of Hosea and Isaiah.  Israel reposed under the Achemenidae,[1] and under Xerxes (Ahasuerus) made itself feared by the Iranians themselves.  But the triumphal and often cruel entry of Greek and Roman civilization into Asia, threw it back upon its dreams.  More than ever it invoked the Messiah as judge and avenger of the people.  A complete renovation, a revolution which should shake the world to its very foundation, was necessary in order to satisfy the enormous thirst of vengeance excited in it by the sense of its superiority, and by the sight of its humiliation.[2]

[Footnote 1:  The whole book of Esther breathes a great attachment to this dynasty.]

[Footnote 2:  Apocryphal letter of Baruch, in Fabricius, Cod. pseud., V.T., ii. p. 147, and following.]

If Israel had possessed the spiritualistic doctrine, which divides man in two parts—­the body and the soul—­and finds it quite natural that while the body decays, the soul should survive, this paroxysm of rage and of energetic protestation would have had no existence.  But such a doctrine, proceeding from the Grecian philosophy, was not in the traditions of the Jewish mind.  The ancient Hebrew writings contain no trace of future rewards or punishments.  Whilst the idea of the solidarity of the tribe existed, it was natural that a strict retribution according to individual merits should not be thought of.  So much the worse for the pious man who happened to live in an epoch of impiety; he suffered, like the rest, the public misfortunes consequent on the general irreligion.  This doctrine, bequeathed by the sages of the patriarchal era, constantly produced unsustainable contradictions.  Already at the time of Job it was much shaken; the old men of Teman who professed it were considered behind the age, and the young Elihu, who intervened in order to combat them, dared to utter as his first word this essentially revolutionary sentiment, “Great men are not always wise; neither do the aged understand judgment."[1] With the complications which had taken place in the world since the time of Alexander, the old Temanite and Mosaic principle became still more intolerable.[2] Never had Israel been more faithful to the Law, and yet it was subjected to the atrocious persecution of Antiochus.  Only a declaimer, accustomed to repeat old phrases denuded of meaning, would dare to assert that these evils proceeded from the unfaithfulness of the people.[3] What! these victims who died for their faith, these heroic Maccabees, this mother with her seven sons, will Jehovah forget them eternally?  Will he abandon them to the corruption of the grave?[4] Worldly and incredulous Sadduceeism might possibly not recoil before such a consequence, and a consummate sage, like Antigonus of Soco,[5] might indeed maintain that we must not practise virtue like a slave in expectation of a recompense, that we must be virtuous without hope.  But the mass of the people could not be contented with that.  Some, attaching themselves