It is unnecessary to detail the course of the Hasmonean revolt. Even the brilliant successes of Judas in the field, and the less splendid but equally solid triumphs of his brothers, would have had fewer political consequences than they had except for the chaos in the Seleucid succession. But of the permanent triumph of the movement there was never any doubt. If the revolt had ended with the death of Judas, the discomfiture of the Hellenists would have been complete. No Macedonian king would ever be tempted to provoke another revolt by a similar project. It could never be a part of a sane ruler’s policy to sacrifice valuable military material in order to gratify a local faction. And it must never be forgotten that the Greek rule of the Syrian kingdom was the domination of a military class. Every diminution of the army was a dead loss. The suggestion may be hazarded that not merely the Hellenistic Jews, but also the Greeks themselves, viewed the progress of the Hasidim with real alarm. We are far as yet from the epoch of real propaganda, but to some extent it may already have begun. Where and when we can only speculate. Perhaps the fervor of Hasidic preaching had touched non-Jewish Syrians; perhaps some of the younger men of the Hellenists “relapsed” under Hasidic stimulation into Judaism. However the case may be, Greeks of influence may have noted that the Grecizing of Coele-Syria was not merely hindered by obstacles in Judea, but that the Judaizing of portions already won was a possibility that was attaining a constantly greater vividness. If this was the case, the persecution by Antiochus was a precaution, insensate and futile, but less at variance with Greek methods than it seems in the usual interpretation of the facts we know. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XI THE JEWISH PROPAGANDA The preaching of a gospel seems to us as natural as the existence of a religion. That is because the religions we know best are universal ones, of which the God is a transcendent being, in whose sight human distinctions are negligible. But for the Mediterranean world that was not the case. The religions were not universal; many of the gods were concretely believed to be the ancestors of certain groups of men, and not always remote ones. Local associations played a determining part. If we find an active propaganda here, it cannot be because the spread of a ritual or faith is an inherent characteristic. On the contrary, in normal circumstances there seems to be no reason why one community should change its gods or forms of worship for those of another.