VIII THE EVOLUTION OF THEOLOGY 3G3 



gained influence. The puritanism of a vigorous 

 minority among the Babylonian Jews rooted out 

 polytheism from all its hiding-places in the theo- 

 logy which they had inherited ; they created the 

 first consistent, remorseless, naked monotheism, 

 which, so far as history records, appeared in the 

 world (for Zoroastrism is practically ditheism, and 

 Buddhism any- theism or no-theism) ; and they 

 inseparably united therewith an ethical code, 

 which, for its purity and for its efficiency as a 

 bond of social life, was and is, unsurpassed. So I 

 think we must not judge Ezra and Nehemiah and 

 their followers too hardly, if they exemplified the 

 usual doom of poor humanity to escape from one 

 error only to fall into another ; if they failed to 

 free themselves as completely from the idolatry of 

 ritual as they had from that of images and dogmas ; 

 if they cherished the new fetters of the Levitical 

 legislation which they had fitted upon themselves 

 and their nation, as though such bonds had the 

 sanctity of the obligations of morality ; and if they 

 led succeeding generations to spend their best 

 energies in building that " hedge round the Torah " 

 which was meant to preserve both ethics and 

 theology, but which too often had the effect of 

 pampering the latter and starving the former. 

 The world being what it was, it is to be doubted 

 whether Israel would have preserved intact the 

 pure ore of religion, which the prophets had 

 extracted for the use of mankind as well as for 



