amongst, and a great intercourse with strange people, all the frightful
prejudices, all the fanciful dreams of our rabbins, were introduced into
the sacred books. We learn from the second book of Chronicles, chap.
xxxvi. verse 17, "that the king slew the young men with the sword in the
house of the sanctuary, and had no compassion upon young man or maiden,
old man or him that stooped for age. And all the vessels of gold, and the
treasures of the house of the Lord, and of the king and all the princes,
these he brought all to Babylon; and they burnt the house of God, and
brake down the walls of Jerusalem, and burnt all the palaces thereof with
fire."

[6] The greater part of the kings, both of Israel and of Judah,
served strange gods. Under Josiah, as he cleared out the
Temple, the book of the laws of Moses was found by Hilkiah the
priest, and was delivered to the king, who was much struck
with the threatenings it contained.

During the seventy years that this captivity lasted, only a few old men
survived who had retained any recollection of the laws of Moses. Esdras
collected, as far as was possible, the doctrines of Moses; but they were
mingled with too many principles which were foreign to them, and some of
them may be traced to Zoroaster. The existence of the three sects of the
Pharisees, the Sadducees, and Essenes, each of which give a different
interpretation of the word of God, abundantly prove this. Hillel and
Schamai, a little before the time of Vespasian, had a school. The Rabbi
Jonathan Sillai, a pupil of Hillel, exalts his master by saying, "If every
tree were a pen, and the whole ocean ink, I should not be able to describe
the wisdom I have received from Hillel." What extravagant expressions! How
well do they paint the fanaticism of sectarianism! It was not, however,
long, before this blind zeal drew down on the people a punishment from