Thus the Prophets developed the Jewish religion to its highest point.  The simple, childlike faith of Abraham became, in their higher vision, the sight of a universal Father, and of an age in which all men and nations should be united into one great moral kingdom.  Further than this, it was not possible to go in vision.  The difference between the Prophets and Jesus was, that he accomplished what they foresaw.  His life, full of faith in God and man, became the new seed of a higher kingdom than that of David.  He was the son of David, as inheriting the loving trust of David in a heavenly Father; he was also the Lord of David, by fulfilling David’s love to God with his own love to man; making piety and charity one, faith and freedom one, reason and religion one, this life and the life to come one.  He died to accomplish this union and to make this atoning sacrifice.

Sec. 7.  Judaism as a Preparation for Christianity.

After the return from the captivity the Jewish nation remained loyal to Jehovah.  The dangers of polytheism and idolatry had passed.  We no more hear of either of these tendencies, but, on the contrary, a rigid and almost bigoted monotheism was firmly established.  Their sufferings, the teaching of their Prophets, perhaps the influence of the Persian worship, had confirmed them in the belief that Jehovah was one and alone, and that the gods of the nations were idols.  They had lost forever the sacred ark of the covenant and the mysterious ornaments of the high-priest.  Their kings had disappeared, and a new form of theocracy took the place of a royal government.  The high-priest, with the great council, became the supreme authority.  The government was hierarchal.

Hellenic influences began to act on the Jewish mind, and a peculiar dialect of Hebrew-Greek, called the Hellenistic, was formed.  The Septuagint, or Greek version of the Old Testament, was made in Alexandria about B.C. 260.  In Egypt, Greek philosophy began to affect the Jewish mind, the final result of which was the system of Philo.  Greek influences spread to such an extent that a great religious revolution took place in Palestine (B.C. 170), and the Temple at Jerusalem was turned into a temple of Olympic Jupiter.  Many of the priests and leading citizens accepted this change, though the heart of the people rejected it with horror.  Under Antiochus the Temple was profaned, the sacrifices ceased, the keeping of the Sabbath and use of the Scriptures were forbidden by a royal edict.  Then arose the Maccabees, and after a long and bitter struggle re-established the worship of Jehovah, B.C. 141.

After this the mass of the people, in their zeal for the law and their old institutions, fell in to the narrow bigotry of the Pharisees.  The Sadducees were Jewish Epicureans, but though wealthy were few, and had little influence.  The Essenes were Jewish monks, living in communities, and as little influential as are the Shakers in Massachusetts to-day.  They were not only few, but their whole system was contrary to the tone of Jewish thought, and was probably derived from Orphic Pythagoreanism.[378]