, and recovered the sacred books. As a sign that they were
again the people of Jehovah they renewed the covenant with him; it was
a formal treaty, written and signed by the chiefs of the people.

=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 people