world-culture, now
outward toward the learning and the thought of all nations; and this makes
it doubly difficult to obtain a true estimate of its character. But, after
all, these very currents and counter-currents at the different eras of
history kept Judaism in continuous tension and fluctuation, preventing its
stagnation by dogmatic formulas and its division by ecclesiastical
dissensions. "Both words are the words of the living God" became the maxim
of the contending schools.(9)

4. If we now ask what period we may fix as the beginning of Judaism, we
must by no means single out the decisive moment when Ezra the Scribe
established the new commonwealth of Judaea, based upon the Mosaic book of
Law, and excluding the Samaritans who claimed to be the heirs of ancient
Israel. This important step was but the climax, the fruitage of that
religious spirit engendered by the Judaism of the Babylonian exile. The
Captivity had become a refining furnace for the people, making them cling
with a zeal unknown before to the teachings of the prophets, now offered
by their disciples, and to the laws, as preserved by the priestly guilds;
so the religious treasures of the few became the common property of the
many, and were soon regarded as "the inheritance of the whole congregation
of Jacob." As a matter of fact, Ezra represents the culmination rather
than the starting point of the great spiritual reawakening, when he came
from Babylon with a complete Code of Law, and promulgated it in the Holy
City to a worshipful congregation.(10) It was Judaism, winged with a new
spirit, which carried the great unknown seer of the Exile to the very
pinnacle of prophetic vision, and made the Psalmists ring forth from the
harp of David the deepest soul-stirring notes of religious devotion and
aspiration that ever moved the hearts of men. Moreover, all the great
truths of prophetic revelation, of legislative and popular wisdom, were
then collected and focused, creating a sacred literature which was to
serve the whole community as the source of instruction, consolation, and
edification. The powerful and unique institutions of the Synagogue,
intended for common instruction and devotion, are altogether creations of
the Exile, and replaced the former _priestly_ Torah by the Torah _for the
people_. More wonderful still, the priestly lore of ancient Babylon was
transformed by sublime monotheistic truths and utilized in the formation
of a sacred literature; it