That a man might by appropriate ceremonies—or without ceremonies—enter into another community, was held everywhere. If, as has been suggested (above, p. 147), the Hasidim found some of their members among the non-Jewish population of Syria,[154] it is not likely that the process of becoming Jews was rendered either difficult or long. Abraham, a late tradition stated, brought many gentiles under the wings of the Shekinah, the Effulgence. If this tradition is an old one, it indicates that proselytizing was in early times held to be distinctly meritorious.[155] The first conquests of the Hasmonean rulers brought non-Jewish tribes under immediate political control of the Jews. Most of them, notably the Idumeans, were forcibly Judaized, and so successfully that we hear of only one attempted revolt.[156] There can of course have been no question here of elaborate ceremonies or lengthy novitiates. The Idumeans were dealt with as shortly as Charlemagne’s Saxons, and gave the most convincing demonstration of their loyalty in the time of the insurrections.[157] This drastic way of increasing the seed of Abraham must have been viewed differently by different classes of Jews. To the Haberim the difference between a heathen and a Jewish aspirant to their communion lay in the fact that the heathen had undergone the fearful defilement of worshiping the Abomination, while the Jew had not. For the former there was accordingly necessary an elaborate series of purgations, of ceremonial cleansing; and until this was done there was no hope that he could be admitted into the congregation of the Lord. But it might be done, and it began to be done in increasing numbers. It would have been strange if, among the many gentile seekers for salvation, Greek, Syrian, Cappadocian, and others, some would not be found to take the path that led to the conventicles of the Jewish Haberim. This was especially the case when, instead of an obscure Syrian tribe, the Hasmoneans had made of Judea a powerful nation, one of the most considerable of its part of the world. All the mysteries welcomed neophytes, but none made the entrance into their ranks an easy matter. In some of them there were degrees, as in those of Cybele, and the highest degree was attained at so frightful a cost as practically to be reserved for the very few.[158] In the case of the Jews, one of the initiatory rites was peculiarly repellent to Greeks and Romans, in that it involved a bodily mutilation, which was performed not in the frenzy of an orgiastic revel, but in the course of a solemn ritual of prayer. That fact might make many hesitate, but could not permanently deter those who earnestly sought for the way of life.