In attempting to interpret these basic Christian ideas it is nec-
essary to undertake the survey of a larger field than has usually
been included in the historical background of Jesus' life. The
fundamental principle of this study, which gives it whatever orig-
inality it may possess, is the thesis, now widely accepted, that
Judaism in the days of Jesus represented, not the independent
evolution of an isolated national group, but a syncretism of all
the ancient civilizations which centered about the eastern end of
the Mediterranean Sea. In the light of this thesis I have tried to
trace the development of the social ideals of the Hebrews and
the Jews thruout their history. It has been necessary, therefore,
to describe the relevant social ideals of all of the peoples who were
neighbors to the Hebrews, especially the Sumerians, Babylonians,
Assyrians, Persians, and Egyptians, to whom the Hebrews seem
to have owed most, and then to indicate how the peculiar course
of Hebrew-Jewish history modified the ideas which the Israelites
held in common with their neighbors, and how their varied na-
tional experiences prepared them to make their unique contri-
bution to the religious and social thinking of western civilization.
Finally, in the light of the new points of view thus won, I have
attempted to discover the attitudes and ideals of Jesus. The rea-
son for the exclusion of Greek social thinking is more fully
explained in its proper place, in Chapter IV, on "Israel's Spiritual
Ancestry." The influence of Hellenism upon the development of
nascent Christianity after the death of Jesus was decisive. But
that is a different matter, which I hope to discuss in another
volume.

So far as is possible for one not professionally trained as such,
I have approached the problems here discussed from the stand-
point of the sociologist, with the use of all of the "new aids to
history." Adding weight to the environmental approach of Taine
and the social and evolutionary method of Spencer, the passing
years have laid an indispensable emphasis on the functional and
genetic study of social institutions and human ideas, while literary
and archeological studies have enriched the world with materials
almost beyond comprehension. Such a task as that here attempted

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