dispersion it was a religious necessity. And by such means not a few whom they would regard

as `heavenly messengers' might be welcomed. From the Acts of the Apostles we knew with

what eagerness they would receive, and with what readiness they would invite, the passing

Rabbi or teacher, who came from the home of their faith, to speak, if there were in them a word

of comforting exhortation for the people.10 We can scarcely doubt, considering the state of

things, that this often bore on `the consolation of Israel.' But, indeed, all that came from

Jerusalem, all that helped them to realise their living connection with it, or bound it more closely,

was precious. `Letters out of Judæa,' the tidings which some one might bring on his return from

festive pilgrimage or business journey, especially about anything connected with that grand

expectation - the star which was to rise on the Eastern sky - would soon spread, till the Jewish

pedlar in his wanderings had carried the news to the most distant and isolated Jewish home,

where he might find a Sabbath, welcome and Sabbath-rest.

Such undoubtedly was the case. And yet, when the Jew stepped out of the narrow circle which

he had drawn around him, he was confronted on every side by Grecianism. It was in the forum,

in the market, in the counting house, in the street; in all that he saw, and in all to whom he spoke.

It was refined; it was elegant; it was profound; it was supremely attractive. He might resist, but

he could not push it aside. Even in resisting, he had already yielded to it. For, once open the

door to the questions which it brought, if it were only to expel, or repel them, he must give up

that principle of simple authority on which traditionalism as a system rested. Hellenic criticism

could not so be silenced, nor its searching light be extinguished by the breath of a Rabbi. If he

attempted this, the truth would not only be worsted before its enemies, but suffer detriment in his

own eyes. He must meet argument with argument, and that not only for those who were without,

but in order to be himself quite sure of what he believed. He must be able to hold it, not only in

controversy with others, where pride might bid him stand fast, but in that much more serious

contest within, where a man meets the old adversary alone in the secret arena of his own mind,

and has to sustain that terrible hand-to-hand fight, in which he is uncheered by outward help.

But why should he shrink from the contest, when he was sure that his was Divine truth, and that

therefore victory must be on his side? As in our modern conflicts against the onesided inferences

from physical investigations we are wont to say that the truths of nature cannot contradict those

of revelation, both being of God, and as we are apt to regard as truths of nature what

sometimes are only deductions from partially ascertained facts, and as truths of revelation what,

after all, may be only our own inferences, sometimes from imperfectly apprehended premises,

so the Hellenist would seek to conciliate the truths of Divine revelation with those others which,

he thought, he recognized in Hellenism. But what were the truths of Divine revelation? Was it

only the substance of Scripture, or also its form, the truth itself which was conveyed, or the

manner in which it was presented to the Jews; or, if both, then did the two stand on exactly the

same footing? On the answer to these questions would depend how little or how much he would