[568] There are in the main two classes of such attempts. (_a_) Some have suggested that the Ahasuerus (Xerxes) and Artaxerxes mentioned in Ezra iv. 6 and 7 ff. are not the successors of Darius I. who bore these names, but titles of his predecessors Cambyses and the Pseudo-Smerdis (see above, p. 190). This view has been disposed of by Kuenen, _Ges. Abhandl._, pp. 224 ff., and by Ryle, pp. 65 ff. (_b_) The attempt to prove that the Darius under whom the Temple was built was not Darius I. (521—485), the predecessor of Xerxes I. and Artaxerxes I. (485—424), but their successor once removed, Darius II., Nothus (423—404). So, in defence of the Book of Ezra, Imbert. For his theory and the answer to it see above, pp. 191 f.
[570] For his work see above, p. 192, n. 531. I regret that neither Wellhausen’s answer to it, nor Kosters’ reply to Wellhausen, was accessible to me in preparing this chapter. Nor did I read Mr. Torrey’s _resume_ of Wellhausen’s answer, or Wellhausen’s notes to the second edition of his _Isr. u. Jüd. Geschichte_, till the chapter was written. Previous to Kosters, the Return under Cyrus had been called in question only by the very arbitrary French scholar M. Vernes in 1889-90.
[572] His chief grounds for this analysis are (1) that in v. 1-5 the Jews are said to have _begun_ to build the Temple in the second year of Darius, while in v. 16 the foundation-stone is said to have been laid under Cyrus; (2) the frequent want of connection throughout the passage; (3) an alleged doublet: in v. 17—vi. 1 search is said to have been made for the edict of Cyrus _in Babylon_, while in vi. 2 the edict is said to have been found _in Ecbatana_. But (1) and (3) are capable of very obvious explanations, and (2) is far from conclusive.—The remainder of the Aramaic text, iv. 8-24, Kosters seeks to prove is by the Chronicler or Compiler himself. As Torrey (_op. cit._, p. 11) has shown, this “is as unlikely as possible.” At the most he may have made additions to the Aramaic document.
[575] Isa. xliv. 28, xlv. 1. According to Kosters, the statement of the Aramaic document about the rebuilding of the Temple is therefore a pious invention of a literal fulfilment of prophecy. To this opinion Cheyne adheres (_Introd. to the Book of Isaiah_, 1895, p. xxxviii), and adds the further assumption that the Chronicler, being “shocked at the ascription to Cyrus (for the Judæan builders have no credit given them) of what must, he thought, have been at least equally due to the zeal of the exiles,” invented his story in the earlier chapters of Ezra as to the part the exiles themselves took in the rebuilding. It will be noticed that these assumptions have precisely the value of such. They are merely the imputation of motives, more or less probable to the writers of certain statements, and may therefore be fairly met by probabilities from the other side. But of this more later on.
