After this rather long preliminary portion, we are now prepared, as otherwise we could not be, to consider the relation between the Christian religion and these ancient mysteries. Granting that Jesus was the founder of the Christian religion, we must remember, nevertheless, that he was distinctly a Jew, spent his life in Judea, and based his teachings upon Judaism; also that long before his day Judaism was thoroughly indoctrinated with Greek elements, and that after his crucification the propaganda was carried on not so much by Jews as by Greeks and men of Grecian education. Between the Greeks and the Jews there were then, as now, the greatest differences; differences which have already been epitomized, but which may be thus summarized. On one side the closest union between God or the Gods and man, most lofty sentiments and finest sense of art-form, a priesthood making no pretentions and exerting little influence, a nation sustaining active commercial relations with the world, and all imbued with eagerness to adopt whatever was novel; on the other side, the widest separation between Jehovah and man, a substitution of theology and religious poetry for a study of nature, a nation ruled by priests and protected against all access from without, either by sea or caravan, adhering determinedly to the old and distrusting whatever was new. After the Jews were liberated from Babylon, by Cyrus, they dispersed widely, living largely under Persian rule, and subjected after Alexander's conquest to Greek influences. Later they were scattered still more widely, becoming in time a mercantile race. In Egypt they enjoyed greater privileges than elsewhere, and in Alexandria saw the acme of Grecian art and teaching. While retaining their reverence for their scriptures and for the temple at Jerusalem, they quite generally adopted the language of the country, and particularly was this true of the Jews living in Alexandria in the third century, B. C., during which the Pentateuch was translated into the Septuagint, the remainder of the Hebrew bible being translated about 125 B. C. Thus the Greeks gained an introduction to Jewish theology, while the Hellenist Jews learned for the first time a Grecian philosophy; thus, too, among the scholars of one race was begotten a high esteem for the sages and philosophers of the other, while from the polytheism of one and the monotheism of the other was constructed a new mysticism. In this Alexandrian mysticism appeared in particular and for the first time the new idea of divine revelation, which was applied by enthusiasts alike to the Old Testament and to the Grecian writings. The Jew Aristobulus devised a most ingenious allegorical interpretation of the Old Testament, and traced to it all the wisdom of the Greeks, who until recently had never heard of it; and Philo, another Hebrew philosopher, contemporary with Christ, yet of whom he knew nothing, so construed the traditions of his