9. The Mosaic and Talmudic law prescribed quite different treatment for those heathen who persisted in idolatrous practices and refused to observe the laws of humanity, called the seven Noahitic laws, as will be explained more fully in the next chapter. No toleration could be granted them within the ancient jurisdiction; “Thou shall show them no mercy” was the phrase of the law for the seven tribes of Canaan, and this was applied to all idolaters.(1286) Hence Maimonides lays down the rule in his Code that “wherever and whenever the Mosaic law is in force, the people must be compelled to abjure heathenism and accept the seven laws of Noah in the name of God, or else they are doomed to die.”(1287) On the other hand, in the very same Code, Maimonides writes in the spirit of Rabbi Meir: “Not only the Jewish tribe is sanctified by the highest degree of human holiness, but every human being, without difference of birth, in whom is the spirit of love and the power of knowledge to devote his life exclusively to the service of God and the dissemination of His knowledge, and who, walking uprightly before Him, has cast off the yoke of the many earthly desires pursued by the rest of men. God is his portion and his eternal inheritance, and God will provide for his needs, as He did for the priest and the Levite of yore.”(1288) 10. To be sure, a statement of this nature presents a different judgment of heathenism from that of the ancient national law. But the historical and comparative study of religions has caused us to entertain altogether different views of the various heathen religions, both those representing primitive stages of childlike imagination and superstition, and those more developed faiths which inculcate genuine ideals of a more or less lofty character. Certainly the laws of Deuteronomy, written when the nation had dwindled down to the little kingdom of Judæa, and those further expounded in the Mishnah enjoining the most rigorous intolerance toward every vestige of paganism, had only a theoretical value for the powerless Jewish nation; while both the Church and the rulers of Islam were largely guided by them in practical measures. The higher view of Judaism was expressed by the last of the prophets: “ ‘For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same My name is great among the nations; and in every place offerings are presented unto My name, even pure oblations, for My name is great among the nations,’ saith the Lord of hosts.”(1289) The fact is that heathenism seeks the God whom Israel by its revelation has found. In this spirit both Philo and Josephus took the Scriptural passage, “Thou shalt not curse God,” taking the Hebrew _Elohim_ in the plural sense, “the gods”; thus they said a Jew must not offend the religious sense of the heathen by scorn or ridicule, however careful he must be to avoid the imitation of their practices and superstitions.(1290)