=The Jews.=—­The little kingdom of Jerusalem maintained itself for seven centuries, governed now by a king, now by the high-priest, but always paying tribute to the masters of Syria—­to the Persians first, later to the Macedonians and the Syrians, and last of all to the Romans.  Faithful to the end to Jehovah, the Jews (their proper name since the return) continued to live the law of Moses, to celebrate at Jerusalem the feasts and the sacrifices.  The high-priest, assisted by a council of the elders, preserved the law; scribes copied it and doctors expounded it to the people.  The faithful obliged themselves to observe it in the smallest details.  The Pharisees were eminent among them for their zeal in fulfilling all its requirements.

=The Synagogues.=—­Meanwhile the Jews for the sake of trade were pushing beyond the borders of Judaea into Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, and even to Italy.  Some of them were to be found in all the great cities—­Alexandria, Damascus, Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth and Rome.  Dispersed among the Gentiles, the Jews were strenuous to preserve their religion.  They raised no temples, for the law prevented this; there could be but one Jewish temple, that at Jerusalem, where they celebrated the solemn feasts.  But they joined themselves together to read and comment on the word of God.  These places of assembling were called Synagogues, from a Greek word signifying meetings.

=Destruction of the Temple.=—­The Christ appeared at this moment.  The Jews crucified him and persecuted his disciples not only in Judaea but in every city where they found them in any number.  In the year 70 A.D.  Jerusalem, in revolt against the Romans, was taken by assault, and all the inhabitants were massacred or sold into slavery.  The Romans burnt the temple and carried away the sacred utensils.  From that time there was no longer a centre of the Jewish religion.

=Fortunes of the Jews after the Dispersion.=—­The Jewish nation survived the ruin of its capital.  The Jews, scattered throughout the world, learned to dispense with the temple.  They preserved their sacred books in the Hebrew tongue.  Hebrew is the primitive language of Israel; the Jews since the return from Babylon no longer spoke it, but adopted the languages of the neighboring peoples—­the Syriac, the Chaldean, and especially the Greek.  The Rabbis, however, instructed in the religion, still learned the Hebrew, explained it, and commented on the Scripture.[43] Thus the Jewish religion was preserved, and, thanks to it, the Jewish people.  It made converts even among the Gentiles; there were in the empire proselytes, that is, people who practised the religion of Jehovah without being of the Jewish race.