The preaching of a gospel seems to us as natural as the existence of a religion. That is because the religions we know best are universal ones, of which the God is a transcendent being, in whose sight human distinctions are negligible. But for the Mediterranean world that was not the case. The religions were not universal; many of the gods were concretely believed to be the ancestors of certain groups of men, and not always remote ones. Local associations played a determining part. If we find an active propaganda here, it cannot be because the spread of a ritual or faith is an inherent characteristic. On the contrary, in normal circumstances there seems to be no reason why one community should change its gods or forms of worship for those of another.

But, as a matter of fact, they did change them. And the change was often effected consciously by the planned efforts of a group of worshipers, and in all the ways that have been used since—preaching, emotional revivals, and forcible conquest. One such carefully planned effort was that of the Jews, but only one of them. The circumstances in which this propaganda was carried out need close investigation.

In discussing Greek religion (above, p. 34) it has been suggested that there was in every community a large number of men who found no real satisfaction in the state cult, and that it was chiefly among them that the proselytes of new and foreign religions were to be found. But that does not make us understand why these foreign religions should have sought proselytes, why they should have felt themselves under obligations to assume a mission. The stranger within the gates might reasonably be expected to do honor to the divine lord of the city: if he remained permanently, his inclusion in the civic family in some way is natural. But what was it that impelled Isis to seek worshipers so far from the Nile, where alone she could be properly adored, or the mysterious Cabiri to go so far from the caves where their power was greatest and most direct?^[143]

The movement of which these special missions are phases was old and extensive. It covered the entire Eastern Mediterranean, and went perhaps further west and east than we can at present demonstrate. Its beginnings probably antedated the Hellenes. The religious unrest of which Christian missionaries made such excellent use was a phenomenon that goes back very far in the history of Mediterranean civilization. At certain periods of that history and in different places it reached culminating waves, but it is idle to attempt to discover a sufficient cause for it in a limited series of events within a circumscribed area of Greece or of Asia.

The briefest form in which the nature of this unrest can be phrased is the following—the quest for personal salvation.

We shall do well to remember that the ancient state was a real corporation, based not upon individuals but upon smaller family corporations. The rights of these corporations were paramount. It was only gradually that individuals were recognized at all in law.^[144] The desire for personal salvation is a part of the growing consciousness of personality, and must have begun almost as soon as the state corporation itself became fixed.

Within a state only those individuals can have relatively free play who are to a certain extent the organs of the state; that is, those individuals who by conquest, wealth, or chance have secured for themselves political predominance in their respective communities. But these could never be more than a small minority. For the great majority everyday life was hemmed in by conventions that had the force of laws, and was restricted by legal limits drastically enforced. And this narrow and pitifully poor life was bounded by Sheol, or Hades, by a condition eloquently described as worse at its best than the least desirable existence under the face of the insufferable sun.^[145]

The warrior caste, for whom and of whom the Homeric poems were written, were firmly convinced that the bloodless and sinewless life in the House of Hades was the goal to which existence tended. But they found their compensation in that existence itself. What of those who lacked these compensations, or had learned to despise them? In them the prospect of becoming lost in the mass of flitting and indistinguishable shadows must have produced a profound horror, and their minds must have dwelt upon it with increasing intensity.

It is one of the most ancient beliefs of men in this region that all the dead become disembodied spirits, sometimes with power for good or evil, so that their displeasure is to be deprecated, sometimes without such power, as the Homeric nobles believed, and the mass of the Jews in the times of the monarchy. These spirits or ghosts had of themselves no recognizable personality, and could receive it only exceptionally and in ways that violated the ordinary laws of the universe. Such a belief is not strictly a belief in immortality at all, since the essence of the latter is that the actual person of flesh and blood continues his identity when flesh and blood are dissolved and disappear, and that the characteristics which, except for form and feature, separated him from his fellows in life still do so after death. The only bodiless beings who could be said to have a personality were the gods, and they were directly styled “the Immortals.”

However, the line that separated gods and men was not sharp. The adoration offered to the dead in the Spartan relief^[146] is not really different from the worship of the Olympians. From the other side, in Homer, the progeny of Zeus by mortal women are very emphatically men.^[147] Whether the Homeric view is a special development, it is demonstrably true that a general belief was current in Greece not long after the Homeric epoch, which saw no impossibility in favored men securing the gift of immortality; that is, continuing without interruption the personal life which alone had significance. This was done by the translations—the removal of mortal men in the flesh to kinship with the gods.^[148]

This privilege of personal immortality was not connected, in the myths that told of it, with eminent services. It was at all times a matter of grace. In the form of bodily translation it always remained a rare and miraculous exception. But the mere existence of such a belief must have strongly influenced the beliefs and practices that had long been connected with the dead.

We cannot tell where and when it was first suggested to men that the shadow-life of Hades might by the grace of the gods be turned into real life, and a real immortality secured. It may be, as has been supposed, that the incentive came from Egypt. More likely, however, it was an independent growth, and perhaps arose in more than one place. The favor and grace of the gods, which were indispensable, could obviously be gained by intimate association, and in the eighth and perhaps even the ninth pre-Christian century we begin to hear in Greece of means of entering into that association. One of these means was the “mystery,” of which the Eleusinian is the best-known. In these cult-societies, of the origin of which we know nothing, a close and intimate association with the god or gods was offered. The initiated saw with their own eyes the godhead perform certain ceremonial acts; perhaps they sat cheek by jowl with him. It is obvious that such familiarity involved the especial favor of the gods, and it is easy to understand that the final and crowning mark of that favor would not be always withheld. The communion with the god begun in this life would be continued after it. To the mystae of Eleusis, and no doubt elsewhere, and to them only, was promised a personal immortality.^[149]

It may not have been first at Eleusis. It may have been in the obscure corners of Thrace where what later appeared as Orphic societies was developed. But there were soon many mysteries, and there was no lack of men and women to whom the promise was inexpressibly sweet. The spread of Orphism in the sixth and fifth centuries B.C.E. bears witness to the eagerness with which the evangel was received.

Outside of Greece, in Persia, India, and Egypt, perhaps also in Babylonia, there were hereditary groups of men who claimed to possess an arcanum, whereby the supreme favor of the gods, that of eternal communion with them, was to be obtained. These hereditary castes desired no extension, but jealously guarded their privileges. But among them there constantly arose earnest and warm-hearted men, whose humanity impelled them to spread as widely as possible the boon which they had themselves obtained by accident. Perhaps many attempts in all these countries aborted. Not all Gotamas succeeded in becoming Buddhas.

The Jews seemed to the Greeks to possess just such an arcanum, and whatever interest they originally excited was due to that fact. The initiatory rite of circumcision, the exclusiveness of a ritual that did not brook even the proximate presence of an uninitiate, all pointed in that direction, even if we disregard the vigorously asserted claims of the Jews to be in a very special sense the people of God.

The Jews too had as far as the masses were concerned developed the belief in a personal immortality during the centuries that followed the Babylonian exile (comp. p. 70), and as far as we can see it developed among them at the same time and somewhat in the same way as elsewhere. That is to say, among them as among others the future life, the Olam ha-bo, was a privilege and was sought for with especial eagerness by those to whom the Olam ha-zeh was largely desolate. Not reward for some and punishment for others, but complete exclusion from any life but that of Sheol for those who failed to acquire the Olam ha-bo, was the doctrine maintained, just as the Greek mystae knew that for those who were not initiated there was waiting, not the wheel of Ixion or the stone of Sisyphus, but the bleak non-existence of Hades.^[150]

But there was a difference, and this difference became vital. Conduct was not disregarded in the Greek mysteries, but the essential thing was the fact of initiation. Those who first preached the doctrine of a personal salvation to the Jews were conscious in so doing that they were preaching to a society of initiates. They were all mystae; all had entered into the covenant: all belonged to the congregation of the Lord, ??? ????. To whom was this boon of immortality, the Olam ha-bo, to be given? The first missionaries, whether they did or did not constitute a sect, had a ready answer. To those to whom the covenant was real, who accepted fully the yoke of the Law.

The sects of Pharisees and Sadducees, whose disputes fill later Jewish history, joined issue on a number of points. No doubt there was an economic and social cleavage between them as well. But perhaps the most nearly fundamental difference of doctrine related to the Olam ha-bo. The Pharisees asserted, and the Sadducees denied, the doctrine of resurrection. It is stated by Josephus,^[151] that the Sadducees called in question the Olam ha-bo itself. When and where these sects took form is uncertain. The Pharisees at least are fully developed, and form a powerful political party under John Hyrcanus.^[152] It is very unlikely that they are related to the Hasidim or are a continuation of them. The latter were a national, anti-Hellenic organization, and contained men of all shades of beliefs and interests. But the Pharisees, like the Hasidim, began as a brotherhood or a group of brotherhoods, however political their aims and actions were in later times. The fact is indicated by the name Haber, “comrade,” which they gave themselves, and the contemptuous Am ha-aretz, “clod,” ?? p?????, with which they designated those who were not members of their congregations.

Now the Haberim, who preached the World-to-Come, were not in a primitive stage of culture, but in a very advanced one. Their God was not master of a city, but Lord of the whole earth. And they had long maintained the principle that merit in the eyes of God was determined by conduct, both formal and moral, a distinction less profoundly separating than seems at first to be the case. If that were so, anyone, Jew or Gentile, might conceivably acquire that merit. How was the Olam ha-bo to be refused to anyone who had taken upon himself the yoke of the Law, who did all that the Lord required at his hands? Jewish tradition knew of several eminently righteous gentiles, such as Job, in whom God was well pleased. It was an untenable proposition to men whose cardinal religious doctrine had for centuries been ethical and universal that all but a few men were permanently excluded from the beatitude of life after death.^[153]

Since, however, the promises of the sacred literature were addressed primarily to Israel, those who were not of Abraham’s seed could become “comrades” only by first becoming Jews. That conception involved no difficulty whatever. The people of the ancient world had empirically learned some of the more elementary facts of biological heredity; but membership in a community, though determined by heredity in the first instance, was not essentially so determined. In earlier times, when the communities were first instituted, not even the pretense of kinship was maintained. The essential fact was the assumption of common sacra.

That a man might by appropriate ceremonies—or without ceremonies—enter into another community, was held everywhere. If, as has been suggested (above, p. 147), the Hasidim found some of their members among the non-Jewish population of Syria,^[154] it is not likely that the process of becoming Jews was rendered either difficult or long. Abraham, a late tradition stated, brought many gentiles under the wings of the Shekinah, the Effulgence. If this tradition is an old one, it indicates that proselytizing was in early times held to be distinctly meritorious.^[155]

The first conquests of the Hasmonean rulers brought non-Jewish tribes under immediate political control of the Jews. Most of them, notably the Idumeans, were forcibly Judaized, and so successfully that we hear of only one attempted revolt.^[156] There can of course have been no question here of elaborate ceremonies or lengthy novitiates. The Idumeans were dealt with as shortly as Charlemagne’s Saxons, and gave the most convincing demonstration of their loyalty in the time of the insurrections.^[157]

This drastic way of increasing the seed of Abraham must have been viewed differently by different classes of Jews. To the Haberim the difference between a heathen and a Jewish aspirant to their communion lay in the fact that the heathen had undergone the fearful defilement of worshiping the Abomination, while the Jew had not. For the former there was accordingly necessary an elaborate series of purgations, of ceremonial cleansing; and until this was done there was no hope that he could be admitted into the congregation of the Lord. But it might be done, and it began to be done in increasing numbers. It would have been strange if, among the many gentile seekers for salvation, Greek, Syrian, Cappadocian, and others, some would not be found to take the path that led to the conventicles of the Jewish Haberim. This was especially the case when, instead of an obscure Syrian tribe, the Hasmoneans had made of Judea a powerful nation, one of the most considerable of its part of the world.

All the mysteries welcomed neophytes, but none made the entrance into their ranks an easy matter. In some of them there were degrees, as in those of Cybele, and the highest degree was attained at so frightful a cost as practically to be reserved for the very few.^[158] In the case of the Jews, one of the initiatory rites was peculiarly repellent to Greeks and Romans, in that it involved a bodily mutilation, which was performed not in the frenzy of an orgiastic revel, but in the course of a solemn ritual of prayer. That fact might make many hesitate, but could not permanently deter those who earnestly sought for the way of life.

The Jewish propaganda was not confined to receiving and imposing conditions on those who came. Some at least sought converts, although it is very doubtful that the Pharisaic societies as a class planned a real mission among the heathen. The methods that were used were those already in vogue—methods which had achieved success in many fields. Books and pamphlets were published to further the purpose of the missionaries; personal solicitation of those deemed receptive was undertaken. Actual preaching, such as the diatribe commenced by the Cynics, and before them by Socrates, was probably confined to the synagogue, or meeting within the proseucha, and reached only those who were there assembled.^[159]

The literary form of the propaganda was especially active in those communities in which Jews and Greeks spoke a common language and partly shared a common culture. Even books intended primarily for Jewish circulation contain polemics against polytheism and attacks upon heathen custom, which the avowed purpose of the book would not justify.

It is not to be supposed that the literary propaganda was the most effective. It was limited by the very field for which it was intended. Such a book as the Wisdom of Solomon was both too subtle and too finished a product to appeal to other than highly cultivated tastes, and men of this stamp are not readily reached by propagandizing religions. The chief object of attack was the Greek polytheism. “Wisdom” ventures even on an historical explanation of polytheism, which is strangely like that of Herbert Spencer.^[160] Now, just for the Greeks, who might read and understand such a book, to refute polytheism was destroying a man of straw. No one of them seriously believed in it. Those who were not agnostics or atheists believed in the unity of the Divine essence, and at most maintained the existence of certain subordinate ministerial beings, who might or might not be identical with the names of the actors in the myths. But many Jews would be ready to admit so much. Indeed that there were subordinate daemonia, helpful and harmful, was a widespread belief in Judea, even if without authoritative sanction. Very often the heathen gods were conceived to be not absolute nullities, but demons really existing and evil—a belief which the early Christian church firmly held and preached.^[161]

Accordingly the polished society of a Greek city did not need the literary polemics against polytheism to be convinced that monotheism was an intellectually more developed and morally preferable dogma. On the other hand, it was a very difficult task to convince it that the ceremonies of the official cult, granting even their philosophic absurdity, were for that reason objectionable. To make them seem so, there would have to be present the consciousness of sin, and that was not a matter which argumentation could produce.

One other point against which Jewish writers of that time address themselves is the assumed viciousness of Greek life. How much one people has with which to reproach another in that respect in ancient or in modern times need not be considered here. The fact remains that in many extant books sexual excesses and perversions are made a constant reproach to the heathen—which generally implies the Greek—and the extant Greek and Latin literature gives a great deal of color to the charge.^[162] This is due not so much to the actual life depicted as to the attitude with which even good men regarded these particular incidents. It is true that we have contemporary evidence that many Jews in Greek communities were no paragons of right living or self-restraint. But it is at least significant that this accusation, continually repeated by the Jews, is not met by a retort in kind. The anti-Jewish writings are not especially moderate in their condemnations. But with viciousness in their lives they do not charge the Jews, and they cannot have been unaware of what the Jews wrote and said.

Polytheism and immorality, the two chief counts in the indictment which Jewish writers bring against heathendom, were not things Greeks were disposed to defend. But it is doubtful whether the books that inveighed against them were valuable weapons of propaganda. We have practically no details of how the movement grew. In the last century before the Christian era it had reached the extraordinary proportions that are evidenced by the satire of Horace as well as by the opposition which it encountered. Jewish apocalyptic literature confidently expects that all the heathen on the rapidly approaching Judgment Day will be brought within the fold.^[163] The writers may be forgiven if the success of their proselytizing endeavors made them feel that such a result was well within the range of possibility.

Within the same period the worships of Cybele, of Sabazios, and of Isis, had perhaps even greater success in extending themselves over the Greek and Roman world. The communities they invaded only rarely welcomed them. Even at Rome the official introduction of Cybele was the last desperate recourse of avowed superstition, and it was promptly restricted when success and prosperity returned to the Roman arms. But in all the communities great masses of men were thoroughly prepared in mind for the doctrines the Asiatic religions preached. A public preaching, such as the Cynics used, was rarely permitted. But if we recall how many slaves and ex-slaves as well as merchants and artisans were of Asiatic stock, the spread of these cults, including that of the Jews, by the effective means of personal and individual conversion is nothing to be wondered at. The state was perforce compelled to notice this spread. Individuals had noticed it long before.