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258 power and might and glory, he is the God of the humble, the protector and avenger of the poor and weak—he casts down the mighty and the proud. The ideals of the mass and the priestly ideal of purity were fused into a combination—Jahweh, or, more strictly speaking, Jahweh's law—the like of which the world has never seen. Who is not aware of the difference between the literature of Greece (particularly before Plato) and the Psalms (most of them), or the prophecies of Isaiah (especially the later Isaiah) and Jeremiah? There is not so much a contradiction as a different climate or atmosphere—the stress of things, the background of ideals, the supreme values are different. The Jews become in effect a priestly people, making the mass valuations absolute and divine.

And now at length there comes an hour of supreme triumph and revenge for them—not indeed for them individually or as a corporeal entity, but for the soul of Israel, for their ideal. In Christianity, born out of Israel, that ideal virtually overcame the old Greco-Roman world—overcame the master-morality that lingered on in it. Physically Israel was no match for the Roman Empire—those who strove in that direction were not representative of her real strength. But her mind—and sometimes none develope forces of mind like the weak—overcame Rome's mind, and perhaps even contributed to Rome's physical downfall, by sapping the life of the old ideals—master-class ideals—on which the Empire rested. Christianity was in effect a message, a gospel to that class in the Empire which had not yet come to recognition and power—the poor, the suffering, the toiling, the heavy-laden; it met their instinctive cravings, gave them a sense of their significance, made them think themselves the equals of those who had hitherto looked down upon them, yes, their superiors so far as they practised faithfully the new morality—superior not only in their own sight, but actually, as would be proved when Israel's God should make over the world in their favor, giving to them the felicities of Heaven and to their enemies the sufferings of Hell. It may seem strange to speak of the spirit of triumph and revenge in connection with Christianity. But let any one read the language of the best-known early Christian apostle, in writing to one of the churches he had founded: "You see your calling, brethren, how that not