of the Exile, as e. g. Ps. cii. Still far more new psalms were com- posed after the Return. When those who returned from exile, among whom were many Asaphites,[1] again felt themselves to be a nation, and after the restoration of the Temple to be also a church, the harps which in Babylon hung upon the willows, were tuned afresh and a rich new flow of song was the fruit of this re-awakened first love. But this did not con- tinue long. A sanctity founded on good works and the service of the letter took the place of that outward, coarse idolatry from which the people, now returned to their fatherland, had been weaned while undergoing punishment in the land of the stranger. Nevertheless in the era of the Seleucide the op- pressed and injured national feeling revived under the Macca- bees in its old life and vigour. Prophecy had then long been dumb, a fact lamented in many passages in the Ist Book of the Maccabees. It cannot be maintained that psalm -poesy flourished again at that time. MHitzig has recently endea- voured to bring forward positive proof, that it is Maccabean psalms, which form the proper groundwork of the Psalter. He regards the Maccabean prince Alexander Jannzus as the writer of Ps. i and ii, refers Ps. xliv. to 1 Macc. v. 56—62, and maintains both in his Commentary of 1835—36 and in the later edition of 1863 — 65 that from Ps. ]xxiii onwards there is not a single pre-Maccabean psalm in the collection and that, from that point, the Psalter mirrors the prominent events of the time of the Maccabees in chronological order. Hitzig has been followed by von Lengerke and Olshausen. They both mark the reign of John Hyrcanus (B.C. 135 — 107) as the time when the latest psalms were composed and when the collec-
- ↑ In Barhebræus on Job and in his Chronikon several traditions are referred to “Asaph the Hebrew priest, the brother of Ezra the writer of the Scriptures.”
