At best, people had been inclined to imagine them a sort of Kabbalists or Polish itinerant rabbis. Now it was seen that hot blood and throbbing life pulsated in their veins. Their clear-cut, mental features with their characteristic excellencies and shortcomings distinguished one from the other. They stood before the reader in checkered array, true knights by the grace of intellect, antique figures, glowing with patriotism, of inflexible will and indestructible faith. With equal vividness the author depicted the spiritual atmosphere of the time with its humors, passions, fermentation, and struggles; the surging and seething of ideas, factions, opinions, and aims in wild disorder and violent opposition to one another; and the final evolution of the impelling forces which determine the course of historical events by the exchange of thrust and counterthrust. Graetz wanted to make the heart-beat of the period perceptible to the senses. Therefore, he was little concerned about the technical correctness of his style and diction. He did not shrink from brusqueness in words, nor from luridness and voluptuousness in coloring. Without regard to sensitive feelings he chose the plainest, the most striking expressions, that he might be understood by all; that no doubt as to his opinion might suggest itself; that personages and events might appear upon the canvas in a clear light and in the proper position, as they were mirrored in his mind. The book naturally aroused a great sensation upon its appearance. It at once created an audience for itself with which it found a rich measure of favor and applause. On the other hand, most of the author’s scholarly colleagues at first reserved their opinions. They were taken aback by the new data, which--as, for instance, the formation of Christian sects--had been boldly pressed into service to complete the picture, and they could not reconcile themselves to the description of ancient conditions by means of modern catchwords and turns of expression peculiar to the lighter forms of literature. For example, Graetz characterizes Nachum of Gimso, in whose life mishap after mishap redounded to his benefit, as the Candide[38] of the Tanaitic world of legend. He seeks to reconstruct the details of the Bar-Cochba revolt, the chapter on which is one of the most beautiful and touching in his “History,” from single names and widely scattered debris. He goes so far as to speak of two lines of defense, the Esdraelon line and the Tur-Malka line.[39] He charges the eminent teacher Judah ha-Nassi with irritability and sensitiveness.[40] Relying on Talmudic accounts, he refuses to credit the Romans with a civilizing mission in Asia, and describes their influence in Western Asia in particular as destructive of culture and detrimental to morality. Such features of the work confounded the critics and judges. They did not venture to decide whether the boldness of genial originality was asserting itself, or