Thus the whole structure of the Bible is built upon the visible fact of the existence of a God, and upon the belief in the relation of God to men, especially to Israel. In spite of all that has been said to the contrary, the Bible _does_ lay stress upon belief, where belief is required. The unbelievers are rebuked again and again. “For all this they sinned still, and believed not for His wondrous work,” complains Asaph (Ps. lxxviii. 32). And belief is praised in such exalted words as, “Thus saith the Lord, I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown” (Jer. ii. 2). The Bible, especially the books of the prophets, consists, in great part, of promises for the future, which the Rabbis justly termed the “Consolations.”(111) For our purpose, it is of no great consequence to examine what future the prophets had in view, whether an immediate future or one more remote, at the end of days. At any rate, they inculcated hope and confidence that God would bring to pass a better time. I think that even the most advanced Bible critic—provided he is not guided by some modern Aryan reasons—must perceive in such passages as, “The Lord shall reign for ever and ever,” “The Lord shall rejoice in his works,” and many others, a hope for more than the establishment of the “national Deity among his votaries in Palestine.” We have now to pass over an interval of many centuries, the length of which depends upon the views held as to the date of the close of the canon, and examine what the Rabbis, the representatives of the prophets, thought on this subject. Not that the views of the author of the _Wisdom of Solomon_, of Philo and Aristobulus, and many others of the Judæo‐ Alexandrian school would be uninteresting for us. But somehow their influence on Judaism was only a passing one, and their doctrines never became authoritative in the Synagogue. We must here confine ourselves to those who, even by the testimony of their bitterest enemies, occupied the seat of Moses.