As the Apocalyptics show, this view had numerous adherents among the Jews of Palestine also. All those who found no satisfaction in the literalness of the Pharasaic beliefs and the business-like superficiality of the official Jewish religion, found edification in ideas of this sort, which excited the imagination. They dealt with them as "mysteries," and sought, as may well be from fear of conflicts with traditional religion, to keep them secret from the public. [35] Hence it is that we have such an incomplete knowledge of this side of the religious life of the Jews. At any rate they clothed their expected Messiah with the attributes of the Mandaic God of Mediation, and they appear, as is clear from the Apocalypse of Daniel and that of John, to have taken particular pleasure in the description of the scene where God calls ("awakes") the Redeemer to his mediatory office and installs him as Deliverer, Ruler of the World, and Judge of the living and the dead. We are accustomed to look upon the Jewish religion as strictly monotheistic. In truth, it never was, even in the Mosaic times, until after the return from Exile. And this is clear, in spite of the trouble which the composers of the so-called historic books of the Old Testament have taken to work up the traditions in a monotheistic sense and to obliterate the traces of the early Jewish polytheism, by transforming the ancient gods into patriarchs, heroes, angels, and servants of Jahwe. It was not entirely Babylonian, Persian, and Greek opinions which influenced Judaism in a polytheistic direction; from the beginning, besides the theory of one God, emphasised by the priesthood and official world, there existed a belief in other Gods. This constantly received fresh nourishment from foreign influences, and it appears to have been chiefly cultivated in the secret societies. On the descent of the Israelites into Canaan each tribe brought with it its special God, under whose specific guidance it believed its deeds were accomplished. By the reforms of the Prophets these Gods were suppressed; but the higher grew the regard for Jahwe (apparently the God of the tribe of Judah), and the further he was in consequence withdrawn from the world to an unapproachable distance, the more strongly the remembrance of the ancient Gods again arose and assumed the form of the recognition of divine intermediate beings, the so-called "Sons of God." In these the longing for the direct presence and visible representation of God sought expression. Such appears to have been the "Presence," or "Angel of God," with whom Jacob wrestled in the desert, [36] who led the Israelites out of Egypt and went before them as a pillar of flame, [37] who fought against their enemies, drove the Canaanites from their homes, [38] held intercourse with the prophets Elijah and Ezekiel, [39] and stood by the people of Jahwe in every difficulty. [40] He is also called the "King" (Melech), or "Son"