68 Ancient Ideals
spiritual disciplines or to express ideas of their own about the world
and how to live in it. And of course the great Hebrew tradition is not
without references to the compassionate ideal. The ideal is not absent
from the Psalms, the Book of Deuteronomy, and the teachings of
the prophets. But the compassionate ideal does not have nearly the
centrality in the Hebrew tradition that it has in the teachings of the
Buddha and Confucius— and in the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.
During the humiliating days of the Roman occupation, the Jews
pined for the long- promised Messiah. The Jews were, not for the fi rst
time in their history, under domination by an alien power. They
were hungry for liberation from the oppressions of Rome. But some
were clearly hungry to be liberated from what they perceived to be
a faith that had become stiff and over- ritualized. They were as op-
pressed by their priests, it seems, as the people of India had been
by the Brahmins when the Buddha began to teach.
Perhaps there was some practical transmission of the soul- wisdom
of the East to Jerusalem and its environs. But perhaps too it was the
singular genius of Jesus of Nazareth that brought the ideal of uni-
versal love and benevolence to the Jews and the Romans— from
whom it passed in time to the entire Western world. The Buddha
had the spiritual tradition of the Hindus behind him. In the great
texts— the Upanishads and the Gita— much of the Buddha’s wisdom
is hinted at, suggested. It is for the Buddha to complete the vision.
Jesus is not born into a spiritual tradition— a soul- tradition— that is
comprehensively akin to the vision he unfolds. Jesus never stops
being a Jew, but what is freshest and most vital in Jesus is often in
tension with his native tradition.
The Jews of the Hebrew Bible were a warrior people. David and
Sampson and Saul are fi gures with distinct affi nities to the heroes
in The Iliad. They are men of force and prowess, who seek preem-
inence. They clearly want their names to echo through time in rec-
ognition of their deeds. Though ser vice to their people— Hector- like