He supplied the _mise-en-scene_, and the technical terms of the new belief in the Messiah; and we might apply to him what Jesus said of John the Baptist: Before him, the prophets; after him, the kingdom of God.
[Footnote 1: Chap.vii.13, and following.] [Footnote 2: _Vendidad_, chap.xix.18, 19; _Minokhired_, a passage published in the "_Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenlaendischen Gesellschaft_," chap.i.

263; _Boundehesch_, chap.xxxi.The want of certain chronology for the Zend and Pehlvis texts leaves much doubt hovering over the relations between the Jewish and Persian beliefs.] It must not, however, be supposed that this profoundly religious and soul-stirring movement had particular dogmas for its primary impulse, as was the case in all the conflicts which have disturbed the bosom of Christianity.

The Jew of this epoch was as little theological as possible.

He did not speculate upon the essence of the Divinity; the beliefs about angels, about the destinies of man, about the Divine personality, of which the first germs might already be perceived, were quite optional--they were meditations, to which each one surrendered himself according to the turn of his mind, but of which a great number of men had never heard.

They were the most orthodox even, who did not share in these particular imaginations, and who adhered to the simplicity of the Mosaic law.