Page:Decline of the West (Volume 2).djvu/225

Rh scholarship. Jerusalem became for the rigid believer a Mecca, and his Koran was a Code of laws to which was gradually added a whole primitive history compounded of Chaldeo-Persian motives reset according to Pharisaic ideas. But in this atmosphere there was no room for a worldly art, poetry, or learning. All that the Talmud contains of astronomical, medical, and juristic knowledge is exclusively of Mesopotamian origin. It is probable, too, that it was in Mesopotamia, and before the end of the Captivity, that there began that Chaldean-Persian-Jewish formation of sects which developed into the formation of great religions at the beginning of the Magian Culture, and reached its climax in the teaching of Mani. "The Law and the Prophets" — these two nouns practically define the difference between Judea and Mesopotamia. In the late Persian and in every other Magian theology both tendencies are united; it is only in the case here considered that they were separated in space. The decisions of Jerusalem were recognized everywhere, but it is a question how widely they were obeyed. Even as near as Galilee the Pharisees were the object of suspicion, while in Babylonia no Rabbi could be consecrated. For the great Gamaliel, Paul's teacher, it was a title to fame that his rulings were followed by the Jews "even abroad." How independent was the life of the Jews in Egypt is shown by the recently discovered documents of Elephantine and Assuan. About 170, Onias asked the King for permission to build a temple "according to the measurements of the Temple in Jerusalem," on the ground that the numerous non-conforming temples that existed were the cause of eternal bickerings amongst the communities.

One other subject must be considered. Jewry, like Persia, had since the Exile increased enormously beyond the old small clan-limits; this was owing to conversions and secessions — the only form of conquest open to a landless nation and, therefore, natural and obvious to the Magian religions. In the north it very early drove, through the Jew State of Adiabene, to the Caucasus; in the south (probably along the Persian Gulf) it penetrated to Saba; in the west it was dominant in Alexandria, Cyrene, and Cyprus. The administration of Egypt and the policy of the Parthian Empire were largely in Jewish hands.

But this movement came out of Mesopotamia alone, and the spirit in it was the Apocalyptic and not the Talmudic. Jerusalem was occupied in creating yet more legal barriers against the unbeliever. It was not enough even to abandon the practice of making converts. A Pharisee permitted himself to summon the universally beloved King Hyrcanus (135-106) to lay down the office of High Priest because his mother had once been in the power of the infidels. This is