CHAPTER XVIII
THE IDEA OF GOD IN THE MILLENNIUM
Yahweh, the only God of the Hebrews. We have already seen the eclipse of the old gods and the rise of the new ones in India during the millennium that opened with Zarathushtra and ended with the advent of Jesus. The monotheistic idea greatly developed during this period among the Jews who were a subject race under the Persians and whose religion was influenced by Zoroastrianism. As Judaism later gave much to Christianity and Mohammedanism, the knowledge of the belief in the godhead among this people is of great interest, and we shall discuss it in brief.
A race of sturdy nomads of Semitic stock tending their flocks from times immemorial in the Arabian desert, of handsome features with prominent aquiline nose, is seen settling down in Palestine about thirteen centuries before the Christian era. Many of their kinsmen had laboured and suffered as slaves in Egypt, until Moses brought them deliverance. The Hebrews, as the people are known to history, found their new settlement already populated by the civilized Canaanites. The new-comers intermarried with them and adopted their civilization. They succeeded later in founding a kingdom, and under the heroic ruler David, Jerusalem became the centre of Jewish religious life and the sanctuary of their national God Yahweh. During the period of the divided kingdoms of Judah and Israel prophetic literature of great value arose and enriched human thought. The kingdom of Israel ended in 721 b.c., and Judah met with her destruction in 586 b.c. The Persians brought the Jews deliverance and allowed them to restore the temple of Jerusalem that was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. They flourished under the tolerant Persian rule, codified their religious laws, collected and copied the sermons and teachings and songs and ancient writings that they still possessed. Thus in a few centuries more there
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