ns of the earth should
flow. What the Prophets foresaw was not times nor seasons, not dates nor
names, not any minute particulars. But they saw a future age, they lived
out of their own time in another time, which had not yet arrived. They
left behind them Jewish ceremonialism, and entered into a moral and
spiritual religion. They dropped Jewish narrowness and called all mankind
brethren. In this they reach the highest form of foresight, which is not
simply to predict a coming event, but to live in the spirit of a future
time.

Thus the Prophets developed the Jewish religion to its highest point. The
simple, childlike faith of Abraham became, in their higher vision, the
sight of a universal Father, and of an age in which all men and nations
should be united into one great moral kingdom. Further than this, it was
not possible to go in vision. The difference between the Prophets and
Jesus was, that he accomplished what they foresaw. His life, full of faith
in God and man, became the new seed of a higher kingdom than that of
David. He was the son of David, as inheriting the loving trust of David in
a heavenly Father; he was also the Lord of David, by fulfilling David's
love to God with his own love to man; making piety and charity one, faith
and freedom one, reason and religion one, this life and the life to come
one. He died to accomplish this union and to make this atoning sacrifice.

Sec. 7. Judaism as a Preparation for Christianity.

After the return from the captivity the Jewish nation remained loyal to
Jehovah. The dangers of polytheism and idolatry had passed. We no more
hear of either of these tendencies, but, on the contrary, a rigid and
almost bigoted monotheism was firmly established. Their sufferings, the
teaching of their Prophets, perhaps the influence of the Persian worship,
had confirmed them in the belief that Jehovah was one and alone, and that
the gods of the nations were idols. They had lost forever the sacred ark
of the covenant and the mysterious ornaments of the high-priest. Their
kings had disappeared, and a new form of theocracy took the place of a
royal government. The high-priest, with the great council, became the
supreme authority. The government was hierarchal.

Hellenic influences began to act on the Jewish mind, and a peculiar
dialect of Hebrew-Greek, called the Hellenistic, was formed. The
Septuagint, or Greek version of the Old Testament, was made in Alexandria
about B.C. 260. In