Christianity played no part in these troubles.[14.31] But these troubles, like Christianity itself, were one of the symptoms of the extraordinary fever which devoured the Jewish people, and the Divine travail which was accomplishing in its midst. Never had the Jewish faith made such progress.[14.32] The temple of Jerusalem was one of the sanctuaries of the world, the reputation of which was most widely extended, and where the offerings were most liberal.[14.33] Judaism had become the dominant religion of various portions of Syria. The Asmonean princes had violently converted entire populations to it (Idumeans, Itureans, etc.).[14.34] There were many examples of circumcision having been imposed by force;[14.35] the ardor for making proselytes was very great.[14.36] The house of Herod itself powerfully served the Jewish propaganda. In order to marry princesses of this family, whose wealth was immense, the princes of the little dynasties of Emese, of Pontus, and of Cilicia, vassals of the Romans, became Jews.[14.37] Arabia and Ethiopia counted also a great number of converts. The royal families of Mesene and of Adiabene, tributaries of the Parthians, were gained over, especially by their women.[14.38] It was generally granted that happiness was found in the knowledge and practice of the law.[14.39] Even when circumcision was not practised, religion was more or less modified in the Jewish direction; a sort of monotheism became the general spirit of religion in Syria. At Damascus, a city which was in nowise of Israelitish origin, nearly all the women had adopted the Jewish religion.[14.40] Behind the Pharisaical Judaism there was thus formed a sort of free Judaism, of inferior quality, not knowing all the secrets of the sect;[14.41] bringing only its good-will and its good heart, but having a greater future. The situation was, in all respects, that of the Catholicism of our days, in which we see, on one hand, narrow and proud theologians, who alone would gain no more souls for Catholicism than the Pharisees gained for Judaism; on the other, pious laymen, very often heretics without knowing it, but full of a touching zeal, rich in good works and in poetical sentiments, altogether occupied in dissimulating or repairing by complaisant explanations the faults of their doctors.