As, in consequence of popular ignorance of Hebrew, the unlearned congregation required instruction through the medium of the Aramaic dialect, translations were made into this familiar idiom, with explanatory (Mephorash) commentaries on the most difficult passages. This system of interpretation assumed two forms-Halachah, authoritative teaching based on the Pentateuch and the Cabbala, and Haggadah, or imaginative exposition, dealing fancifully and allegorically with the entire field of Hebrew Scripture, in harmony with the capricious or arbitrary views of individual preachers. The instruction of the multitude thus passed from priests and prophets to the sacred caste of Sopherim, whose chiefs attained to eminence as the great masters of ethical and theosophic schools, whither disciples flocked to catch each accent from the lips of a Shammai, a Hillel, or a Gamaliel.

Shammai and Hillel1 were contemporaries of the age immediately preceding the career of Jesus, and founded distinctive schools of scriptural exegesis. The former was a rigid Pharisee, controlled by fanatical devotion to Mosaic ritualism; but the self-sacrificing and gentle Hillel, imbued with a spirit of generous toleration towards all mankind, was a Master at whose feet Jesus of Nazareth might well have received the training which qualified him for preaching the Sermon on the Mount. 'Do nothing to thy neighbour that thou wouldst not that he should do to thee,' said Hillel. 'Do unto others as ye would they should do unto you,' said Jesus. Let Jews and Christians decide which of these two illustrious Hebrews may more justly sustain the claim to originality. But if priority of teaching should assign the palm to

1 Born about B.C. 112.

Hillel, a Turanian claimant appears in the form of Confucius, who uttered a similar apothegm, centuries before the era of the Semitic sage.

As popular conceptions of Divinity are the measure of intellectual and moral progress, the Mosaic Jehovah had been transformed, in the school of Hillel, into the heavenly Father of the age of Jesus-a title assigned for centuries to Infinite Divinity by enlightened Aryans, who, looking towards the heavens for paternal protection, worshipped Dyaus pitar-Heaven Father-the Hellenic Zeus-the Roman Jupiter, in whom the highest minds of antiquity saw, not a national Deity, but the Supreme Ruler of the universe.

Apart from the instruction of learned Rabbis, there arose a demand for less accomplished interpreters (Meturgemanim), who adapted ancient to modern ideas, and taught, with all the freedom of oral exposition, those modifications of Moses and the Prophets disclosed in the pages of the Apocrypha, which records the course of Hebrew thought, within two centuries preceding the birth of Jesus.

In 1 Maccabees, Judaism emerges from the mythical past into the light of history verifiable through the annals of other nations, natural supersede miraculous events, and the fortunes of Judah become amenable to the laws of causation, which impartially control the destinies of Aryan and Semitic races.

Ecclesiasticus (B.C. 200), the Wisdom of Solomon (B.C. 120-80), and 2 Esdras (B.c. 28-25) record the development of Hebrew thought in the schools of Alexandria and Jerusalem, modified by Aryan philosophy and religion, and fill an important place in the evolution of

Christianity by supplying both Jesus and Paul with ideas piously accepted in modern times as original. These books, however, in common with all ancient Scripture, canonical or otherwise, are more or less subject to the suspicion of interpolation, merging sometimes into absolute certainty, as in 2 Esdras vii. 28, 29, where Jesus Christ is named, in imitation of the reference to Cyrus in Isaiah. The first two and the last two chapters of 2 Esdras, absent from the Arabic and Æthiopic versions, are obvious interpolations; but the contents of the original work (iii.-xiv.) sufficiently indicate its influence on evangelical literature. It is remarkable that when evangelical language and ideas disclose their apocryphal source, orthodox theologians do not hesitate to accuse primitive Christianity of interpolating the works of antecedent generations-an admission necessarily involving similar manipulation of all canonical books, for the Apocrypha was sacred Scripture from Clement to Augustine, and is now canonised by the Church of Rome in harmony with the Council of Carthage, which pronounced its infallible decree nearly fifteen centuries ago.

The introduction of foreign ideas into a community formerly so exclusive as the Hebrews necessarily produced that divergence of opinion inevitably resulting in the formation and growth of various sects. The Sadducees were the Conservative supporters of the old Hebrew theology of the Pentateuch, which neither taught the duty of prayer, the immortality of the soul, or the resurrection from the dead, involving an eternity of happiness or misery adjusted to the individual merits of mankind. The Pharisees accepted all these and other innovations drawn from foreign sources, fancifully

authenticated by the unattested theory of oral traditions transmitted from Moses through successive generations; and disclosed their conservative tendencies in rigid observance of the minutest forms of Mosaic ritualism.

The Essenes were, however, the Hebrew sect which exercised a preponderating influence on the evolution of Christianity, and the vast importance of their relationship with the School of Galilee justifies a brief digression in explanation of their presence in Palestine.

In the sixth century B.C. India witnessed the marvellous career of Sakya-Muni, or Gautama Buddha, the greatest and most original moralist of all time, who, although born in the purple, abandoned the social and political advantages of royalty to go forth in early manhood as a philosophical mendicant, and devote six years of ascetic solitude to the evolution of a system. which has commanded, in varying form, a greater number of disciples than any other philosophy or religion known to history.

Having reached the needful depth of conviction, Buddha at length appealed to his contemporaries as the apostle of the Kingdom of Righteousness, and taught the highest forms of ethical philosophy, inclusive of the humanity which forgives injuries and returns good for evil, not within the narrow limits of sect or caste, but throughout the wide circle which embraces all mankind. Buddha was, in fact, the original teacher of universal charity; and, if he had preached the Sermon on the Mount, its precepts would have but varied in more specific details of the duties of humanity, inclusive of consideration for our humbler companions of the animal kingdom.

The Kingdom of Righteousness, which involves escape by the Noble Path from the Fetters of human ignorance and passion, is conceived in absolute independence of faith in God and Immortality, and proclaims the highest Good in the attainment of complete enlightenment on earth, through the unruffled serenity of moral purity and intellectual supremacy defined by Buddha as Nir-' vāna, the Semitic Apostle of which was Paul, who, in his persistent efforts to stamp out human nature through a transcendental spiritualism, was the unconscious exponent of an evangelised Nirvāna.

Buddha commanded his disciples to proclaim the kingdom of righteousness to all mankind; and Buddhism, therefore, became a great missionary religion, gradually and variously corrupted, however, through the pre-existent superstitions of its multitudinous converts. In the third century after the death of SakyaMuni, in the reign of Asoka, the third Buddhist Council sent forth missionaries to foreign countries, described by extant rock-inscriptions in India as ascetics, commanded to reside in all places and teach men moderation and purity. By the year A.D. 65 missionary zeal had proved so successful in the propagation of the faith that Buddhism was recognised by the Emperor Ming-ti as one of the State religions of China. Is it, therefore, an unreasonable assumption that the zealous missionaries of Buddha had reached the land of Palestine and secured some converts to the faith within two centuries antecedent to the Christian era?

The Essenes, as described in the pages of Josephus, were an important sect, pre-eminent in piety and virtue, filled with love towards God and man, and ever aspiring