content of repentance consisted in the due pay- ment of Levitical tithes (37), and so makes the return to J” shallow, one must join with that his idea of the priesthood in itself and in its work.
The glory of the priests of olden time was in his eyes their moral dignity. His representation of that past may be very far from what the historical books and the earlier prophets show it to have been. But this only makes Malachi’s ideal (2°) the more striking. And he expects that, when J” has purified the recreant class, the first result will be that they will offer offerings in righteousness (38). The priests represent to him a moral and spiritual force in the community. That men starve them by withholding their tithes, is a proof that they are not interested in the ideals which the priests represent. That the clergy in any community are underpaid, does often mean that men are not interested in religion. And a prophet may point to the outward fact as a sign of the inward cause. What redeems Malachi from even the suspicion of formalism in this respect is his high appreciation of the services offered to J” beyond the fimits of Palestine (1"). On any inter- pretation + that verse implies that temple and
* One must understand the doubts of 3!515 as being those = *they that feared the Lorp’ were uttering among them-
Vv ae Two interpretations are possible. According to one, the
verse means that even those sacrifices which the heathen offer to their own deities under the names of Vishnu, Osiris, Jove
220 MALACHI
priesthood, sacrifice and tithes, are not an essential
to a spiritual worship. But the prophet hus to deal with the facts before him. He is a man to
whom the essence of all religion consists in its
spiritual and ethical elements. But he not only finds a sacramental system in existence among his people ; he also recognizes its power as a factor in the religious life of any people. Such a system both represents and educates their spiritual life. And Malachi is one among the many who have tried to correlate those two truths, instead of denying one in the interests of the other.
iv. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE Book; 115 ATTI- TUDE TO Rrrva, erc.—Undoubtedly, what charac- terizes this book as contrasted with the earlier prophetic literature is the high value which it sets upon a correct observance of ritual.
But it has never been sufficiently recognized that Malachi’s attitude to the priestly ritual differs from that of the earlier prophets, just because the work of these had not failed to produce some result. It may still be considered a question open for further discussion, how far the rites with which Hosea found himself face to face in Israel were the outcome of a faith which, though once purer, had degenerated through contact with a heathen surrounding, and how far they were the natural expression of the faith of a people which was still at a low stage of religious development. In either case that system, because it embodied and so perpetuated a debasing idea of J", was abhorrent to the prophet, who himself held a purer faith. And he called on his people before all else ‘to take with them words.’ He urged them to realize that higher conception of J” which he himself had won. The first effect of such a thought of their God would be to make impossible some of the grosser elements in their ritual. Men who thought of God as Hosea did, would give up kissing calves as a means of worship. But, as a second effect, whether the prophet recognized it or not, a people who had gained this clearer thought of J’ would embody it in a ceremonial which would be com- petent to express it. Israel went into exile and so lost the position in which this might have been done. But Judah did in some measure accept the prophetic teaching about J” and their relation to Him. And in the law and the ritual they sought to embody and perpetuate those ideas. Ezekiel, himself a prophet, formulated a legislation. It may be impossible to determine which forms in the ritual are common to heathenism and to Judaism. What is certain is that all the forms were remoulded and coloured by the spirit of Judah’s religion. Now to a law anda ceremonial, which were framed to express, however inade- quately, such ideas, a later prophet like Malachi was compelled, by his very vision of the truths which forms express, to assume an attitude different from the attitude which the earlier prophets assumed to the ritual of their time. Any neglect on the part of the people to fulfil the demands of this law, unless that neglect was due to the people finding the law inadequate to express their re- ligious faith, must appear to the prophet a failure to appropriate through obedience to the ritual that understanding of J”s will which the ritual conveyed to the worshippers. As Malachi is diligent to show, the disobedience of his time was the outcome of a lowered moralit , not of a clearer spiritual vision. And he maintained the worth of the temple-service in the interests of the spiritual religion of which that service was the expression.
The prophet, however, is no creator. Satisfied