What at an
earlier period had been mere naivete now became superstition, and
could hold its ground only by having imparted to it artificially
a deeper meaning which was itself borrowed from the prophetical
circle of ideas. Again, earnestness superseded the old joyousness
of the cultus; this now had reference principally to sin and its
atonement. Value was attached to services rendered to the Deity,
just in proportion to their hardness and unnaturalness; at this
period it was that the old precept to sacrifice to Jehovah the male
that opens the matrix was extended to children. The counter-
reformation was far from being unaffected by the preceding
reformation, although it understood religious earnestness in
quite another sense, and sought, not to eliminate heathenism from
the cultus, but to animate it with new life. On the other hand,
the reaction was, in the end, found to have left distinct traces of
its influence in the ultimate issue of the reformation.
We possess one document dating from Manasseh's time in Micah vi. 1-
vii. 6. Here, where the lawlessness and utter disregard of
every moral restraint in Judah are set in a hideous light, the
prophetic point of view, as contrasted with the new refinements in
worship, attains also its simplest and purest expression.
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