nomadism, the Jews became the chosen people by becoming the model “moderns.” This meant that more and more Apollonians, first in Europe and then elsewhere, had to become more like the Jews: urban, mobile, literate, mentally nimble, occupationally flexible, and surrounded by aliens (and thus keen on cleanliness, unmanliness, and creative dietary taboos). The new market was different from old markets in that it was anonymous and socially unembedded (relatively speaking): it was exchange among strangers, with everyone trying, with varying degrees of success, to play the Jew. Among the most successful were Max Weber’s Protestants, who discovered a humorless, dignified way to be Jewish. One could remain virtuous while engaging in “usury” and deriving prestige from wealth—as opposed to investing wealth in honor by means of generosity and predation (or simply swallowing it all up). At the same time, the retreat of professional priests and divine miracles forced every seeker of salvation to consult God directly, by reading books, and to pursue righteousness formally, by following rules. Churches became more like synagogues ( shuln , or “schools”); experts on virtue became more like teachers (rabbis); and every believer became a monk or a priest (i.e., more like a Jew). Moses’ prayer—“would God that all the Lord’s people were prophets” (Num. 11:29)—had been heard. The new—modern—world (brave in a new way) was based on the endless pursuit of wealth and learning, with both careers open to talent, as in the shtetl or ghetto, and most talents taking up traditional Mercurian occupations: entrepreneurship, of course, but also medicine, law, journalism, and science. The gradual demise of the soul led to an intense preoccupation with bodily purity, so that diet once again became a key to salvation and doctors began to rival priests as experts on immortality. The replacement of sacred oaths and covenants by written contracts and constitutions transformed lawyers into indispensable guardians and interpreters of the new economic, social, and political order. The obsolescence of inherited wisdom and Apollonian dignity (the greatest enemy of curiosity) elevated erstwhile heralds and town criers to the position of powerful purveyors of knowledge and moral memory (the “fourth” and the “fifth” estates). And the naturalization of the universe turned every scientist into a would-be Prometheus. Even the refusal to pursue wealth or learning was Mercurian in inspiration. The aptly named “bohemians” occupied the periphery of the new market by engaging in new forms of begging, prophesying, and fortune-telling, as well as more or less seditious singing and dancing. Fully dependent on the society of