on from the philosophy which followed, though
afar off, the noble visions of Plato. Whether Persia or Greece was more
directly the source of the new hope which crept almost unperceived into
the stern bosom of Judaism is not certain. But the first clear voice of
that hope comes from the time of the martyrs. In the second book of the
Maccabees is told--probably by an Alexandrian Jew--the story of the men
and women who faced a dreadful death rather than disobey the Law of their
God. In that last extremity--that confrontal of the soul by the
bitterest choice, and its acceptance of death rather than
wrong-doing--comes the sudden voice of a hope triumphant over the tyrant.
"Thou like a fury takest us out of this present life, but the King of the
world shall raise us up, who have died for his laws, unto everlasting
life." So in succession bear testimony the seven sons of one mother,
herself the bravest of them all. "She exhorted every one of them in her
own language, filled with courageous spirit; and stirring up her womanish
thoughts with a manly courage, she said unto them: 'I cannot tell how ye
came into my womb: for I neither gave you breath nor life, neither was it
I that formed the members of every one of you. But doubtless the Creator
of the world who formed the generations of man, and found out the
beginning of all things, will also of his due mercy give you breath and
life again, as ye now regard not your own selves for his laws' sake.
Fear not this tormentor, but, being worthy of thy brethren, take thy
death, that I may receive thee again in mercy with thy brethren.'"

Just as the death of Socrates inspired in Plato the out-reaching hope of
a hereafter, so these Jewish martyrdoms quickened the doubtful guess, the
dim conjecture, into fervid conviction. From this period dates the
settled Jewish belief in immortality.

The form which that belief assumed is seen in the book of Daniel. That
book was a creation of this period, inspired by its sufferings,
aspirations, and hopes. The writer, assuming the name and authority of a
traditional hero,--by that easy confusion of the ideal and the historical
which we have seen before,--blends with stories of unconquerable fidelity
and divine deliverance his own interpretation of the world's recent
history and probable future. It is an early essay in what we call the
philosophy of history, the first recorded conception of a world-drama.
Median, Persian, Greek, and Roman m