The ominous mood in which the Jews realized their gradual deprivation of country and independence indicated the stirring of deep forces in their nature. Judea was to them a Holy Land, for "from Zion had gone forth the Law." Love of country had become part of their religion. Every political function had its religious aspect. The Sanhedrin was at once a civil and a religious body, and this dual characteristic pervaded all the civil institutions. So the longing for the restoration of the royal line of Judah, i.e., the coming of the Messiah, expressed the religious as well as the political hopes of the nation. Not that the word Messiah had any peculiarly religious significance. It is the Hebrew word _M'sheach_, meaning "Anointed (king)," and was applied in the Bible to Saul, David, and even to Cyrus, the Persian, Isaiah xlv--1. In post-exilic times the coming of the Messiah implied the re-establishment of the throne in the Davidic line. Many of the pious felt further that with a king once more on an independent throne, the glorious pictures of the coming day foretold by the Prophets and not attained in the first monarchy, would be realized in the second. Such as "The Lord's house will be established on the top of the mountains; all nations will flock to it, saying, Come let us go up to the house of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us His ways, we will walk in His paths." (Isaiah and Micah.) Again, "The earth will be full of knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea." The conviction expressed by Jeremiah (chap. xxxi, 33-34) would then be fulfilled, that all would "know the Lord from the least of them to the greatest." One of the latest of the Prophets--Zechariah--had foretold a day when "ten men would take hold of the garments of him who was a Jew and would say, We will go with you, for we believe that God is with you." So we might quote nearly every prophet from Amos to Malachi, the last prophet, who said that the day of Judgment would be heralded by the undying Elijah. A Jewish poet in Alexandria voiced the same hope; heathendom would disappear and the kingdom of God would be established. Alas, the outlook for either the spiritual or the temporal realization seemed farther removed than ever. Every now and then, more particularly under the disturbing rule of the procurators, a deluded enthusiast would appear upon the scene and claim that he was a Messiah. Theudas was one who made this claim in the year 45. So desperate were the times that these agitators always found followers. They were always ruthlessly put to death by Rome for the claim of Messiahship, i.e., "King of the Jews," was treason against Rome. Was not Judea a Roman province now? Jesus the Man.