earth, and all the heaven, and the waters under the earth. The Exile, as the culmination of the troubles of once imperial and expanding Israel, was held to prove the prophetic claim that Yahweh was the supreme god. On behalf of Israel he had defeated every god against whom he had been matched, until at last the unfaithfulness of his chosen people had exhausted his patience, and forced him to reverse his policy. Instead of driving away foreign gods, he now brought these deities and their votaries against his chosen people by way of punishment. According to this view, which was advocated by the prophets in opposition to the old, conventional theology, the defeat of Israel by the Assyrians and Babylonians was not the defeat of Yahweh, as the older theology claimed. It was the work of Yahweh himself, who thus evidently controlled all nations and gods at his imperial pleasure. Extreme ritual faithfulness to Yahweh in this magnified character became, therefore, the cornerstone of the official religion of Israel after the Exile. By extreme faithfulness to Yahweh as thus conceived, the Jews were to win back the favor which they had forfeited. A prince of the Davidic line was to be seated in glory on the throne of his father David. He was to be the anointed of Yahweh, like David of old the new Messyah, or Messiah. Unto him should be the desire of all nations, and the government should be upon his shoulder. The splendor of the first national kingdom, interrupted only by the sins of Israel, was to return; and all the world was to acknowledge the sovereignty of Yahweh and the rule of Israel. Judaism officially elevated ritual to the level of ethics. Practically, indeed, it went even further than this. It lifted ritual above ethics; and the moralism of prophecy slumbered in the long night of legalism, only to be awakened at last by the great paradox of history, the prophet of Nazareth.

But we are almost ahead of our subject. Let us now turn to the failure of prophetism. The prophets did not preach a morality that can save society. Their injunctions respecting righteousness were barren of social con

tent. They were individualists in the midst of a social fabric whose problems called for something far more than the individualistic interpretation. They did not understand that individual conduct is an expression of cosmic forces. They did not know that in last analysis the problems of society grow out of cosmic conditions, and not out of personal ill will; and that while it is of course best that the individual should at all times do good according to his light, the problems of society, as such, can only be rightly approached from the cosmic side, and not from the standpoint of personal righteousness. Doubtless the exiled Israelites, under the influence of temporary emotions, made many good resolutions along the line of personal righteousness; but after the Exile, as we shall presently see, social cleavage and the social problem existed as before.*

* As this examination is attempting a scientific inquiry in the field of sociology, and not in that of theology, we are debarred from saying anything in the text about the religious value and significance of the history under survey. But we here note the following suggestions: The ethical monotheism of Israel would never have come into existence if the righteousness of the prophets - i. e., individualistic righteousness were a valid counsel of social salvation. We interpret the psychology of the prophets inductively and deductively, as an involution of ordinary human consciousness. The human consciousness, as revealed more and more by modern psychology and sociology, is always animated by motives which are described from the phenomenal standpoint by the term "secular." That is to say, the great theological and religious movements of history, whatever may be their transcendental significance, resolve into secular movements in disguise. Thus we exhibit the prophets as animated primarily by the desire for social welfare; and although this interpretation of their consciousness will be new to some readers, it is not essentially different from that which has now become a commonplace in the field of critical scholarship. As our text shows, however, while we agree on the fact, we part company with the devout wing of critical scholarship on the interpretation of the fact. We assert that the post-hoc fallacy of prophetism saved the religion of Israel to the world. This leads us to the second suggestion: The conventional religions of the heathen world are based upon the assumption that human salvation is mechanically imparted from without by the will of the divine. The revelation of science on the contrary, is that human salvation is derived from within, by the

§ 109. The mind of Israel during the Exile found expression in several new prophets who arose in that period. Chief of these is the so-called "Second Isaiah," the unknown author of a part of our present book of Isaiah. Only a part of the material in the first thirty-nine chapters of the present book of Isaiah can possibly be attributed to the original prophet of that name. The remainder of the book was written long after his time, during the Babylonian Exile, and later still.

The introduction to the book of the second Isaiah is a cheerful proclamation to the captives from Judah and Jerusalem: "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your god. Speak ye to the heart of Jerusalem, and cry out to her that her time of service is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned; and that she hath received from Yahweh's hand double for all her sins" (Isaiah 40: 1, 2). At last, then, after more than a generation, Israel is to return across the rough desert into his own land.

The prophet speaks in a highly figurative way about the return through the wilderness: "The voice of one that crieth, Prepare ye in the wilderness the way of Yahweh, make straight in the desert a highway for our god. Every valley shall be filled up, and every mountain and hill shall be levelled; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places smooth" ( Isaiah 40:3, 4).

§ 110. But how will all this come to pass? Is Yahweh to make a visible descent from heaven, and restore his people to Judah and Jerusalem? The prophet makes no such claim. He simply puts a theological interpretation upon the history going on around him. A new power, development of the intellect. All human progress is primarily based on the intellect. In harmony with science, and in startling contrast with heathen religions, the faith of Israel, as based upon the work of the prophets and extended into Christianity by Jesus and Paul, is the only religion which has ever practically succeeded in bringing the emotions into line with the intellect in affirmation of the doctrine that we are naturally in the attitude of having "no good thing in us," and of "working out our own salvation with fear and trembling."

coming from the east and from the north-a great host, led by Cyrus, king of Persia - was in full career of conquest. The doings of Cyrus were being noised all over the world; and the prophetic spirit of Israel was quick to utilize the situation. According to the prophet, king Cyrus was an instrument in the hands of Yahweh. At the bidding of Yahweh he was to conquer the corrupt and declining Babylonians, and let the captive Israelites return to their old home. In Isaiah 41:25 we read: "I have raised up one from the north, and he is come; from the rising of the sun one that calleth upon my name; and he shall come upon rulers as upon mortar, and as the potter treadeth clay." In chapter 44: 28 the prophet is even more explicit, indicating the advancing conqueror by name: "Cyrus is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure, even saying of Jerusalem, She shall be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid."

§ 111. The aristocratic tendency is irrepressible. Looking into the future in imagination, one of these later prophets declares: "They shall build up the old wastes; they shall raise up the former desolations; and they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations. And strangers shall stand and feed your flocks; and aliens shall be your plowmen and vinedressers. But ye shall be named the priests of Yahweh. Men shall call you the ministers of our god. Ye shall eat the wealth of the nations, and to their glory shall you succeed" (Isaiah 61:4, 7). In other words, after the restoration Israel as a whole is to occupy the position of an upper class in respect of the world at large. The instinct of cleavage will not down.

§ 112. In the year 538 B. C., Cyrus, king of Persia, overthrew the kingdom of Babylon, and rode triumphantly into the great city on the Euphrates. His aim was to conquer the world. The greatest power that now opposed his westward march was Egypt. Some ten years before this time, Egypt, observing the rise of Persia, had joined an

alliance against that power. In line with his general policy, king Cyrus now gave the Jewish exiles permission to return to their old home, stipulating, of course, that they acknowledge his overlordship, and pay him tribute. Judah would be a good buffer-province between Egypt and Persia; and would serve as a convenient base of operations in a campaign against the land of the Nile. From the standpoint of Cyrus, the return of the Jewish exiles was merely a Persian colonizing scheme.

§ 113.-Concerning the social state of the Jews after the Exile we reproduce the following from Professor G. A. Smith:

"Some sixty years after the earlier, and some fifty years after the later, of Nebuchadnezzar's two deportations, we find the Jews a largely multiplied and still regularly organized nation, with considerable property and decided political influence. Not more than forty thousand can have gone into exile, but forty-two thousand returned, and yet left a large portion of the nation behind them. The old families and clans survived; the social ranks were respected; the rich still held slaves; and the former menials of the temple could again be gathered together. Large subscriptions were raised for the pilgrimage, and for the restoration of the temple" (61).

The Exile, then, despite its theological influence, effected no change in the fundamental economic institutions of Israel. Cleavage remained, based as before upon slavery and private property in land. The second chapter of the book of Ezra supplies a long list of the free families that returned, omitting not to add that they were accompanied by seven thousand, three hundred and thirty-seven slaves (Cf. Nehemiah 7).* With respect to landed property ancestral claims were doubtless revived as far as possible. All the free men, however, may have acquired estates at

*Doubtless these family lists are to be taken as a post-exilic census, rather than as a literal record of the "return;" but since neither version affects our thesis adversely, and since both support it, the historical point need not be pressed in this connection.