7. Thus a new impulse was given to Jewish proselytism in Alexandria, and the earlier history of Israel, especially the pre-Israelite epoch with its simple human types, was read in a new light. Enoch(1074) and Noah(1075) became preachers of penitence, heralds of the pure monotheism from which the heathen world had departed. Abraham especially, the progenitor of Israel, was looked upon as a prototype of the wandering missionary people, converting the heathen.(1076) Wherever he journeyed, his teaching and his example of true benevolence won souls for the Lord proclaimed by him as the “God of the heaven and the earth.”(1077) In this sense of missionary activity were now interpreted the words, “Be thou a blessing ... and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.”(1078) This was no longer understood in the original sense, that Abraham by his prosperity should be an example of a blessed man, to be pointed out in blessing others; the words were given the higher meaning that Abraham with his descendants should become a source of blessing for mankind through his teachings and his conduct, so that all the families of men should attain blessing and salvation by following his doctrine and example. Thus the idea of the Jewish mission was connected with Abraham, the “father of a multitude of nations,”(1079) and this was later on adopted by Paul and Mohammed in establishing the Church and the Mosque. 8. In contradistinction, then, to the political concept of the kingdom of God, which Ezekiel still hoped to see established by the exercise of external power,(1080) the idea assumed now a purely spiritual meaning. This kingdom of God is accepted by the pious Jew every morning through his confession of the divine Unity in the Shema. Abraham had anticipated this, say the rabbis, when he swore by the God of heaven and earth, and so also had Israel in accepting the Torah at Sinai and at the Red Sea.(1081) In fact, the kingdom of God began, we are told, with the first man, since, when he adored God freely as King of the world, every living creature acknowledged Him also. But only when Israel as a people proclaimed God’s dominion at the Red Sea, was the throne of God and His kingdom on earth established for eternity.(1082) And when Ezekiel says: “With a mighty hand will I be King over you,” they explain this to mean that the people chosen as the servant of God will be continually constrained anew by the prophets to recognize His kingdom.(1083) Yea, the closing words of the Song at the Red Sea, “The Lord shall reign for ever and ever” were taken to imply that all the nations would in the end recognize only Israel’s One God as King of the world.(1084) As a matter of fact, the rabbinical view is that every proselyte, in “taking upon himself the yoke of the sovereignty of God,” enters that divine Kingdom which at the end of time will embrace all men and nations.(1085) In the book of Tobit and the Sibylline Oracles also we