moved about preaching his faith and finally died in exile. To be come a missionary involved sacrifice, and the history of Judaism shows a continuous process of testing and sifting. Birth alone is ineffective, for readiness to serve and to suffer is not necessarily hereditary. This is illustrated by subsequent events. Abraham reared and trained Lot, who was his nephew. Lot, preferring the rich pastureland of the plains to the hardships of a nomad, gave up the calling of the wandering preacher and quitted his uncle. Isaac and Ishmael, sons of one father but of different mothers, had to be separated. Jacob and Esau, twin brothers in birth but funda mentally differing in outlook, were driven asunder by the inevit able force of this difference. Thus in three successive generations the lesson that birth alone does not avail was driven home with increasing force, starting with uncle and nephew and culminating with uterine brothers.
The winnowing process is regularly repeated throughout the Bible. It is exemplified in the stories of Gideon and Elijah and it is constantly taught until, in prophetical times, the "Survival of the became a recognized axiom of Judaism. The "Remnant" or the "Suffering Servant" (Isaiah, liii.) was imperish able, but this ability to withstand time and attack was no free gift arbitrarily bestowed by God on a favoured nation. It was open to all who cared to pay the price. At times this price was even martyrdom; it was always a severe discipline. But the followers of Judaism did not count the cost. They gave their lives and sometimes even more. For when, in Nehemiah's days, wholesale intermarriage threatened to engulf Judaism in barbarism, the people, conscious of their backsliding, were content to sacrifice their homes and to leave their wives in order to save their faith. History can furnish few parallels to this corporate act of renun ciation. It was an exceptional expedient. Those who break the laws of God have no more immunity from the consequences than those who violate the laws of nature. The Eurasian problem in India is an example of unhappiness produced in this way. Through the heroism of Nehemiah's contemporaries Judaism was secured from analogous results.
The Doctrine of the Remnant corresponds to the scientific theory of the survival of the fittest. Judaism is the religion of a minority but of a minority ever conscious of its duty to the ma jority. It is the religion of a minority at present, but it aims at being the only religion of the majority at the end. The Jew has endeavoured to influence the world in two ways. When con
fronted with paganism, omnipotent and universal, he has engaged in active proselytization. The Pharisees compassed land and sea to make one proselyte (Matthew, xxiii., i 5) and classical authors testify (see PROSELYTE) to the vigour of the Jewish missionary enterprise. When Paganism persecuted, Judaism countered with martyrdom. Revolts against Roman rule were never supported by Rabbis until Hadrian determined to suppress Judaism : the fight for liberty under Bar Kochba (q.v.) was a religious rather than a political war. Judaism, according to the famous saying, admitted the righteous of all peoples to the world to come. This saying is exceptional in wording but normal in spirit, in spite of others, of a contrary tendency, which, viewing gentile sinfulness at its worst, doubted the possibility of regeneration. Since Judaism made salvation dependent on conduct and regarded those who abstained from sin but did not accept the whole of Judaism as "Proselytes of the Gate," the attitude towards the environment changed when Paganism gave place to Christianity and to Islam.
Henceforth Judaism was propagated by example : martyrdom was endured when necessary. Proselytes, whose genuineness was proven, were received, but missionary organizations have not been maintained. The reason for this is not indifference to the environ ment but a recognition that the daughter faiths, though incapable of so true a vision of God, are yet teaching The improve ment must come in God's own time. The Liturgy often expresses this hope. Thus the central portion of the tilinidah for New Year 'Isaiah, vi., 9-13: x., 2T. Cf. J. Skinner, Isaiah, in Camb. Bible series (5900) , pp. xxiv. seq.
Jewish Encyclopaedia, iv., 56.
and Atonement contains three famous paragraphs' of great an tiquity in which Israel, the proselytes and the ultimate conversion of mankind are prayed for. From an early date Judaism differen tiated mankind into those who did and those who did not obey the seven Noachian laws, that is to say seven fundamental princi ples which can be expected of any stage in civilization : the sons of Noah are said to have abstained from idolatry, adultery, mur der, robbery, eating limbs severed from living animals, emascula tion of animals and breeding of monstrosities.' Towards those who had reached a higher stage than mere neutrality or negation of barbarism, e.g., to Christians and Muslims, Judaism adopted a pragmatic relation. Since salvation, in the Christian sense, de pended on works and morals, Judaism felt no impulse to continue missionary propaganda in order to promote a system of theology which it deemed more accurate, but it accepted those who pre ferred this system to their own.