ad such pretensions before. They all
recognised one another's religions, if not as literally true (for some
familiarity is needed to foster that illusion), certainly as more or
less sacred and significant. Had the Jews not rendered themselves odious
to mankind by this arrogance, and taught Christians and Moslems the same
fanaticism, the nature of religion would not have been falsified among
us and we should not now have so much to apologise for and to retract.

[Sidenote: Penance accepted.]

Israel's calamities, of which the prophets saw only the beginning,
worked a notable spiritualisation in its religion. The happy thought of
attributing misfortune to wickedness remained a permanent element in the
creed; but as no scrupulous administration of rites, no puritanism, no
good conscience, could avail to improve the political situation, it
became needful for the faithful to reconsider their idea of happiness.
Since holiness must win divine favour, and Israel was undoubtedly holy,
the marks of divine favour must be looked for in Israel's history. To
have been brought in legendary antiquity out of Egypt was something; to
have been delivered from captivity in Babylon was more; yet these signs
of favour could not suffice unless they were at the same time emblems of
hope. But Jewish life had meantime passed into a new phase: it had
become pietistic, priestly, almost ascetic. Such is the might of
suffering, that a race whose nature and traditions were alike
positivistic could for the time being find it sweet to wash its hands
among the innocent, to love the beauty of the Lord's house, and to
praise him for ever and ever. It was agreed and settled beyond cavil
that God loved his people and continually blessed them, and yet in the
world of men tribulation after tribulation did not cease to fall upon
them. There was no issue but to assert (what so chastened a spirit could
now understand) that tribulation endured for the Lord was itself
blessedness, and the sign of some mystical election. Whom the Lord
loveth he chasteneth; so the chosen children of God were, without
paradox, to be looked for among the most unfortunate of earth's
children.

[Sidenote: Christianity combines optimism and asceticism.]

The prophets and psalmists had already shown some beginnings of this
asceticism or inverted worldliness. The Essenes and the early Christians
made an explicit reversal of ancient Jewish conceptions on this point
the corner-stone of th