Thus, in outward semblance, the prophets won their battle. They won it in consequence of the events they most bitterly deplored. With their religion the only security of their nationality, the Jews never afterwards wavered in their allegiance to it. Persecution made them cling to it more firmly; it inspired them in the noblest period of their history, the crisis which produced the Maccabees. Even when an empire greater than the Chaldean conquered them, and a severer sentence exiled them from Judæa, dispersed over the world, they held to their religion. The moral monotheism which Jahvism had developed was now unalterably settled. New doctrines were added to it, some of which became of the first importance, but its primary principles were fixed for ever. And yet, at the very moment at which Judaism was thus established, there was sown the seed of a new religion, destined ultimately to spring from it in defiance of its spirit of privilege. The nobler prophets sought to make their religion the national glory of Israel, a blessing to be taken by all the world meekly from Israel’s hands; and their efforts long afterwards produced a religion which ignored national distinctions. For at the time of the full development of Judaism the movement towards Christianity began. The expectation of a Messiah was the most peculiar feature of the Jewish religion. It was a fundamental principle of the community of Israel, says Ewald, “that every real divine deliverance could be attained only by the instrumentality of a true prophet.”[33] The cause of this reliance on divine envoys was probably the rigid theocratic character of their Jahvist constitution, which discouraged general enterprise. The belief that a covenant had been originally concluded with Jahveh tended to produce dependence on him; his worshippers looked for help to him, and not to themselves. Any great man who felt himself impelled to lead the people in times of national peril, was sure to consider himself Jahveh’s representative, commissioned by him for the purpose; and, of course, all Jahvists would naturally be of the same opinion. In time this reliance on individuals became fixed, and gave the Messianic colour to the national hopes.