262 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS 



lived in Judea and been hidden somewhere in the 

 centuries before Jesus was born we know not ; but 

 it is hard to believe that any such had existence, 

 since none could have lived in circumstances more 

 unfavourable for their manifestation than Jesus 

 Himself. From that carpenter's home in Naza- 

 reth He became the world's Teacher and Leader 

 toward the divine, and if He had ancestors pos- 

 sessed of the same superlative qualities, why did 

 not one of them in five hundred years exert influ- 

 ence enough to cause a ripple on the surface of 

 Jewish society ? If He is to be accounted for by 

 atavism, when and where did the ancestor live 

 whom He resembled ? No such name appears 

 anywhere in the long history of the Jewish people. 

 Moreover, Jesus was unlike the heroes of His 

 nation. Isaiah prophesied the coming of an ideal 

 king, but to him that king was to rule on an 

 earthly throne, and would be little like the sover- 

 eign in the realm of spirit which Jesus has proved 

 Himself. As we have already noted, his country- 

 men were intensely nationalistic ; Jesus was uni- 

 versal in His sympathies. They looked for the 

 day when the world would revolve around Mount 

 Zion ; He, when all men would be united in the 

 worship of the one God who is a Spirit. He be- 

 longed to the world at large which He had never 



