Note 56 — IN WHICH THE PROBLEM OF THE BOOK IS CONCLUSIVELY SOLVED.

In the Introduction, however, I have tried to give what is known of the history of this period. Roughly speaking, I believe the Jews owed their literary advance mainly to contact with the inquisitive and learned Babylonians, and their religious advance mainly to the sorrows of the Captivity and their contact with the pure faith of the primitive Persians.