The character of the post-Deuteronomic legislation (Priestly Code) is chiefly marked, in its external aspects, by the immense extension of the dues payable to the priests, and by the sharp distinction made between the descendants of Aaron and the common Levites; this last feature is to be traced historically to the circumstance that after the Deuteronomic reformation the legal equality between the Levites who until then had ministered at the “high places” and the priests of the temple at Jerusalem was not de facto recognised.  Internally, it is mainly characterised by its ideal of Levitical holiness, the way in which it everywhere surrounds life with purificatory and propitiatory ceremonies, and its prevailing reference of sacrifice to sin.  Noteworthy also is the manner in which everything is regarded from the point of view of Jerusalem, a feature which comes much more boldly into prominence here than in Deuteronomy; the nation and the temple are strictly speaking identified.  That externalisation towards which the prophetical movement, in order to become practical, had already been tending in Deuteronomy finally achieved its acme in the legislation of Ezra; a new artificial Israel was the result; but, after all, the old would have pleased an Amos better.  At the same time it must be remembered that the kernel needed a shell.  It was a necessity that Judaism should incrust itself in this manner; without those hard and ossified forms the preservation of its essential elements would have proved impossible.  At a time when all nationalities, and at the same time all bonds of religion and national customs, were beginning to be broken up in the seeming cosmos and real chaos of the Graeco-Roman empire, the Jews stood out like a rock in the midst of the ocean.  When the natural conditions of independent nationality all failed them, they nevertheless artificially maintained it with an energy truly marvellous, and thereby preserved for themselves, and at the same time for the whole world, an eternal good.

As regards the subsequent history of the Jewish community under the Persian domination, we have almost no information.  The high priest in Nehemiah’s time was Eliashib, son of Joiakim and grandson of Joshua, the patriarchal head of the sons of Zadok, who had returned from Babylon; he was succeeded in the direct line by Joiada, Johanan, and Jaddua (Nehemiah xii. 10, 11, 22); the last-named was in office at the time of Alexander the Great (Josephus, Antiquities, xi. 8).  Palestine was the province which suffered most severely of all from the storms which marked the last days of the sinking Persian empire, and it is hardly likely that the Jews escaped their force; we know definitely, however, of only one episode, in which the Persian general Bagoses interfered in a disagreeable controversy about the high-priesthood (cir. 375).