J/osrn'sni.— This abstract faith continued to be the faith of the Israelites until it was transformed at Mount Sinai by the Lord himself, through his chosen servant Moses. Thereafter the Abrahamic idea was clothed in forms rendered necessary not only by the character of the age, but also by the frailty of men, to the generality of whom hitherto ceremonies had been absolutely essen- tial. From the "Jlosaic Revelation," as Dean Stanley (Jewish Ch., First Series, Lect. vii) calls it, dates the es- tablishment not only of the Judaic principle itself, but of the Thiocrurij (see Josephus, Apion, ii, 17). Thence- forth tlie followers of Abraham not only worshipped the one " supreme Being," but they were governed by him ; i. c. from tlie converse of Jloses with the Lord dates the ultimate union of the Jewish Church and State — the corclation of life and religion, of the nation and the in- dividual. See Moses ; Law.
Prophetism. — Surrounded by idolaters on all sides, with whom they were brought in contact continually, the Hebrews gradually disobeyed the commanchnents of Sinai until idolatry destroyed all personal morality, and the chosen iicople knew not their Lord. To save the race from utter apostasy, holy men were inspired by the Lord to make kno\vn the penalty of idolatry and immo- rality. Amid the trials and sore afflictions with which he visits the nation, he yet declares the perpetuity of the Jewish faith. A Messiah shall eventually gather in the people, and to the Lord alone shall service be ren- dered. See iMiissiAH. Though the present plant shall wither, the seed shall continue to live, from whose ger- mination shall spring a flower of greater fragrance in the fulness of time. All through the captivity among the Assyrians and Babylonians, even after the" destruc- tion of the Temple, the life of the seed was attested by the fruit it bore. See Cai-tivity; Prophecy.
Iialjhiiii.im — When the political existence of the Jews was anniliilatcd, they nerved themselves, with that de- tenniiiation characteristic of the Hebrew race, for an- otlier and more determined strife. In consecpience of their dispersion as a nation, after the Babylonian exile the Jlosaic constitution could be but partially rc-estab- hshed. "The whole building was too much shattered, antl its fragments too widely dispersed, to reunite in their ancient and regular form." But from his captiv- ity tlie Jew had brought with him a reverential, or, rather, a passionate attachment to the jNIosaic law and the consecration of the second Temple, and the re-es- tablishment of the state had been accompanied by the ready and solemn recognition of the law. The syna- gogue was instituted, and with it many of the institu- tions which ha\c tended t(. perpetuate" Judaism to the
present horn-. One of the most important of these was the constant inteqoretation of the law and the prophets ; and as the acquaintance with the law became more intimate, the attachment to it grew deeper and deeper in the na- tional character, until it finally was not only their Bi- ble and statute-book, but a guide for the most minute details of common life. " But no written law can pro- vide for all possible exigencies; whether general and comprehensive, or minute and multifarious, it equally requires the expositor to adapt it to the immediate case which may occur, either before the public tribunal or that of the private conscience. Hence tlie law became a deep and intricate study. . . . Learning in the law be- came the great distinction to which all alike paid rev- erential homage. Public and private affairs depended on the sanction of this self-formed spiritual aristocracy. . . Every duty of life, of social intercourse between man and man, not to speak of its weightier authority as the national code of criminal and civil jurisprudence, was regulated by an appeal to the book of the law" (jNIilman, Ilision/ of the Jetcs, ii, 417). Thus arose the office of the rabbis— the clergy, the learned interpreters of the law, the public instructors, to whom, by degrees, also the spiritual authority was transferred from the priesthood. At this time, also, besides the inspired Scriptures, tra- ditional writings became another ground of authority over the public mind. See Traditiox. This was not, however, as universally acknowledged, and gave rise to that schism in Judaism which originated the Ka- raites (q. v.). Thus Judaism had fortified itself after the captivity, so that when the Temple was finally again destroyed, and public worship became extinct, Rabbinism was able to supplant the original religion of the Jews, and from amid the blackened walls of Jeru- salem rose, ere the smoke of the ruins had \-et ceased, a new bond of national union, the great ilistinctive feature in the character of modern Judaism. With tlie IMasora (q. v.) also came soon after the jNIishna (q. v.) and the Gemara, which together form the Babylonian Talmud [see Talmud], that wonderful monument of human iu- dustrj- — formulated Mosaism — which to the Jew '• be- came the magic circle within which the national mind patiently labored for ages in performing the bidding of the ancient and mighty enchanters, who drew the sa- cred line beyond which it might not venture to pass" (Milman), and which so securely enwrapped the Jewish idea in almost infinite rules and laws that it completely sheltered it from polluting contact in the succeeding dark ages. It is thus that Judaism, weathering many a long and severe storm, has continued to prosper, and riourishes even in oiu" own day.