CHAPTER II.THE EXPANSION OF JUDAISM.

FROMANOTHER QUARTER, THE world received a preparation without which the great and rapid success of Christianity would have been impossible. Of all ancient religions, Judaism as represented by the Prophets was incomparably the best. No other religion had such a conception of God, his lofty and upright character, his majesty, his compassion, his fatherly love for men, his mercy, and at the same time, of the high demands for holy living which He made on all who would be his people and enjoy his protection. But this’ high conception of God was confined to one little people, inhabiting a small province and having little communication with the rest of the world. More than that, their foreign intercourse was so restricted by the many levitical rules and regulations that their religious influence on other nations was practically nothing. Everywhere else there was polytheism, varying in grade from its finest and noblest forms to the crassest, most degraded, and degrading. What advantage was it to the world that the Jews had a better religion, since the levitical law was a barrier that prevented all communication ? It looked as if the heathen were to be excluded from having any share in the religious truth in which Israel was so rich. The heirs of the Prophets were by no means inclined to share their holy inheritance with the unclean heathen about them.

But there can be no lasting monopoly in truth. Deep and wide as was the gulf that separated the heathen from the Jews, it could be bridged. In spite of the separation, many means of contact and channels of communication could be found. This leads us to the study of one of the most interesting and important subjects, the Jews in the Diaspora.

Abraham, their great forefather, was himself a wanderer, and in this respect he had many imitators among his children. For centuries the Jews had been spreading beyond Palestine. A constant stream of emigrants was overflowing its boundaries in all directions. At this time there was scarcely a city in all the world that did not have Jews among its inhabitants. There were great numbers of them in the lands of the Tigris and Euphrates. Asia Minor was overrun by them. Alexandria in Egypt was divided into five districts or wards, two of which were occupied by the Jews. In the Nile Delta, it was estimated that there were more than a million Jews. Along the coast of North Africa they were everywhere at home.