LECTURES AND ADDRESSES
THE LITERARY REMAINS OF
THE REV. SIMEON SINGER.
In Three Volumes.
SERMONS.
Selected and Edited with a Memoir by
ISRAEL ABRAHAMS. With a Portrait
after the Painting by S. J. SOLOMON, R.A.
LECTURES AND ADDRESSES.
Selected and Edited by ISRAEL
ABRAHAMS.
SERMONS TO CHILDREN.
Selected and Edited by ISRAEL
ABRAHAMS, with an Appreciation by
the Honble. LILY H. MONTAGU.
Price 45. 6d. net each.
THE LITERARY REMAINS
OF THE REV.
SIMEON SINGER
LECTURES AND
ADDRESSES
Selected and Edited by
ISRAEL ABRAHAMS
LONDON
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, LIMITED
NEW YORK: BLOCK PUBLISHING CO
1908
StacK
Annex
PREFACE
THE greater part of this volume consists of Lectures
and Addresses delivered by Mr. Singer on various
occasions. Some of his most popular efforts are
omitted because the manuscripts were not in a con-
dition for publication without considerable editing.
This statement applies in particular to the lecture
on the Jews of Rome, which was delivered in 1898
and repeated on at least twenty other occasions.
Mr. Singer never used the same exact form twice.
Hence the manuscript of this lecture is found in
several versions, which will, perhaps, be collated
and prepared for publication elsewhere. The lec-
ture on Rome involved prolonged studies of sites,
inscriptions, coins, and monuments in the Cata-
combs. Another lecture which has been omitted
is " The Story of the Emancipation of the Jews in
England." This was written in 1886, and was based
on a careful study of the pamphlets and parliamen-
tary records. Mr. Singer's interest in Anglo-Jewish
History thus ante-dated the Albert Hall Exhibition.
He. retained that interest throughout his life. Fur-
ther, a course of three lectures was delivered by Mr.
Singer on " Jewish Life at the Dawn of the Christian
Era," in December, 1900, and January and March,
1901. These, too, are held back for future publica-
tion. Finally when, in 1906, the University of
vi PREFACE
Cambridge selected the Eighteenth Century as the
principal subject of study for its summer meeting,
Mr. Singer was announced to lecture on " The Age
of Luzzatto, Eybeschiitz and Frank." He left
many notes for this lecture, and these, too, may sub-
sequently see the light. He felt a strong impulse
towards vindicating his ancestor Eybeschiitz against
the strictures of Graetz.
Besides these and other addresses of a secular
nature, Mr. Singer's sermons often took the shape
of lectures, He gave long courses on the history of
the Synagogue and of its Liturgy, on Hillel and
Akiba, on many subjects of Biblical archaeology,
and on literary anniversaries . Most J e wish preachers
are in the habit of adopting this method, for the
Synagogue is the place for instruction as well as
for edification. Mr. Singer's course of lectures
on Synagogue Decoration produced an immediate
result. The new West End Synagogue was recon-
structed internally through the generous response
made by the congregation to their minister's
appeal, and part of their memorial to him consists
of the completion of the plans which he himself
initiated.
Though it was with the utmost reluctance that
Mr. Singer was ever induced to write an essay as
such — almost invariably his literary work assumed
the form of spoken addresses — he devoted several
years to the production of a new English transla-
tion of the Daily Prayers. This book first appeared
in 1890, and passed through many editions, the
eighth being now in the press. The editor devoted
much care to the Hebrew text, while the translation
PREFACE vii
itself is generally recognized as a fine performance.
" Without disparagement of the labours of others "
(wrote the Jewish Chronicle), " we are justified in
asserting that Mr. Singer's is the first scholarly
edition of the Prayer-Book that has seen the light
of publication in England. The publication of the
Authorized Daily Prayer-Book supplies a long-felt
communal want in a manner that was confidently
expected from a man of Mr. Singer's high reputation
as a scholar and as a master of English style. The
translation is accurate without being pedantic,
while the language, graceful and melodious though
it be, is equally simple and prayerful." As already
mentioned in the Memoir, Mr. Singer left Historical
Notes on the Prayer-Book which will be edited
later on.
Mr. Singer's scholarship was shown in many
other ways. His use of the Midrash in his sermons
reveals a genuine love for the Rabbinic exegesis.
His quotations were not made from books of refer-
ence, in fact his library was remarkably weak in
such helps. He read the Midrash regularly and
made his own citations. For many years he studied
Talmud under private tutors after the traditional
fashion. He lost no opportunity of adding to his
knowledge. He was the first student to enrol
himself a member of Professor Strong's class when
the latter was elected to the Arabic chair at Univer-
sity College. He gratefully availed himself, too,
of every chance of hearing Dr. Schechter's lectures
on Rabbinic Theology and other subjects.
In 1896 he was associated with Dr. Schechter in
a work dedicated to the teacher of both of them,
V1U
PREFACE
I. H. Weiss, of Vienna, on the occasion of the eightieth
birthday of that famous scholar. The volume con-
tained " Talmudic Fragments in the Bodleian
Library," and was published by the Cambridge
University Press. It includes, besides a fragment
of the Palestinian Talmud, some pages from the
Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Kerithoth, which
are the oldest dated Talmudic MS. known. The
colophon bears the date 1123. Another interesting
feature of the text is the presence of accents, " pro-
bably intended to assist the student in the task of
recital." For the Talmud, no less than the Bible,
was intoned by its students.
With regard to the contents of the present volume,
the addresses on " The Joy of Life," " Romance in
the Midrash," " Jews and Coronations," and
" Curiosities of Religious Controversy " were not
prepared for publication by Mr. Singer himself.
Hence there may be found an absence in these of
the polished style which characterized the work
which he himself saw through the press. A similar
remark applies to many of the sermons. They
would have read very differently had they received
revision from the author's own hand.
CONTENTS
PAGE
THE JOY OF LIFE ....... i
ROMANCE IN THE MIDRASH . . . . . .28
Is SALVATION POSSIBLE AFTER DEATH ? . . -55
THE EARLIEST JEWISH PRAYERS FOR THE ENGLISH
SOVEREIGN . ....... 76
ADOLPH JELLINEK ....... 88
EARLY TRANSLATIONS AND TRANSLATORS OF THE JEWISH
LITURGY IN ENGLAND ...... 94
JEWS IN THEIR RELATION TO OTHER RACES . . . 141
THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN JUDAISM . . . .164
WHERE THE CLERGY FAIL 203
JEWS AND CORONATIONS ...... 226
SOME CURIOSITIES OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY . . 254
ISAAC HIRSCH WEISS ....... 289
2 THE JOY OF LIFE
I mention this detail of inner history by way of
explanation and apology for much that is to follow.
But I cannot help thinking that unconscious " sug-
gestion " also must have played a part in the choice of
my subject. Ramsgate and the Joy of Life — how
natural that the one should prompt the other. As long
as I can remember myself the two have in my mind
stood in a natural and logical relation to each other.
If one cannot get an extra joy out of life here on this
favoured part of the Kentish coast, where is one to
find it?
There is a story told, I think, of Thackeray and some
friends of his. They were speaking of a little, quiet,
out-of-the-way, country place, and Thackeray, who
knew the village, was asked whether there was any fun
there. " Fun," said the novelist, " any amount of fun ;
only you have got to bring it with you."
Now, although of course it is well for every one who
leaves the town for the country to bring his own
stock of fun with him, there are few places more fitted
than Ramsgate whether to supply a deficiency in the
imports of the raw material of happiness, or, where
these have been brought with the visitors, to make
the most of an as yet untaxed article of the spiritual
food of the people.
In a deeper sense, too, this Montefiore College where
we are assembled must touch a lecturer's heart with
happiness. The contemplation of a life, long in extent
and intent, a life full of living, is the most effective
means by which to convince oneself that life indeed has
its joys. Sir Moses Montefiore was one of the great
Jewish assets of the nineteenth century. This College,
which perpetuates the names of his wife and of himself,
THE JOY OF LIFE 3
is an appropriate place then in which to discuss, in
however light a spirit, the meaning of life and the true
significance of its joys.
By way of introduction to the joys of life let me tell
you a gloomy little tale.
It is a Persian parable, the moral of which is easy to
see, though hard to digest. A traveller is leading a
camel along the road, when suddenly the animal is
seized with a fit of fury. To escape from it the
traveller crawls into a well that happened to be by the
way. Luckily he does not fall to the bottom, but in
his descent grasps a bush which is growing out of a fissure
in the stony lining of the well. As he looks up he
sees the beast's head perilously near him ready to drag
him back again ; when he looks to the bottom he
beholds a dragon, whose gaping jaws open to devour
him. While he is desperately clinging to the bush he
becomes aware of two mice, one white and the other
black, creeping stealthily round the bush and each in
turn gnawing at its root. Thus beleaguered, in fear
and anguish, he gazes about him, when he espies some
ripe berries growing temptingly on one of the twigs of
the bush. He cannot resist the temptation. In his
eagerness to secure and enjoy them he forgets all else —
the camel's rage, the roaring of the hungry dragon
beneath, the perilous progress of the busy mice ;
all dangers and terrors are ignored. His one and only
desire is the enjoyment of a dainty mouthful.
You see the meaning of the parable. The traveller
is " Everyman." The worries and perplexities of life
— these are represented by the camel with his uncertain
and capricious temper. Death is the dragon waiting for
whom he may devour. Between the two, man, during
4 THE JOY OF LIFE
his life on earth, just manages to obtain a precarious
lodgment. But day and night, the white mouse and
the black mouse, are gnawing at the root of the branch
to which he clings so tenaciously. And yet despite all
these reasons why he should tremble and be in fear
continually, his mind becomes oblivious of all such
considerations, drawn only towards the ripe and de-
licious berries of pleasure which may be found even in
this pit of gloom and anguish, the earth.
It is a very pretty and a very touching parable, not
exactly cheering — just the sort of thing adapted to the
taste of persons who like that sort of thing. For myself,
if I were a preacher I should, I confess, never use it.
Why ? Because it embodies, along with a partial
truth, what I believe is a great fallacy and in the mouths
of most preachers, lay or professional, would sound a
note of insincerity. If life be indeed in the main all
that the gloomiest pessimist pretends, and if it offers us
so little to rejoice in, that is not a reason for making the
least of that little, but rather for making the most of it.
If, on the one side, the cares of life threaten to rend us,
and on the other, the coils of death to encompass us,
how are we better prepared for either fate by refusing
or despising such fruit and refreshment as our actual
state affords ?
It is quite true, there is not much necessity nowa-
days to tell people to enjoy themselves. The faculty of
pleasure seeking is pretty general. But there is all the
difference between regarding the enjoyment of life as a
concession to the animal in man or as an acknowledgment
of the human in him. Why should not joy itself be
recognized as an agent in the moral evolution of man ?
It is very fine to tell people to be good and they will
THE JOY OF LIFE 5
be happy — it is no doubt true, and I am constantly
recommending it myself ; but sure am I that any one
who really desires to make mankind better would do
well to commence by trying first to make them happier.
That is one of the great principles which the higher
socialism of our age — the socialism that strives to put
more sunshine into the gloomy lives of the masses — is
often and splendidly putting to the proof.
Even the prophet, who at a period of decadence in
Israel condemned his people because they said. " Let us
eat and drink, for to-morrow we must die," did not
mean that the thought that death was coming to-morrow
was a reason for starving ourselves to-day. This — " the
most lurid and minatory of all Isaiah's prophecies " —
is directed not against Israel's festivities but against
Israel's insensibilities. The joy of the people was the
sorrow of the prophet because the people were spiritually
maimed, and he uses a popular proverb to express the
frivolity of the revellers, as precarious as it was ill-
timed. Isaiah in this sense only was a pessimist — he
had a poor opinion of his contemporaries. But if ever
there was a prophet of hope it was he. To him we owe
the most cheering pictures of the Messianic age, with
its idyllic happiness and universal peace ; to him we owe
the delightful image that men would one day " draw
water in gladness from the wells of salvation." And so
in the passage I have quoted (xxii. 13) Isaiah is not
denouncing joyousness as something in itself objection-
able. He does not design to kill joy, but to make it
appropriate. When a national disgrace was over
them, and a greater calamity imminent, it was no time
for riotous merry-making.
And is there not also something self-deceiving and
6 THE JOY OF LIFE
misleading in representing, under whatever poetical
figure, the joys of life as few and valueless ?
Honestly speaking, speaking from the point of view
of any one who has a normally active liver, have we a
right to complain of the lack of joys in our own life ?
There are all the purely physical joys, for which, if
they are ours — and who is devoid of them ? — we cannot
be too thankful. This is too evident to need em-
phasizing. And there are other joys besides the purely
physical joys, the value of which it is almost impossible
to appraise. Given a fair average of health — and that
I grant is a considerable admission — what pleasures
may not be ours in the ordinary activities of life, in the
sense of power they bring with them, in the actual
achievement of any aim we deliberately set ourselves,
in going about the world with our eyes and ears open
to all it has to show and to tell us, in the satisfaction of
the impulses of curiosity — curiosity which is, after all,
the primitive parent of all knowledge — or in the higher
intellectual satisfactions, the enjoyments now made
accessible to us as they never were before, of nature,
art and literature.
Wings have we, and as far as we can go
We may find pleasure : wilderness and wood,
Blank ocean and mere sky, support that mood
Which with the lofty sanctifies the low.
Dreams, books are each a world and books, we know,
&re a substantial world both pure and good :
Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,
Our pastime and our happiness will grow.
Let me dwell for a moment more particularly upon
one of the joys here referred to by Wordsworth.
Do we ever think how immensely the potentiality of
THE JOY OF LIFE 7
happiness is increased for every one who has the faculty
and the taste, and cultivates them both, for reading.
Compare the capacity for this pleasure, now the property
of every, the poorest, child, with that which prevailed
in days gone by, when ability to read was the distinc-
tion of the clerk or cleric, who, for reasons often unsel-
fish enough, was not over anxious that others should
share his power, or who took care that others, if they
could read, should not read too freely or even too
fluently. How dull and stale and unprofitable the lives
of the masses must have been in those ages marked in
history as " dark." And how have pleasures gained in
quantity and in quality by the opening to all of the
first gate to the accumulated treasures of recorded
human experience and thought !
Visitors to Venice will remember Tintoretto's huge
painting that covers one whole side of the Ducal
Palace. It is a canvas crowded with figures, expressive
of the most contrasted emotions. The bliss of the saved
is depicted over against the looks and gestures of despair
in the lost. Above stands the Virgin Mary, who is turn-
ing to her son with outstretched arms, and pointing to the
crowds with tender motherhood. In the great eventful
turmoil a man sits absorbed in a book, reading unmoved.
The thirst for Heaven and fear of Hell are alike ignored.
The man is reading — joy enough that to shut out all
things else.
What fine teachers those old painters were !
It is often felt, and truly, that the concept^good
implies its opposite the concept evil — that you cannot
have the sensation of joy without its correlative sorrow,
that pleasure presupposes and is in that sense dependent
upon pain. You have had for some cause or other to
8 THE JOY OF LIFE
put a great physical strain upon yourself, all your
muscles have been under a mighty tension ; but your
task is accomplished, and when rest comes you find that
you can sleep with unwonted soundness. — " Sweet is the
sleep of the labourer." Or some mental anxiety has
oppressed you ; it is removed, and you know what it is
to breathe freely. To appreciate riches truly one must
have been poor. To value liberty one must have lived
in slavery and oppression. How often has it been de-
clared that no one knows how precious a boon health is,
no one so rejoices and revels in it, as he who has made
acquaintance with sickness and suffering.
See the wretch who long has toss'd
On the thorny bed of pain,
At length repair his vigour lost,
And breathe and walk again !
The meanest flow'ret of the vale.
The simplest note that swells the gale,
The common sun, the air, the skies,
To him are opening Paradise.
(Gray)
Approach them in the right spirit and our very
losses have in them a mysterious satisfaction. How
else are we to account for it that so many people almost
literally hug their sorrows ? The luxury of woe has a
wonderful fascination for many of us. Nought so
sweet as melancholy, is the refrain. It is true there
are other voices, or shall we say other moods ? Who
has not quoted in his time, " That a sorrow's crown
of sorrow is remembering happier things," where our
English poet does but re-echo the Italian's
Nessun maggior dolore
Che riordarsi del tempo felice
Nella miseria.
(Inferno v. 121).
THE JOY OF LIFE 9
There is no greater grief
Than to recall the happy time that was
In the wretchedness that is.
And yet when we think of it, is there not something
imperishable in the experience we have once had of
those happier things and happier times ? In a sense
death itself is the only thing that does not spell decay
— it arrests decay. A beloved child dies, and death
preserves it for ever as it was. Had it lived, the child
would have merged in the youth or maiden, and these
in the man or woman. But death has embalmed the
child as a child in the memory of the survivors, and
nothing but death could have done this.
Everything that we have changes ; it is only what we
have had that is unchangeable, irrevocably ours.
Not heaven itself upon the past has power;
What has been has been, and I have had my hour.
Happy he who can make the best use of his memories ;
who in his sorrow can recall past happiness without a
sting, who in his joy can recall past misery without
regret. The time may come, says Vergil, when the
thought of former griefs will enhance present joy. May
we not add, too, the hope that the time may come when
the memory of former joys may mitigate present grief ?
Clearly it is a matter of moods and temperaments.
Though, however, our sorrows and our joys are closely
intervoven, we must not leave out of consideration that
host of satisfactions, which are not connected with, and
owe nothing whatever to, any previous suffering. Where,
for instance, is the pain and suffering necessarily pre-
ceding the agreeable sensations that are excited during a
brisk walk on a fine morning ? Has the pleasure we
to THE JOY OF LIFE
derive from witnessing a heroic act, the emotion roused
in us by a new triumph of science over nature, by the
contemplation of some beautiful landscape, or beholding
some noble work of art, has it necessarily drawn its
sustenance from previous pain ? And what of the
many joys that have been ours but were totally un-
expected ? Some people think that the greatest, most
abiding pleasures in life are those we have kept long in
view, striven for and at length achieved. Is it so ?
If freshness is an element in enjoyment, it is the
unexpected pleasures which furnish the keenest delight.
I know a lady who avers that she never enjoys going
to the theatre or the opera so much as when it comes
to her as a surprise, when her husband is suddenly
seized with an inspiration together with an unaccount-
able fit of liberality, say over dinner, and exclaims, Let
us put everything aside and go to see so and so in such
and such a piece ; or — what is almost a greater grati-
fication— when tickets of admission are sent by some
friend, at ah1 but the last moment, with the intimation
that they must be used or will be wasted, and the
recipients enjoy the pleasure of the unexpected, while
at the same time they have the additional moral satis-
faction of knowing that they have been instrumental
in preventing waste.
This is a trivial example. But the trivial is often
more effective than the weighty for bringing home a
point. The light rapier can get home more easily than
the heavy spear. We should all be happier if we cul-
tivated an appreciation of the unexpected. It may
even be said that you may judge people's characters
by their faculty to enjoy on the spur of the moment.
Man}' people turn angels from their doors, or greet them
THE JOY OF LIFE n
with a cold welcome, because the angels come unawares.
How different was our father Abraham ! His angelic
visitors reached his door without previous notice. Yet
is he ready for them. Nay, his joy at receiving them,
his hospitable enthusiasm, seem heightened by the
fact that they were uninvited and unexpected. There
are housewives, I fear, who are hardly so quick as was
Sarah to smile upon guests suddenly introduced by
their husbands. This enjoyment of the unexpected
really amounts to sympathetic responsiveness. It is
more than mere contentment. Contentment is perhaps
a pallid virtue. What we need is not only acceptance
of whatever comes but joyous acceptance. And we
can cultivate this habit. Why should we so readily
assume that only bad habits are easily acquired ? Sir
Walter Scott tells us of a rather morose individual who
by assuming a bluff manner ended by becoming the
most cheery of entertainers. Assume a virtue if you
have it not — in order that you may have it.
To return to my point. There are innumerable cases
of pleasure in which pain does not enter into the account
in the least What is true is that the element of desire
is always present, even in the case of the unexpected
pleasures — for then the latent desire is stirred into
activity simultaneously with the opportunity of grati-
fying it. A healthy mind is always in a state of desire,
conscious or subconscious. Destroy desire and you
paralyse every attempt at progress ; empty life of
desire and you empty it of purpose. To apply great
principles to little practices, it always seems to me a
dubious recommendation when a thing is described in
the tradesman's slang as " leaving nothing to be de-
sired." There is a Continental hotel whose proprietor,
12 THE JOY OF LIFE
for the edification of his English customers, prints on
his wine cards, " The wines of this establishment leave
nothing to hope for." That is perfectly true, as those
can testify who have tried them.
To give up all desire is to drain dry the fountain of
the joys of life. If, as the pessimists assure us, desire
means longing, and longing implies want, and want is
pain, then we must put up with such pain, fortunate we
in that we do not recognize it as pain. A life in which
every desire were satisfied would mean death by the
slow torture of ennui. When Prince Rasselas had been
a little while in the happy valley he grew restive and
was politely taken to task by his respected preceptor.
" Look round," said the sage, " and tell me which of
your wants are without supply ; if you want nothing
how are you unhappy ? " " That I want nothing,"
replied the Prince, " or that I know not what I want
is the cause of my complaint ; if I had any known want,
I should have a certain wish : that wish would excite
endeavour, and I should not then repine to see the sun
move so slowly towards the western mountain, or
lament when the day breaks and sleep will no longer
hide me from myself. . . . Possessing all that I can
want, I find one day and one hour exactly like another,
except that the latter is still more tedious than the
former. ... I have already enjoyed too much. Give
me something to desire."
If these considerations are important from the point
of view of our common humanity, they are still more so
from the point of view of Jewish humanity. It is
curious to note how rooted the idea has become in the
world that Judaism is an enemy of joy. One has merely
to use some such phrase as the " Levitical Sabbath,"
THE JOY OF LIFE 13
and forthwith in the minds of the majority who know
us not, and are therefore less disturbed in forming a
judgment of us, an image arises gloomy and morose,
an image identified with the mental and moral
features of the Jew. The thing has been refuted and
disproved, disproved and refuted a hundred times, but
still the legend lingers on. Even in writings of broad-
minded and enlightened scholars the fallacy reappears
with a quite amazing confidence. In an article by
Dr. Francis Peabody, a Professor of Harvard University,
printed in the Hibbert Journal, the character of Jesus
is described as joyous, triumphant and with a delight
in life in which the Talmudic teachers could find no satis-
faction (Vol. L, p. 648, note). What an extraordinary,
what an utterly unfounded assumption this is you will
see in a moment. But the notion is so widespread that
it is well to insist in explicit terms on the fact that the
joy of life is to the Jew a real part of the whole religion
of life.
What is calculated to fill one with profound wonder
is the fact that the Hebrew Bible is so full to over-
flowing of the instinct of happiness. Whether and to
what extent the writers held the doctrine of the soul's
immortality, of a compensation in another life for the
ills and disappointments of this, does not appear. The
references to a future life are at the best few and obscure,
and late in date ; certainly out of all proportion, whether
to the magnitude of the subject or to other matters
not of greater importance than this one.
Yet, despite the relatively narrow outlook of those
old Hebrews, despite the apparent conviction that life is
one and bounded by the grave, there is in them the spirit
of joyous service, or of joyous resignation, or of joyous
14 THE JOY OF LIFE
trust. " Yea, though He slay me I will trust in Him,"
is perhaps the noblest utterance in all literature. The
Jew is of course an optimist. He is, it must even be
admitted, an incurable optimist. His optimism is the
equipment with which Nature, or the Divinity behind
Nature, has fitted him out from the time when he set
forth upon his voyage through the ages. It has been
his lifebelt, but for it he would have sunk long ago,
overwhelmed by the billows of persecution which, seldom
quiet and at rest, are soon whipped up again by the
capricious blasts of prejudice or the furious tempests
of racial and religious controversy.
So ingrained in the Jews is the joy of life that the arch
. priest of modern Pessimism, Schopenhauer, never could
get over his aversion to them. Next to women he
hated Jews most cordially. And in truth nowhere
does a gloomy way of looking at life find less welcome
than in Jewish philosophy. Did not the Bible teach
the lesson clearly enough in its first chapter ? Each
day's work was pronounced " good," and the whole
" very good." Not that there was any failure to
recognize the solemnity of life. It was the artificial
multiplication of means and occasions for giving it a
deeper gloom, it was the spirit of morbid religiosity, that
found no favour in Judaism. The Mosaic Jew recognized
only one fast day, but many feast days and Sabbaths
of joy. It is not only that we are exhorted to serve
the Lord with gladness — gladness itself is a form of
worship and divine service. " Because thou didst not
serve the Lord with joy and with a cheerful heart out
of the abundance of all things, therefore thou shalt
serve thine enemy in hunger and thirst, in nakedness
and in the lack of all things," said the Deuteronomist.
THE JOY OF LIFE 15
Much trouble the prophets and rabbis took to make
clear that there was a better way of pleasing God than
by mortification of the flesh. " Isaiah, while appealing
for a broader charity and a deeper sense of justice,
maintains that these and not fasting and self-humiliation
are the true expression of a will sanctified unto God."
(Jewish Encyclopedia, article "Asceticism"). "What
sin," asks Rabbi Eleazar Hakkapper (Taanith ua) " had
the Nazirite committed that he was bidden to bring a
sin offering ? It was this, that he had vowed to deny
himself the enjoyment of wine, though permitted
by God. Consider then," continues the sage, "if the
needless self-deprivation of one permitted enjoyment
is regarded as a sin, what will be the state of those who
deny themselves all the permitted pleasures of life ? "
The habitual faster, then, it is no wonder to hear
stigmatized as a sinner, (loc cit). Rab (in T. Jer. end
of Kiddushin) says : " On the day of reckoning man
will have to give account for every good lawful thing
which his eye beheld and which he did not enjoy." And
what a world of meaning lies in the saying that the
Shechinah — the divine spirit — descends and rests upon
man not in the midst of sadness nor in the midst of
slackness, but in the midst of gladness, of such gladness
as flows from a good deed done.
There is a verse in Proverbs (xi. 17), which the A.V.
translates, " The merciful man doeth good to his own
soul, but he that is cruel troubleth his own flesh," which
amounts more accurately to this, " A kindly man does
himself good, a cruel man does himself harm." The
writer evidently took a genial view of life and so among
others does the religious philosopher Gersonides of the
early fourteenth century, who in his commentary on
16 THE JOY OF LIFE
this passage speaks out boldly : " There are some
people who imagine that by severely afflicting and
mortifying themselves they are rendering a service
to the Holy One, blessed be He ; but, in truth, this is the
very reverse of what God desires. That this is so can
be seen from the fact that, with the exception of one
ordinance on one day of the year, no precept of the
Torah demands anything like self-affliction. The reason
is that the mental and spiritual activities of man depend
upon his physical faculties ; if these are impaired it
must react upon his higher powers. Any act therefore
which enfeebles his body and which consequently tends
to the enfeeblement of his soul, is in contravention of
the Divine will and purpose."
One other citation let me give you, illustrative of
the moral ideals of Judaism. There is a legend in the
Talmud of the Prophet Elijah, who, having made one
of his many reappearances on earth, accompanies a
Rabbi into the market place, where in face of a vast
crowd the Rabbi muses over the chances of Paradise
for the multitude. The prophet points out a couple of
men as assured of bliss in the life to come. The Rabbi
inquires into their past life — What can they say for
themselves ? Only this — When we see any at strife
we seek to make peace between them, and when we see
any sad we try to bring joy and mirth into their lives.
Surely it is a thoroughly Jewish sentiment to say, Blessed
are the peacemakers and the joymakers, for of such is
the Kingdom of Heaven.
The real problem which faces Religion — a problem
which few religions have contrived to solve — is just
this : how to hold the balance between smiles and
tears. Excess of either is hysteria ; a healthy modera-
THE JOY OF LIFE 17
tion in both is sanity. Judaism has perhaps been less
called upon than other systems to define the religious
function of suffering, because suffering has been the badge
of all the tribe. Sorrow enough was there in the world
without ; it was incumbent to insist upon the joy
within. Still asceticism has borne its share in Jewish
life. Asceticism is an almost invariable concomitant
•
of mysticism, and the Jewish mystics were undoubtedly
ascetics. There is a large tract of Jewish life, that illu-
mined by the career of Isaac Lurya, which is marked
by a surrender of the world in pursuit of heaven. But
here may be noted a characteristic difference. Lurya
was at the very antipodes of gloom. Not only was he
thoroughly happy in his mysticism and his self-denial,
but he attached his inspiring ideas to the delights of
religion. He it was who helped to make of the Jewish
Sabbath the cheering bride, to idealize the home-life
by the sacred joys of the observances and the ceremonial
within the home. Or to put it otherwise, Judaism gave
the world the figure of the " Suffering Servant " —
Israel, whose mission to humanity was to be recom-
pensed by inhumanity shown to the missionary. But
Judaism did not rest in that figure as the perfect ideal.
It was imperfect, it was incomplete. It was one aspect
out of several, not the only aspect. Amid all his sorrows,
Israel never for long felt himself unhappy. He saw
the world with true vision : he did not allow his tears
to blind him to the beauties of God's universe. He
saw that it was very good, filled everywhere with the
means to happiness. He heard the call of stern duty ;
he knew that when the young man rejoiced in his youth
he would be brought into judgment. But these things
made the Jew serious not sad ; filled him with a con-
L.A. C
i8 THE JOY OF LIFE
sciousness of the abiding purpose of life. And if these
things made no pessimist of him, how should his own
personal tribulations ? He knew that he could hope.
He did hope, and in the darkest hour he felt that he
would soon be able to quote cheerfully :—
Lo, the winter is past,
The rain is over and gone ;
The flowers appear on the earth ;
The time of the singing of birds is come,
And the voice of the turtle-dove is heard in our land ;
The fig tree ripeneth her green figs,
And the vines are in blossom. (Song of Songs)
No, to the Jew the world was very good, full of the
promise of happiness.
How is it then that, if there is such an abounding
harvest of the joys of life waiting to be gathered, we
carry comparatively so little away with us ? It will be
understood that it is far beyond my powers to give
anything like an adequate answer to this question, for
it would have to include a survey of the ills of life, real
and solid enough, which must be deducted from the
stores of happiness and in some cases leave very little
balance on the happier side, and which would further
have to include a consideration of all human limitations,
physical, mental, and moral, the result, whether of
inheritance, or of environment, or of an ill-trained and
misdirected will — in short, an explanation of the existence
of evil — a task to which one is only equal when one is
very young. Nor in half an hour or so can we settle
here, and I am sure we are not called on to settle, the
old question whether it would on the whole have been
better that man had not been created. That was a
theme which, the Talmud tells us (Erabin 13 b) occupied
the schools of Beth Shammai and Beth Hillel for two
THE JOY OF LIFE 19
and a half years. Beth Hillel took the view that it
was better that man should have been created. Beth
Shammai took the opposite side. Then when the
debate had gone on long enough, they divided and on
the votes being taken it was found the noes had it — the
majority is not given. " Better that man had not
been created," ran the verdict. But with their usual
practical good sense they added the rider, "Now that
he has been created he had better look to his actions."
That is, speculation has proved unprofitable ; conduct is
the main thing.
Let me rather glance for a few moments at one or two
of those errors, dwelling in our own breast, and subject
to our own control and correction, that are the cause of
our so often going hungry in the midst of plenty.
In the first place, the error we commit is in supposing
that happiness consists of an unbroken succession of
exquisite delights. To indulge in such a notion of
happiness is to invite disappointment. We sometimes
overrate our own capacity for enjoyment with the
result that we fail to obtain even the enjoyment which
is well within our capacity. I remember once taking
a country house, where my family and myself were
to spend our vacation. The place had among other
advantages a tennis lawn and a billiard table. One of
my boys on discovering this ran up to me and said,
" Xow, father, this time we shall have a jolly holiday — a
month of perfect bliss. We'll play tennis all day and
billiards all night." But my young hedonist soon
discovered his mistake, and found that the exclusive
cult of tennis and billiards, even during our youth, is
somewhat exhausting and finally unsatisfying, even
as in adult years we have discovered that life isn't, and
20 THE JOY OF LIFE
it is as well that it shouldn't be, " all beer and skittles."
Mr. James Sully in his Pessimism has a wise paragraph
on the relativity of feeling. " What the law of the
relativity of feeling requires, is that there should be
constant change of mental state as a whole. It is
possible to maintain for a long time a happy and even
joyous frame of mind by a sufficient diversity of agreeable
impressions and occupations. Well arranged transi-
tions from one mode of feeling to another, as from
active exertion to repose, and from social converse
to solitude, are fitted to sustain a continuous flow of
satisfaction" (p. 261). The remark commends itself as
transparently just. The error we make in applying it
is in supposing that any transition, even one represented,
say, by exchanging tennis for billiards and billiards
for tennis, will afford any very prolonged flow of satisfac-
tion.
In the next place, what often diminishes from the
sum total of our enjoyments is the habit of regulating
them by others' standards. People are often made
miserable, not because of what they have not got, but
because of what other people have. They call it expand-
ing their horizon. Is it not really contracting it ? The
habit is fruitful in mischief, especially, I fear, among
our own community. The old Jewish ideal was a happy
one, but it took more note of the quality of happiness,
while we think more of the quantity of happiness. " A
morsel of bread with salt shalt thou eat, and drink
water by measure " if thou would'st enter the portals
where the Torah dwells, and know the true happiness
of life. We think only of quantitative tests of happiness.
And so we can never be happy. For while the lack
of quantity depresses, a sense of inferiority in quality
THE JOY OF LIFE 21
spurs, the qualitative test is no breach of the tenth com-
mandment. To think that another has more than I
have is demoralizing ; to think he has better than I
may be a real incentive to me to purge away the coarser
elements from what I have. I err in thinking that he
has more happiness ; I do well to think his happiness
purer than mine. But we make ourselves miserable
as well as despicable when we count our possessions by
the quantitative test of others' happiness. Here is an
illustration of what I mean : Some time ago I called
in the city upon a rich, a very rich, member of the Jewish
race for assistance in a specifically Jewish cause. The
gentleman was a man who, arriving from abroad per-
haps a quarter of a century ago and beginning life in
London on perhaps a pound a week, had grown or rather
swollen into a millionaire. I should mention that his
countenance had strongly-marked Semitic features of
the type regarding which Heine says that it was designed
by Providence so that God might know his deserters.
He refused to support any Jewish cause. " I owe,"
said he, " to my Jewish blood all my troubles." " And,"
I replied, " all your successes." " It is a misfortune,"
he rejoined, "to be born a Jew." " How have you
found it so ? " I said. " You possess what is given to
but few men, whether Jews or Christians, You have
your town mansion near the Park, you have your country
estate, you have your shooting and fishing in Scotland,
you have a villa on the Riviera and your yacht in the
Mediterranean, you have horses and carriages and
motor cars. To have been born a Jew has proved no
great calamity to you, that I can see." " So much
you know of it," he exclaimed. " Let me tell you that
I was proposed the other day as a member of the — let
22 THE JOY OF LIFE
me call it the High Life Club, and I was blackballed.
Why ? For no other reason than that I was born a
Jew." " Granted," I replied. " But consider this.
The world is divided into two classes of human beings —
those who are members of the High Life Club, and
those who are not. These latter are in a distinct
majority. I would not think so ill of Providence as to
suppose that happiness has been granted as the peculiar
and exclusive prerogative of the members of the High
Life Club." This gentleman was a sort of translated
Hebrew Haman. He was miserable, because with all
his glory one single club didn't bow down to him.
I tried to show him this. He could not answer my
argument, and it remained unanswered ; but so also,
I am bound to say, did my appeal for help.
How people can allow their enjoyment of life to fall
so completely under the domination of others is a puzzle
to me, and I doubt not also to wiser persons than myself.
But there is another and deeper reason why happi-
ness so often proves elusive. Sooner or later we dis-
cover that it is a vain theory to make pleasure or even
happiness the great aim of our life. Happiness must
be a by-product, not the staple industry. It is often
an unexpected result, it must never be a primary motive.
Other ideals when consciously striven for may be brought
nearer to realization by the striving. But happiness ?
never. Happiness is far fleeter than any human pair
of legs ; it always keeps ahead of you when you pursue
it. Yet it will of its own accord sometimes consent to
pass a pleasant hour with you, if you do not thrust
yourself on it when it will have none of you. Happi-
ness chooses its own companions and its own tunes for
receiving and communing with them. It will not
THE JOY OF LIFE 23
tolerate intrusion. You may be active in all else ; here
you must be passive ; you may receive, you assuredly
cannot take. And yet happiness consists in activity.
That is the paradox.
I would have compared happiness just now to a fascin-
ating maiden, except that the latter, though she often
objects to pursuit, does not always resent it. But in
another point the two evasive joys are alike. Both are
pitiless against the scorner of their charms. If happi-
ness must not be run after, it must be seized when it
runs after you. If, says the Rabbi, you do not rejoice
to-day when you have the chance and the opportunity,
expect to weep to-morrow ! This is not quite the same
as carpe diem, for the Rabbi's remark implies that
happiness is not so much evanescent as occasional.
Woe to those who have a blind eye to happiness ! When
it does come, take it or you lose it, and may never find
it again.
And so, again, some of those who miss the happiness
provided for them belong to the class of sinners against
the light, i.e. people who preferentially dwell upon all
the darker aspects of things and shut their eyes to the
brighter. Indeed, the deliberate cultivation of a spirit
of sadness inevitably brings its penalty with it. Appro-
priately enough the penalty is a reflex of the sin. Dante
and his guide, traversing the gloomy circle of the Inferno,
come upon a stagnant, putrid pen, and there, buried in
the black mud, they see the souls of the gloomy and
the sluggish, who in expiation of their sin in life are
ever forced to mutter :
We were sad
In the sweet air made gladsome by the sun.
Now in this miry darkness are we sad.
24 THE JOY OF LIFE
A modern poet would express this thought otherwise,
or, rather, he would choose another milieu, but the
lesson he would point would be the same.
If I have faltered more or less
In my great task of happiness ;
If I have moved among my race,
And shown no glorious morning face ;
If beams from happy human eyes
Have moved me not ; if morning skies,
Books, and my food, and summer rain
Knocked on my sullen heart in vain :
Lord, Thy most pointed pleasure take,
And stab my spirit broad-awake.
STEVENSON, The Celestial Surgeon.
It is with happiness as with mustard — what we use
is a small portion next to what we waste. But there
is this difference — that somebody at least is the richer
for the unused condiment — it is the manufacturer. The
happiness missed is sheer, irretrievable loss all round.
What, then, are we to say of the people who take
God's gifts in a temper, which is a perpetual reproach
to the Giver, as though, whatever He did for them, He
still owed them something ?
" This is a reel splendid world," says Uncle Eben, a
racy character, rich in the philosophy of inspired com-
mon sense, the creation of an American novelist, Irving
Bacheller ; " this is a reel splendid world. God's fixed
it up so ev'rybody can hev a good time if they'll only
hev it. Once I heard uv a poor man 'at hed a bushel o'
corn give him. He looked up kind o' sad an' ast if
they wouldn't please shell it. Then they tuk it away.
God's gi'n us happiness in the ear, but He ain't agoin'
t' shell it fer us."
The same sagacious counsellor has something to say
THE JOY OF LIFE 25
to the people who torture themselves in respect of per-
fectly innocent satisfactions, and imagine that whatever
is new must be displeasing to God and is therefore to
be avoided by man. Electric cars had recently been
introduced into the township where Uncle Eb lived,
and some of the people in his neighbourhood had mis-
givings about using them.
" Some says it's agin the Bible. If God had wanted
men t' fly He'd gi'n 'em wings."
" S'pose if He'd ever wanted 'em t' skate, He'd hed
'em born with skates on," said Uncle Eb.
" Dunno," said the other ; "it behooves us t1 be
careful. The Bible says, Go not after new things."
" My friend," said Uncle Eb, " I don't care what I
rides in so long as 'taint a hearse. I wants sumthin'
purty comfortable and middlin' spry. . . . Keep our
jints limber. We'll live longer fer it, and thet'll please
God, sure, coz I don't think He's hankerin' fer our
society — not a bit. Don't make no diffrence t' Him
whather we ride in a spring waggon or on the cars, so
long as we're right side up and movin'."
That is good philosophy.
It is, then, only in the activities of life that we must
seek for the true and abiding happiness of life. Therein
lies salvation from all outer troubles, sometimes even
from ourselves. Surely no one does God's work so
well as the joyous worker. " Thou meetest him who
rejoiceth and worketh righteousness " (Isa. Ixiv.).
For still the Lord is Lord of might ;
In deeds, in deeds He takes delight ;
The plough, the spear, the laden barks,
The field, the founded city, marks ;
He marks the smiler of the streets,
The singer upon garden seats ;
26 THE JOY OF LIFE
He sees the climber in the rocks ;
To him the shepherd folds his flocks.
For those He loves that underprop
With daily virtues Heaven's top,
And bear the falling sky with ease,
Unfrowning Caryatides.
Those He approves that ply the trade,
That rock the child, that wed the maid,
That with weak virtues, weaker hands,
Sow gladness on the peopled lands,
And still with laughter, song and shout
Spin the great wheel of earth about.
R. L. STEVENSON, Our Lady of the Snows.
Let me conclude with a quotation from Chapter
xxv. of George Sorrow's Lavengro, published in 1851.
He is wandering along the heath till he comes to a
place where, beside a thick furze, he sees a man sitting,
his eyes fixed intently on the red ball of the setting sun.
Borrow recognizes him as an old gipsy acquaintance,
Jasper Petulengro, asks for news about the gipsy's family
and learns that he had in the interval lost father and
mother.
" What is your opinion of death, Mr. Petulengro ? "
said I, as I sat down beside him.
" My opinion of death, brother, is much the same as
that in the old song of Pharaoh, which I have heard my
grandam sing " — and then he gives a couple of Romany
lines, " When a man dies, he is cast into the earth, and
his wife and child sorrow over him. If he has neither
wife nor child, then his father or mother, I suppose ;
and if he is quite alone in the world, why, then, he is
cast into the earth, and there is an end of the matter."
" And do you think that is the end of a man ? "
" There's an end of him, brother, more's the pity."
" Why do you say so ? " " Life is sweet, brother."
THE JOY OF LIFE 27
" Do you think so ? " " Think so ! There's night
and day, brother, both sweet things ; sun, moon and
stars, brother, all sweet things ; there's likewise the wind
on the heath. Life is very sweet, brother ; who would
wish to die ? " "I would wish to die." " You talk like
a gorgio — which is the same as talking like a fool ; were
you a Rommany chal you would talk wiser. Wish to
die, indeed ! A Rommany chal would wish to live for
ever ! " " In sickness, Jasper ? " " There's the sun
and stars, brother." " In blindness, Jasper ? " " There's
the wind on the heath, brother ; if I could only feel
that, I would gladly live for ever. Dosta, we'll now go
to the tents and put on the gloves ; and I'll try to make
you feel what a sweet thing it is to be alive, brother."
This passage is referred to in Jane Helen Findlater's
Stones from a Glass House, where she says : " You may
search literature through for the like of this matchless
dialogue, which in half a page sums up the character
of both speakers — the anxious, foreboding, melancholy
questioner, the merry answerer, with his pagan creed
and joie de vivre." But I venture to think that we can
have the joie de vivre without the pagan creed.
ROMANCE IN THE MIDRASH
(Presidential Address at the Jews' College Literary Society,
October soth, 1904.)
We commence to-day a series of addresses by various
speakers on Romance in Jewish Literature. It was,
I am sure you will admit, a happy thought to connect
by some general unity of plan, the series of lectures to
be delivered here during the present session. The
subject, the syllabus and the lecturers — those of them
that are to follow me — are such as should attract a good
and appreciative audience. I cannot help expressing
the earnest hope that the attendance both of members
of the Society, and of others to whom we gladly offer
literary hospitality, will not only be maintained but
augmented in the course of the session. For although,
to those who indulge the romantic sentiment, solitude
is an advantage rather than otherwise, yet to a lecturer
on the literature of the subject few things are more
unsatisfying than to be left like —
The Lady of the Mere
Sole-sitting by the shores of old Romance.
The choice of the series is undoubtedly a happy one.
The very word Romance sends a thrill through the most
torpid veins. Nor need you hastily conclude that Jewish
literature will prove a barren field in which to dig for
gems of romantic beauty.
ROMANCE IN THE MTDRASH 29
Romance plays a far larger part in that literature than
the world, even the section of it which ought to know
better, is apt to imagine. The place it occupies ought
not indeed to surprise us. Literature cannot divorce
itself from history, and is not the whole of Jewish history
one in which the elements of wonder and mystery, the
long expected and the unexpected, perils and deliverances,
trials and triumphs, love and hate and all the primal
passions unite ?
I do not know what exactly is expected of me in this
Introductory address as President of the Society. But
whatever it be I am sure to disappoint it. It struck me
that instead of expatiating large o'er the whole scene of
Jewish Romance, I should do better and might prove
not more uninteresting if I confined myself to one
corner of it, though it involves a little breach in the
boundaries of the programme. To this I am tempted
partly by the power that is vested in me as President
a power which though not quite so far reaching as those
of an irresponsible autocrat is yet extensive enough.
You will remember that among the prerogatives of the
sovereign according to the Mishnah, is the liberty to
knock down anybody's party wall if the King wants
access to his own proper royal field or vineyard, and
none may let or hinder him ; that when there is spoil
going, he not only is entitled to half of it, but he can
make his choice of which half, and so forth. Now for
the session I am king. But though I am strong, through
the grace, the kindness and the loyalty of my colleagues,
I am also merciful. I therefore propose to take away —
with the consent or at least with the submission of the
gentleman who is to follow me — one corner of his already
too large domain, and to present, quite regardless of
30 ROMANCE IN THE MIDRASH
chronological or any other propriety, some romantic
elements in the Midrash. Like Heine's Jehudah ben
Halevi we turn aside from matters of greater importance,
and for refreshment we take refuge
In the blossoming Agada
Where are charming olden stories,
Tales of angels, famous legends,
Silent histories of martyrs,
Festal songs, and words of wisdom,
With hyperboles diverting,
All, however, faith sustaining,
Faith enkindling.
Indeed in regard to Midrashic literature from its
earliest manifestations, which Zunz finds already in
Chronicles and Daniel, to its latest development in the
Middle Ages, the difficulty is not how to meet but how
avoid meeting romantic elements. In every quarter an
idealizing tendency was at work. Birth and death
the beginning of all things and the end of all things,
Paradise and Gehenna, every important event, every
striking character in sacred history — over all is spread
the glow of Romance.
But on one or two points we need to be put on our
guard. We must not of course expect the long, set
romances which we are accustomed to understand by
that designation — the historical romance, the love
romance, the romance of adventure and of chivalry,
the pastoral, the rogue and vagabond and the robber
romance, the political, the Utopian, the supernatural.
But having said this, I feel almost impelled to retract
it. Even the Arthurian legend, with its chivalrous
settings, found its way into Hebrew lore in the thirteenth
century ; some even think that the borrowing was the
ROMANCE IN THE MIDRASH 31
other way. Long before that, Jewish literature in
Greek was enriched by such romances as those of Asenath,
in which both the love interest and the heroic is strong.
Deeds of prowess are performed by the heads of the
twelve tribes in some of these Greek and Aramaic romances
which compare with the most approved feats of chivalry.
Then, too, there is a Utopian romance curiously illus-
trated by the legends of the lost ten tribes, who are
sometimes represented as dwelling under conditions of
" virtuous and idyllic social life," such as cannot be
otherwise described than as Utopian. But despite
these and similar reservations I think that my generali-
zation may stand, especially as I am specially speaking
of the older Midrash.
Another thing that we must not expect, is to find in
the romances of the Midrash anything like historical
fidelity in details and accessories. That was a literary
virtue not yet born. The great painters before or on
the eve of the Renaissance equipped the ancient Jewish
warriors in knightly lance and armour, and surrounded
them with Italian scenery and mediaeval architecture.
A realistic, objective presentation of facts, such as
is seen in a Holman Hunt or a Tissot, was unknown.
Similarly the Rabbis of the Midrash gave to their
characters the very form and presence of their time,
not that of the time of the heroes and heroines they
celebrated. Scenery, costume, manners, atmosphere,
language, the very cast of thought and sentiments of
the age of the Agadists, are made to harmonize with
the age and characters they are depicting.
It would take us too far, and I should be, I fear, a very
inefficient conductor on the journey, if we were to
attempt to follow to their source the various streams
32 ROMANCE IN THE MIDRASH
from which the romantic elements of the Midrash were
drawn, or with which they were laterally connected.
But no fact is more surely established by the modern
science of folklore than that, in the use of the materials
for romance, there has ever prevailed a spirit of literary
communism, which recognizes no such thing as exclusive
proprietary rights. The Agadists accordingly do not
scruple to adopt suggestions and reproduce legends
from the most unexpected sources ; just as the Agada
in its turn gave rise to many imitations. Such borrowed
tales and ideas, however, invariably become modified
in a more or less Jewish sense in the process of adoption,
and reappear to inculcate some higher religious or
ethical purpose such as they had never served before.
Take the beautiful legend of Moses going in search
of the bones of Joseph when Israel is about to leave
Egypt. Observe, says the Mechilta (and with slight varia-
tions the same story reappears in Talmud Sota I3a,
Pesikta, and Debarim Rabba), the contrast between
the piety of Moses and the self-seeking of the mass of
the people. While they were only planning how they
might load themselves with the spoil of their enemies,
Moses was bent upon but one thing, how to keep faith
with the dead, who had put his brethren upon oath
that when they went forth to freedom his mortal remains
should accompany them. But how did Moses know the
burial-place of Joseph ? It is said that Serach the
daughter of Asher had alone survived of the contemporaries
of Joseph, and that she informed Moses. " Here," said
she, " the Egyptians laid him to rest ; they placed his
body in a metal sarcophagus, and sank it in the Nile."
Thereupon Moses went to the banks of the Nile, threw
a clod of earth into the stream, and cried aloud, " Joseph,
ROMANCE IN THE MIDRASH 33
Joseph, the time has come for the fulfilment of God's
promise to Abraham that he would deliver his offspring.
Now give glory to the God of Israel, and delay not our
redemption, for it is for thee that we tarry. If thou
appearest not, we are free from the oath thou hast laid
upon us." Forthwith the coffin of Joseph rose to the
surface, and Moses took it under his care.
And be not surprised, the Midrash continues, at the
heavy coffin rising at Moses' bidding. Did not Elisha
make the lost iron axe rise from the water ? What was
possible for Elisha, the servant of Elijah, is surely much
more possible for Moses, Elijah's master. This act
of loving piety on Moses' part was but measure for
measure. When Jacob died, it was Joseph, chief at
the time of his brethren, who made all the preparations
for the reverent interment of his father. It is Moses,
the chief of all Israel, who charges himself with the
care of Joseph's remains. These were placed in an ark,
and the Tables of Stone written with the finger of God
were also deposited in an ark, the two travelling side
by side. And men looked on with astonishment, and
asked, What means this ark containing the word of the
living God side by side with that holding the remains
of a dead man ? Then would Moses answer, He that
is laid in the one fulfilled what is written in the other.
Now, the first part of this striking passage is nothing
else than an echo, and a very exact echo, of the myth of
the Egyptian god Osiris. The identity of the two is
pointed out, both by Jellinek (in Weiss' Mechilta, xxi.)
and by Gudemann in his Religionsgeschichtliche Studien.
Plutarch (in De Isis et Osiride) relates how Typhon
induced his brother Osiris by guile to lay himself in a
coffer, whereupon he nailed the coffer down, poured
L.A. D
34 ROMANCE IN THE MIDRASH
molten lead upon it, and threw it into the Nile. Isis,
the wife of Osiris, having heard of the crime, wanders
through the land to discover the body of her husband ;
she learns from some children, to whom the Egyptians
assigned the gift of prophecy, the direction which the
coffer had taken, and she discovers it at last on the coast
of Phoenicia, whither the waves had carried it. The simi-
larity approximates to identity. Gudemann is of opinion
that fusion is even more complete than appears on the
surface. The Midrash is, he thinks, led to make a woman,
Serach, the discoverer of the whereabouts of Joseph's
coffin, because it is a female divinity who is concerned in
the recovery of the body of Osiris. In one of the accounts
Moses wanders for three days and nights vainly
searching for Joseph's remains — an incident which
recalls the wanderings of Isis bent on a similar quest.
And there is even an association in the sound of the
name Asher or Asser, the father of Serach, with that
of Osiris in the Egyptian form Assar or Hesiri.
All this is very ingenious, though I fancy the learned
doctor's ingenuity goes a little too far when he regards
the naive expression, " Be not surprised at the matter,"
be not surprised at a heavy coffin behaving in this
light fashion, as an indication that the Agadists were
uneasy, conscious of a certain incongruity in using pagan
material for Jewish purposes ; and to calm a not un-
natural surprise, said, " Now do not be surprised, Elisha
did something of the same sort." The spirit of romance,
especially of Jewish romance, is synthetical, not analytical.
The story was floating in the air, and it struck some one
to utilize it for one of those myths that have a habit of
growing up round the illustrious of long ago. The
" Be not surprised, because something has happened
ROMANCE IN THE MIDRASH 35
before equally surprising, which yet you will not
deny," is a well-known device of writers with a turn
for inventiveness ; it is calculated to give an air of
verisimilitude to their tale.
But the main thing is the high ethical purpose that
informs the whole legend — how that faithfulness is
more than riches ; that the more unselfish the deed —
and what can be more unselfish than the reverence we
pay to the dead who cannot repay us — the more sure
the recompense — a glorious paradox ; and that death
itself sets no term to the influence of the good life that
has been lived.
Favourite topics of romance are clever cases for
judges, rogue stories and biters bit.
Nowhere are the parallels more curious than in these
romantic episodes. There is, for instance, the story
told by Conon, contemporary of Caesar and Octavian.
A Milesian hands over his money in charge to a money-
changer in Teramene in Sicily. The money-changer,
when applied to for the return of the deposit, refuses
to comply with the demand. Summoned before the
judge, he has recourse to this trick : He hollows out a
stick, puts the money into it, and when about to take
the oath, gives the plaintiff the stick to hold. He
swears that he has returned the money. The lender,
infuriated at this perjury, flings the stick to the ground,
it breaks, and the money falls out.
Exactly the same story is told by the Midrash of the
cheat Ben Talamyon. With a few minor changes, the
same is related in the Talmud in a case where Raba, of
the fourth century, acts as judge in Babylon. The story
is told as a reason why, whenever witnesses come
before the court, they have to be exhorted to the effect,
36 ROMANCE IN THE MTDRASH
" Know that the oath we impose on you is to be taken,
not in any sense you choose to give it, with mental
reservation, but according to the thought of God and
of the court of justice."
A curious thing is pointed out by Dr. P. F. Frankl,
that in the thirteenth century the same story is told for
the glory of St. Nicholas ; the deceiver is a Christian,
the deceived a Jew ; but the end of the legend is that
as it was owing to the wonder-working saint that the
fraud was detected, the Jew becomes baptized and the
saint and the Church are glorified. I need not remind
you that this same tale occurs among the adventures
of Sancho Panza. Parallels of this kind could be
greatly increased were one to include in this summary
survey the later mediaeval romances, especially such
entertaining books as Joseph Zabara's Book of Delight.
It is an arresting thought that many of the stories,
which were frankly droll, mischievous and sprite-like in
their humour, are to be found in the Midrash on the Book
of Echa or Lamentations, which we should expect to find
filled with nought but melancholy matter.
Perhaps it is purposely designed : the gloom of the
serious part of the work is all the deeper by reason of
contrast with the humour of the other part. Or may
there not be a good deal in the thesis about which old
Robert Burton has something to say, Why witty
people are mostly melancholy men ? Anyhow, there in
Midrash Echa you have stories of the droll kind that
passed into the literature of Arabs and Persians, thence
into the Italian and other European literatures. There
you have the tale of the one-eyed Jewish servant whom
an Athenian bought in Jerusalem, and who could tell
what sort of people formed a travelling company ;
ROMANCE IN THE MIDRASH 37
of the mules ahead, and of one beast who was a she-camel
blind in one eye, and of the burden on her back and so
forth ; the original, in fact, of Voltaire's Zadig, and a far-
off ancestor of our friend Sherlock Holmes. Again, we
have tales like that of the man who, invited to partake
of a meal at the house of a stranger, and urged to dis-
tribute the food himself, does so in this striking fashion.
Five fowls have been provided for dinner. At the table
sit host and hostess, two sons, two daughters, and the
stranger. Then the visitor gives a fowl to the master
and mistress of the house, another to the two sons, a
third to the daughters, and keeps the other two for
himself. He is challenged on the equity of the pro-
ceeding. Oh, says he, that is quite right : you two and
one fowl equal three, etc. ; I and two fowls also equal
three.
There, too, you can read of the man of Jerusalem
who goes to an inn in Athens and asks for a night's
lodging. The people eating and drinking say to him,
No one is allowed to stay here, no one is free of the
house, unless he can do three jumps. What jumps ?
Show me, and I'll try to copy you. Then one of the
company shows how it is done. With one spring he
reaches the middle of the hall, with the next the door,
and with the next he is outside the building. The
Jerusalemite rushes forward and bars the door. By
your life, he exclaims, as you meant to do to me I
have done to you. All rather primitive, I fear, and not
up to the standard of the new humour.
Drinking stories enter largely into the fabric of
romances everywhere. The Jewish moralist, as was to
be expected, was not behind others in his praise of
sobriety and condemnation of drunkenness, and he
38 ROMANCE IN THE MIDRASH
sought to gain access to men's hearts by arraying
the truth in some romantic garb. Amidst much of
weight which the Midrashim have to say on this sub-
ject, nothing perhaps is more telling than the story
related, with slight variations, in the Midrash Tan-
chuma and Midrash Abchir concerning the plant-
ing of Lot's vineyard. While Noah was about to
plant his vineyard, Satan suddenly appeared to
him. " What is this thou art doing ? " "I am
planting a vineyard." " What good dost thou ex-
pect from it ? " " Moist or dried its fruit is sweet,
and from the juice thereof is made wine that rejoiceth
the heart of man." " Come," said Satan, " let us
be partners in this affair." " With pleasure," answered
Noah. Thereupon Satan brought to the spot a lamb,
a lion, a pig and an ape. He slew them one after the
other by the side of the vine, and let the blood of these
animals saturate its roots. And ever after the effect of
this act has been traced in such as drink of the juice
of the grape. If a man drinks a glass he is gentle,
meek and mild like a lamb. If he drinks a couple of
glasses he becomes rather leonine, with a tendency to
be on the rampage, and to talk big, and say, " Who is
my equal ? " If he goes on drinking he becomes like
a pig, wallowing in the mire. If he still continues, he
is an ape, with nothing left him but a revolting sem-
blance of the manhood he has himself degraded.
I rather like the part the devil plays here. No pro-
fessional temperance orator could have done it better.
Which is only another proof that the devil is not as
black as he is painted.
But while the serious side of this great evil is mainly
emphasized, the humorous side is also not overlooked.
ROMANCE IN THE MIDRASH 39
In the following (Vayikra R. 12) one sees the humour
and the oddity of the story, though it is not quite easy
to read the moral. There was once a man who was a
confirmed drunkard. To gratify his passion he sold
bit by bit all the furniture and utensils in his house.
His sons began to be alarmed. " If our father continues
thus we shall not have a thing left in the place." So
they adopted a drastic method to cure him. One day
they plied him heavily with drink, and when he had
become unconscious they carried him out and deposited
him in a hollow or cave of the cemetery. " When he
awakes," said they, " he will be greatly alarmed ; he
will not know how he got there, and in his terror he
will repent of his evil ways and resolve to amend his
life."
Now it happened that while the inveterate toper was
lying there, a company of wine merchants passed that
way, having with them asses laden with leather bottles
full of wine for sale in the city. At that moment a riot
broke out in the city, the noise of which reached them
and filled them with such fear that they unloaded their
asses, and deposited the wine at the very hollow in which
the drunkard, unseen by them, lay asleep. Shortly
afterwards he awoke, saw the glad vision of wine bottles
all around him and quite near him, undid the mouth
of one of the bottles, applied it to his own, drank its
contents where he lay in perfect bliss, and fell asleep
again. Meanwhile, the sons were growing curious to
know what had happened, and repaired to the burial-
ground ; there they were astounded to behold their
father bottle to mouth. " Here, too," they exclaimed,
" Providence — the Providence that watches over drunk-
ards— will not forsake thee. There is nothing for it
40 ROMANCE IN THE MIDRASH
but that we should take our father to our homes, each
of us (there were four of them) agreeing to provide him
in turns with drink for a day."
The moral of this little drink story — which in its
many features reappears in a good many places — is
not very obvious. Perhaps, like many other romances,
it was never intended to have a moral.
Sometimes we might almost be reading a passage
from some old Miracle Play, machinery, characters,
situation often lend themselves to the illusion.
Take a single illustration. For dramatic power,
vivid and incisive dialogue, for the way of presenting the
case of man distracted by a conflict of duties — that old
yet ever new problem in life — it is doubtful whether
any of the old moralities or miracle plays can compare
with the development under the Midrash of the Abra-
ham and Isaac legend.
Now there is no scriptural character, not excepting
that of Moses, with which legend has been more busy
than that of Abraham. A collection of all the stories
and myths of which he is the centre and hero fills a
respectable volume. Of these there is one group to
which I would draw your attention. It has an interest
and an instructi veness of its own . I refer to the part which
is assigned to Satan in the life and trials of the patriarch.
Gathering the statements on this subject, found in the
Talmud, the Tanchuma, Yalkut, Tana debe Eliahu,
Sepher Hayashar and Bereshith Kabbah and other
Midrashim (Vayosha), they may be presented in the
following consecutive form : —
On the day when Isaac was weaned Abraham gave a
grand banquet, to which not only his own kinsmen, but
all the neighbouring princes and nobles were invited.
ROMANCE IN THE MIDRASH 41
While the feast was progressing, Satan, in the form of
a decrepit man, presented himself at the patriarch's door
to beg an alms from the richly furnished feast. He
was refused, and Abraham and Sarah were too busily
occupied with their exalted guests to notice what had
happened. In that moment Satan found his occasion
to accuse Abraham before the Lord of the universe.
There came the day when the sons of God (angels)
appeared before the Eternal ; among them also the
accusing spirit, called also Satan, the adversary, the
hinderer, or Samael, he that blinds, because he blinds
and misleads men. " Whence comest thou ? " said
God to him. " From going to and fro upon the earth
and from walking up and down in it." " What hast thou
to tell me of the doings of the sons of men ? " " Verily,
I have observed that the sons of men only pray to
Thee and serve Thee so long as they want something
from Thee. When their wrants are satisfied, they for-
sake Thee and think of Thee no more. There is Abra-
ham, the son of Terah, so long as he was childless he built
Thee altars, worshipped Thee and proclaimed Thy name
among all the inhabitants of the land. Now that Thou
hast blessed him with offspring in his old age, he for-
sakes Thee. He prepared a feast for all the great ones
of the earth, and to a poor and needy person who begged
for a trifling gift he would give nought. Thee, O Lord,
he forgot entirely, for he offered Thee not a single thank
or burnt offering of all the cattle and fowl which he
slew for Isaac's weaning festival. Where, indeed, are
the altars he has since erected in Thy honour ? He
has even made a covenant with an idolatrous prince
(Abimelech) ; he, the man whom Thou hast specially
chosen." And the Lord answered him : " Hast thou
42 ROMANCE IN THE MIDRASH
well considered My servant Abraham, that there is
none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright
man, one that feareth God and escheweth evil ? That
feast he prepared only for his son's sake ; but, as I live,
were I to command him to offer up that very child as
a burnt offering, he would not deny him to Me. That
he has made a covenant with Abimelech was prompted
by the desire to prepare a path of peace, that concord
might prevail on the earth, and that he who is far off
might be brought near to the upright and the just."
" Well, then," replied the Satan, "do as Thou hast
spoken ; bid him offer up his son. See if he will fulfil
Thy behest and not contend against it."
The command is given : Abraham sets out upon his
journey towards Moriah with his son. On the road a
man, bent double with age, meets him. It is the Satan.
" Whither goest thou ? " he asks. " To pray to the
Lord." " What does he who goes forth to pray want
with fire and knife and with wood upon his shoulders ? "
" Well, we may be delayed a day or two and require
food to be got ready for us to eat." " Nay, thou
deceivest me not, aged man. Was I not present when the
Holy One bade thee take thy son as an offering ? Ought
an old man like thee to go and quench the life of a
child given him when he had reached an hundred years.
Thinkest thou another son will be granted thee ? Be-
lieve it not, it is not the voice of God but of Satan that
thou hast heard. Would God, who so loves thee, try
thee so severely — thee, who hast taught the truth to many
and strengthened the weak." But Abraham is uncon-
vinced. "This is not piety," continues Satan, "it is
folly. To-morrow He will charge thee with murder."
But Abraham remains firm in his original purpose.
ROMANCE IN THE MIDRASH 43
Foiled in his attempts upon the father, the adversary
tries his arts with the son. He assumes the form of a
youth and takes up his position at the right hand of
Isaac. " Whither art thou bent ? " "To study the
law of God." " Indeed ! When ? while thou livest,
or after thou art dead ? " " Who can learn after his
death ? " he innocently replies. "Oh, miserable son
of a miserable mother. How many a day did thy
mother spend in fasting and in prayer before thou wast
born ? And now this old man, who has fallen into his
dotage, is about to slay thee." " And yet I will follow
him," said Isaac. " In vain then have been all the
sufferings inflicted upon Ishmael that he might not be
the heir." " I will not transgress the will of my Creator,
nor the command of my father." But if the whole does
not reach the half does. It is the peculiar character
of slanderous speech that when the whole does not obtain
admission to the mind a part does. And Isaac, not
totally uninfluenced by what he had heard, exclaimed
in a pitiful tone, " My father, my father," and related
what had just passed. " Heed it not," answered Abra-
ham. " These are but Satan's devices, to make thee
waver in the fear of God." The adversary is not yet
defeated however ; all sorts of obstacles are placed in
the way of the wanderers ; a stream rises where there
never was water before and reaches to their necks ;
but Abraham is convinced that it is but one of the delu-
sions prepared by the Satan ; and praying to God that
he should remember how without fear and without
delay he had fulfilled the divine command, and yet now
when the end of duty seemed in view, the waters were
flooding his soul, the danger vanishes, and they stand
on dry ground. One final effort Satan makes. He
44 ROMANCE IN THE MTDRASH
takes Abraham aside and whispers to him, " Thy pur-
pose has come to nought. The news has been secretly
brought to me that God will accept a ram and not thy
son as an offering." But Abraham's answer is, " Such
is the punishment of a liar, that even when he speaks
the truth he is not believed." And freeing himself
from the tempter he pursues his course.
Now what is the meaning of the whole of this remark-
able series of legends ? It is from first to last a fine
psychological study. It depicts in living and moving
forms the weakness and the strength of human nature ;
the convulsions of the heart in which the struggle be-
tween duty and desire is being fought out. With con-
summate skill and wonderful pathos, mingled with a
vein of satire not necessarily inimical to the pathetic,
the legend describes the doubts, hesitations, the plau-
sible arguments that find entrance into the mind even
of the best of men, when the task before them runs
counter to their interests or affections, but is ordained
by the voice of God within.
Rarely if ever have I been so impressed at a theatre
as I was when I was present at a performance of Every-
man. This Morality Play belongs to the end of the
fifteenth century. The plot is simple. Everyman is
summoned by Death, and seeks among his former com-
rades for a friend to join him on his long journey. First
he appeals to Fellowship, then to Kindred, then Riches ;
but all fail him. " Good-deeds " alone is willing to
come with him, but until Everyman does penance Good-
deeds is too weak to walk. And while Beauty, Strength,
Discretion, Five- Wits go with him to the grave's brink,
there to leave him, Good-deeds abides with him in the
tomb.
ROMANCE IN THE MIDRASH 45
All earthly thing is but vanity :
Beauty, Strength, and Discretion, do man forsake,
Foolish friends and kinsmen, that fair spake,
All fleeth save Good-deeds, and that am I.
It is scarcely to be doubted that the dramatist derived
his idea from the Midrash. Peter Borland of Diest,
the author, was a historian and theologian, and may
well have read some Midrash. At all events, the paral-
lel between Everyman and the following passage from
the thirty-fourth chapter of the Pirke de Rabbi Eleazar
(ninth century) is sufficiently close to make it probable
that the plot of the former was borrowed from the
latter. " Every man hath three friends in his lifetime ;
and these are they — his children and grandchildren, his
money, and his good deeds. At the hour of his departure
fronf the world he summons his children and household,
and says to them : I entreat you, come and deliver me
from the evil judgment of death. But they answer
him, saying: Hast thou not heard that there is none
that hath rule in the day of death ? Is it not written :
' A man cannot redeem a brother,' nor can his money,
which he loves, save him, for ' he cannot give unto God
his ransom price.' But go thou in peace, they say to
him, rest upon thy couch, and rise again to thine allotted
place in the end of days, and may thy portion be with
the saints of the earth. When he sees this he gathers
unto him his money, and says to him : Much trouble
did I take for thee day and night ; I beg thee, ransom me
from this death and deliver me. But money answers :
Hast thou not heard ' Money will avail nought in the
day of wrath.' Thereafter he bringeth in his Good-
deeds, and he says to them: Come ye and deliver me from
this death ; be ye my support, and leave me not to
46 ROMANCE IN THE MIDRASH
depart from the world, for I have hope of salvation in
you. And they say unto him : Go in peace. Before
thou art come thither we will be there before thee, as
it is written, ' Thy righteousness shall go before thee,
and the glory of the Lord will gather thee in.' '
No theme of romance has in the course of centuries
had a wider circulation among the nations alike of the
east and of the west than the myths that group them-
selves round the figure of Alexander the Great. The
life and person of the great conqueror had every quality
that appeals to the popular imagination. Accounts of
his expedition into Asia, with all the wonders it revealed,
are said to have been written by Callisthenes and others
of his companions in arms, but these records, themselves
it is believed sufficiently marvellous, have been lost,
and a halo of myths has ever since encircled the head of
the hero. The chief source for these is Pseudo-Callis-
thenes, who wrote his fabulous history in Alexandria
at the commencement of the third century. The Alexan-
der myths form material, not only for the Greek and
Latin storytellers, but for Persian and Arab poets, and
for the romance writers in nearly every European lan-
guage during the middle ages.
To the Jews, Alexander the Great was a specially
acceptable personality. During his invasion of Asia he
had shown regard for their religious feelings, had spared
the Temple every indignity, and had treated the people
with great magnanimity. It is not surprising, there-
fore, that they also should draw him within the circle
of Agadic Romance. While either utilizing Plutarch
(in his Life of Alexander] and Pseudo- Callisthenes or
drawing from the same sources as these writers, the
Rabbis of the Talmud and Midrash here and there
ROMANCE IN THE MIDRASH 47
moulded the material to their own conceptions. The
temptation is very enticing to ask you to join Alexan-
der the Great on his visit to Jerusalem and in his
interview with the high priest, or to listen to his ten ques-
tions to the wise men of the south and to their answers,
or to accompany him to darkest Africa, where there
was a city of Amazons, who showed him the folly of
fighting with them, and whom he left with the confession
that he had been a fool, but that he had been taught
wisdom by women. But I cannot touch on these, nor
repeat the lesson he received in justice from King Kazia,
who also lived beyond the dark mountains ; nor the
story of his ascent into the air, and his descent into
the sea in a sort of diving bell ; nor of his visit to
the Gate of Paradise, and of what he there learned. All
this would take an hour by itself, and is, moreover, the
subject of a special lecture announced for next week.
The most frequently recurring mark in romantic
literature is respect for womanhood. A lofty estimate
of the character of woman, amid a certain cynical de-
preciation, runs through the Midrash. I think it is the
case that those sections of Jewish folklore in which
woman is held in low esteem are borrowed from India.
In the purely Jewish romance the more ideal char-
acterizations of woman recur constantly.
God endows woman at the creation with riper or
more rapidly maturing intellectual gifts than man.
At the giving of the Torah, it is the House, that is the
women, of Jacob who are first addressed : " Thus shalt
thou say to the House of Jacob and tell the sons of
Israel," a hint of her due place and influence in the
religious life.
But this point is so well known that I need not labour
48 ROMANCE IN THE MIDRASH
it. What one must insist upon in this context is the
great part played by the love motif in the Jewish
romance. Chief among these romances is that of
Akiba who, as a shepherd, marries the daughter of his
wealthy master, then betakes himself to study, is sup-
ported by her in his student years, and ends by bringing
honour upon her in his years of fame. Their love became
a proverbial example of the devotion and happiness
which came from marriage made in heaven. The
Midrash lingers over the tale with obvious delight,
and if I do not so linger it is because I take it that you
already know and love the story well. Perhaps, how-
ever, a word or two more are needed on the point I
dismissed just now.
The legal position of woman apart, there is traceable
throughout the Midrash an appreciation of womanhood
which if it does not lose itself in the clouds and has not
much in common with the extravagance of chivalry,
never sinks in the mire with other oriental romances,
the Hitopadesa or such as the tales that form the
staple of much of the post-classical romantic literature
of Europe, like the Gesta Romanorum, and Contes
and Gestes. One might even contrast the mediaeval
Jewish writers of fables, strongly influenced as they
often were by non- Jewish models, with the Midrashic
authors, very much to the advantage of the latter.
Readers of the Mishle Sendebar, and the Jewish version
of the fables of Bidpai, know how few of them are
quotable before a mixed audience. One must admit
that women are handled very roughly by these humorists.
Their wickedness and deceitfulness are inexhaustible
themes. The writers must have followed their models
too slavishly or must have been very unfortunate in
ROMANCE IN THE MIDRASH 49
their female acquaintances. Something also must
perhaps be set down to the fact that women had not
yet taken to writing romances themselves, or they might
have given the other side of the picture, though it is
by no means a dogmatic certainty, for when women
authors do draw dark pictures of their sisters no mere
male can compete with them.
Let us now turn to another specimen of love romance
from the Midrash.
Solomon had sinned, was swallowed by Ashmedai,
who then spat him out at a distance of 400 miles. Three
years he remained in exile for his three sins. A wan-
dering beggar, he exclaimed everywhere, " I, Solomon,
was king in Jerusalem." He came to the capital of
Ammon, stood idle in the market place, begging a
piece of bread. The king's head cook came to purchase
provisions, loaded his attendants with them and sent
them back to the palace. On this occasion he had
bought more than they could carry, and noticing Solomon
among the beggars engaged him to carry the rest.
Solomon asked to be employed in the royal kitchen,
and to receive his daily bread for wage. Solomon
gave the chef advice how to improve the cuisine, and
the chef was so struck that he allowed him to prepare
the special dishes for the king. The king noticed the
change for the better, asked for the explanation, heard
from the chef what had happened, sent for Solomon
and gave him a life appointment as head cook to the
court.
Now the king had an only daughter whose name
was Naama, and (in regular romance fashion) chef and
princess fell in love and became betrothed to each other.
A few days afterwards a letter arrived from another
L.A. E
50 ROMANCE IN THE MIDRASH
Court seeking an alliance by marriage with the family of
the King of Ammon. The King of Ammon sent for his
daughter and told her of the marriage he intended to
agree to on her behalf. " My dear father," said the
princess, " What do I care for wealth and station ? the
chief consideration is the man I am to marry : for me
there is only one husband possible — it is the royal chef ;
his wisdom is great and he understands everything.
In fact I am already engaged to him." When the king
heard this he was so incensed that he would have put
them both to death, but the queen interceded and dis-
suaded him from this extreme measure. However, the
king turned them both out of the palace and drove them
forth into the wilderness.
The twain now wandered together from place to
place. They came to a river where they saw a man
fishing. Solomon bought the fish, and on opening it
found a ring in its inside with the name of God engraved
on it, which confers upon its possessor miraculous
powers. Solomon took the ring, placed it on his finger
and immediately became another man. The spirit of
God descended again upon him ; he returned to Jerusa-
lem, made himself known to the Sanhedrin, who restored
him to his rightful place. Ashmedai, the demon, fled as
soon as he caught sight of him. Solomon was king once
more, and Naama became a good Jewess.
Now the King of Ammon was a vassal to Solo-
mon, and, when things had settled down, Solomon
wrote to the King of Ammon to request his and the
queen's attendance at the court of Jerusalem. This
request the King of Ammon saw no way of evading,
and so he harnessed his chariot and with his consort
paid a visit to his overlord. They were very cordially
ROMANCE IN THE MIDRASH 51
received. They were entertained at a banquet, and
the two kings made very merry. In the course of
their conversation Solomon asked the King of Ammon
why he had not brought with him his daughter Naama,
of whose beauty Solomon had heard much. His guest
told him what had happened. " But," said Solomon,
" thou wast wrong in withholding thy consent, since
the bridegroom was a very wise man, and thy daughter
was very fond of him." At that point Solomon
arose and went into another apartment. He and his
queen then put on the garments they wore when they
were driven forth from Ammon, and thus attired
they reappeared before the king their visitor and his
wife. These recognized the couple immediately,
and wondered exceedingly how they had come there.
It was only when Solomon again put on his royal apparel
that they identified the king with the whilom head
cook. The King of Ammon then fell at Solomon's feet
and implored his forgiveness. But King Solomon raised
the other gently and affectionately, showed him all
honour and sent him away in peace and rejoicing.
But the love motif is by the Midrash employed for
nobler purposes than this. No figure for representing
the relations between God and Israel is more frequent
in the Bible than that of wedlock. Here was a spring
of romance practically inexhaustible. But the subject,
which in later hands so often fell and dragged others
into licentiousness, never sinks in the hands of the
true Agadists. An unerring instinct of delicacy saves
them, even though the standpoint be the ancient and
oriental one which makes the wife the husband's
subordinate.
Now she is the affianced, now the wedded wife. At
52 ROMANCE IN THE MIDRASH
one time her heart is wrung in a very agony of remorse
and contrition ; at another she exults in a perfect
ecstasy of bliss. Very bold, indeed, is the heroine of
the following parable (Yalkut, Canticles 982).
A king, displeased with his wife, bids her leave his
house, but she shall not be ungenerously treated. What-
ever object is most precious in her estimation she is
free to take with her from her husband's to her father's
abode. Sorrowingly she submits to her hard fate —
but what extremity can baffle the artifice of love ?
She gives a last sumptuous banquet to her lord, after
which he falls asleep. Then she calls in her father's
servants, and gently under her direction they lift and
carry the sleeping monarch to the house of the queen's
father. There he awakes. " What does it mean ? How
come I here ? " " Didst thou not give me leave to carry
with me what I hold dearest and most precious. I have
thought and searched, but I have found nothing so
dear and precious to me as thyself." So Israel in exile
says, " Better to me is the law of Thy mouth than
thousands of silver and gold. The Lord is the portion
of mine inheritance. For Jacob hath chosen unto
himself the Lord."
Not less exquisite is the picture drawn in the Midrash
of Zion, once lone and expectant, again united to her
Heavenly Spouse. It is (Canticles Rabba) founded on
the words of Canticles i. 4, " We will be glad and rejoice
in Thee." A queen is introduced whose husband and
sons and sons-in-law go to a far-off land. Time passes,
and tidings at length are brought to her, " Thy sons have
come back." " Cause for joy will my daughters-in-
law have." Next the news reaches her, " Thy sons-
in-law are coming." " Cause for gladness will my
53
daughters have." At last the tidings are brought,
" The king thy husband is coming." On which she
exclaims, " This is indeed perfect joy, joy upon joy."
So in the latter days will the prophets come and say
to Jerusalem, "Thy sons shall come from afar" (Isa.
Ix. 4) ; and she will say, " What gladness is this to me ? "
" And thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side," and
again she will say, " What gladness is this to me ? "
But when they say to her, " Behold, thy King cometh
unto thee ; he is just and victorious (Zech. ix. 9), then
will Zion say, " This indeed is perfect joy," as it is written
(Zech. ix. 9), Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion " — "Sing
and rejoice, O daughter of Zion " (Zech. ii. 10). In that
hour she will say (Is. Ixi. 10) "I will greatly rejoice in
the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God."
It is in scenes like these, in pictures of the days of
the Messiah, of the glories and the happiness long post-
poned that yet must come — that the fancy of the Jewish
romanticists revelled. Not the past but the future
was for him the richest field. The best was yet to
be. This it was that enabled the Jew always to
keep heart of grace amid surroundings and conditions
that would have crushed the life and spirit out of him.
Romance for one so beset, all the ages through, was
one of the very necessities of his being. Life had
hardly been tolerable without it.
Many a green isle needs must be
In the deep wide sea of misery,
Or the mariner, worn and wan,
Never thus could voyage on —
Day and night, and night and day,
Drifting on his weary way,
With the solid darkness black
Closing round his vessel's track.
(Shelley : Lines written among the Euganean Hills).
54 ROMANCE IN THE MIDRASH
So too with the romance of the Midrash. Its
poetry, its imaginative power, its ingenuity — great
though all these were — signified less in the mind of the
Jew than did its provision of an oasis in the desert of
life, a promise of happier things soon to come. With
almost magical touch it gilded the present with the
near hues of the future. The glory of the approach-
ing dawn tinged the last hours of the long night. It
was this romantic strain in the Midrash that made its
reader always so eager to believe that the long night
was almost over. And to believe this is to remove
the deepest gloom from the darkness.
And more. The ideal was there, but it did not pro-
duce, as the worship of the ideal often does, disgust
with the real. The Jew was too sane for that : it
made him fitter to face the real, to deal with it, to
make the best of it — and so unconsciously perhaps,
but not ineffectually, to bring it itself a stage nearer
to the ideal.
IS SALVATION POSSIBLE AFTER
DEATH ?
(A contribution to a " Clerical Symposium " on the subject in the
Homiletical Magazine, May, 1885.)
Is salvation possible after death ? The question is
framed with noteworthy caution. Answered in the
affirmative, it ought to unite a large number and a
great variety of minds, ranging from those who are
conscious of a faint whispering of hope to those who
have attained all but moral certitude in regard to this
solemn subject. It is evident that to say that salvation
is possible after death, is asserting far less on the affir-
mative side than the proposition that such salvation
is impossible asserts on the negative. In the latter
case you dogmatically announce a final closing of the
door on the other side of the grave ; in the former, you
do not proclaim the exact opposite ; you merely give
expression to the belief that, under certain conditions,
the gate of salvation may be opened even hereafter.
In the Old Testament the whole subject of the state
of man hereafter is touched with so light a hand that
we are conscious of space rather than form, and are
roused to hopes and fears which can no more be defined
than they can be localized. Certain it is that the few
passages once held to be destructive of all future hope
for the sinner are no longer believed to be burdened
55
56 IS SALVATION POSSIBLE AFTER DEATH ?
with such a sense by many of the most competent
exegetes. When Isaiah (xxxiii. 14) puts into the mouths
of the sinners of Zion the words, " Who among us can
dwell with the devouring fire ? Who among us can
dwell with perpetual burnings ? " his intention is not
to draw a harrowing picture of future torments, but
to emphasize the idea that " only that which willingly
yields itself to be God's organ can abide those flames
— the fire of God's self-manifesting love and wrath "
(see Cheyne, The Prophecies of Isaiah}. The material
figures employed in Isaiah Ixvi. 24 and Malachi iv. 1-3,
seem almost intentionally designed to guard against
that very error into which the popular interpretation
has fallen. As to the " everlasting contempt " of Daniel
xii. 2, it is certain that " olam " has there as elsewhere
the sense not of an infinite but of an indefinite period —
a view for which additional support may be derived
by comparing " olam " of the second with " leolam
vaed," " for ever and ever," of the third verse. Ex-
pressions like " that soul shall be cut off from its people,"
or, " I will destroy that soul from the midst of its people,"
imply a severance of the soul either in this life or in the
next, or perhaps in both, from those with whom to be
in communion is one of its chief joys ; but they have
no reference to the subject under discussion, and leave
it quite unsettled. The more hopeful passages, and
these are far more numerous, do also not deal directly
with the matter in hand. From the mode in which
they present the Deity to us, as a Being just in all His
ways and gracious in all His works, they furnish us
with grounds for inferring that salvation is possible
after death : they do not authorize the belief in so many
words. With what has been said under this head by
IS SALVATION POSSIBLE AFTER DEATH ? 57
Prebendary Stanley Leathes, in the calm and thoughtful
paper in which he has commenced this Symposium, I
cordially agree.
At this point, however, I hold myself free to depart
from the views of my predecessor. The very circum-
stance that the Old Testament speaks with no certain
note on the subject leaves me, I conceive, at liberty to
argue it on its own merits.
I. The ethical element underlying all penalties is
that they shall be either deterrent or reformative.
Punishment inflicted by a moral being is intended
either to prevent others, by the example of suffering,
from being guilty of similar wrong, or to hinder the
offender from sinning again, and so to reform and im-
prove him. Penalties in which neither of these motives
operates are the result of vindictiveness. Now we
cannot conceive God as punishing from this last motive.
But if all potentiality of salvation disappears with
death, that is, if the doom of the impenitent sinner is
finally and irrevocably fixed at his death, then his
sufferings can have neither a deterrent nor a reformative
effect. They cannot have a deterrent effect upon
other spirits — even supposing these to be conscious
of the sinner's fate — because they are themselves,
by the hypothesis, either among the finally saved or
among the finally lost. They cannot have a reformative
effect upon the sin-laden soul, because with the death of
all its hopes of salvation die also all its motives for
improvement. A terminable punishment, or even one
gradually diminishing in intensity, so as ultimately to
offer relative if not absolute happiness to the sinner, may
be conceived as fulfilling this condition ; and thus the
possibility of salvation after death results from the
58 IS SALVATION POSSIBLE AFTER DEATH ?
very purposes for which punishment is inflicted by a
moral being.
II. From the point of view of all religion, the grand
purpose of the creation of man is that he should work
out the greatest attainable perfection of his own soul,
and secure for it that condition hereafter which we call
salvation. As a fact, there are none who are uniformly
true to this aim throughout their earthly life. Sins,
varying in number and in weight, burden the souls of
all. Take now any one of the worst cases. On the
supposition that God's displeasure entails for the sinner
irrevocable forfeiture of all his prospects of salvation,
the object for which God called man into being has been
thwarted. God appoints man unto glory, and man,
in the exercise of his corrupt will, renders the purpose
of God impossible of achievement. What an awful
power is that, which on such a theory is vested in every
sinner. Not only can he accomplish the destruction
of his own soul, or of his soul's eternal happiness, but
also the defeat of the loftiest and most beneficent aims
of the Deity. Terminable suffering, suffering propor-
tioned to the guilt of the evil-doer, would not interfere
with the ultimate achievement of the Divine plan.
Rather must such punishment — if we conceive it not
as vindictive but as vindicative, not as resentful but as
reformative — aid in the final accomplishment of the
great scheme of mercy. But deprivation of all hopes
of reinstatement in God's favour ; condemnation to a
never-ending banishment ; or — what would seem pre-
ferable to either — the complete annihilation of any
one soul ; negatives the possibility of the Divine plan
being accomplished in regard to that soul. The theory
denies, or at least, it does not concede to God in another
IS SALVATION POSSIBLE AFTER DEATH ? 59
life that power He so often loves to exercise in this —
the power of turning to good the evil thoughts and
deeds of man. It makes man mightier for evil than
God is for good.
III. Let us approach the question from another side,
that of the moral constitution of man. Wherever we
look, we perceive that " faults " break the golden
continuity of the noblest lives, and that gems sparkle
in the dry dust of the most degraded. The notion that
all men can be divided into two distinct classes, with
sharp lines of demarcation separating them, that they
can be confidently labelled " black " and " white,"
is giving way to a more rational appreciation of human
nature. There is in the members of the human family
such a diversity of shading, so endless a variety of
combinations of good and evil elements, that Omniscience
alone can distinguish among them all. For such crea-
tures as we are, what else can justice demand but a
penalty in proportion to our misdeeds ? As these vary
in enormity and extent, so may the punishment vary in
intensity and endurance. But the absolute reprobation
of the worst sinner, his condemnation, that is, to under-
go a penalty that shall have no end, is excluded by
every notion we can form of the justice of God.
Prebendary Stanley Leathes argues : — If sin is a falling
away from God, is it not conceivable that the longer
the falling away is continued, the more hopeless it must
become, and, if so, must not perpetual alienation from
God involve the perpetual inability of being reconciled to
Him ? But here it is evident that " perpetual " is used
in two senses that differ as widely as the span of human
life differs from eternity. How are we to balance the
one against the other ? Even a life of unmitigated sin,
60 IS SALVATION POSSIBLE AFTER DEATH ?
if such a thing were possible, seventy or eighty years of
continued rebellion against God's will, would not be fairly
met by an everlasting banishment from His love. No
human life, no conceivable extent of time bears any pro-
portion to eternity. But while such a case is purely sup-
posititious, lives in which virtue and vice are mingled in
endless complexity, are facts to which experience every-
where testifies. " Between the lowest saint who is saved,
and the most amiable sinner who is lost, the difference
must be very slight, yet the difference in their destinies
is infinite." If there be such a consequence attached to
sin as the forfeiture of all chance of salvation hereafter,
have we not — we who by our very natures are never
entirely free from sin, seeing that " there is no just man
on earth who doeth only good and sinneth not " — have
we not a right to know at what stage of evil-doing our
condemnation passes from temporary and partial, to
eternal and total loss of salvation ; have we not a right
to know this at least as clearly as we know what the
offences are for which a human tribunal exchanges its
milder penal inflictions for the irreversible penalty of
death ? Shall the Judge of all the earth not do justice ?
Shall He inflict a punishment which in regard to its
chief issue, is absolutely indiscriminating and irreversible ?
If this were so, what a terrible fate would await the best
of us in that death from which we cannot escape ! What
an unspeakable misfortune that life would be which was
none of our seeking ! It is well that such a gloomy
doctrine should have the light of day cast upon it ; for
it is one which, in the pregnant words of a Jewish
philosopher, " has rendered almost as many men practi-
cally wretched in this life, as it theoretically damns in
the next" (Mendelssohn's Jerusalem, 106, ed. 1783).
IS SALVATION POSSIBLE AFTER DEATH ? 61
V.Tiat are the arguments by which these conclusions
are met ?
1. It is contended that we have no right to bind
God with human cords ; to assign to Him an ethical
system which happens to be in vogue among mortals ;
to measure His standard of justice and mercy by our
own. I reply that I have nothing else to guide me but
the standard which reason, and the Scriptures inter-
preted by reason, afford. If I am not to hope for endless
mercy as the ultimate fate of the sinner, because God's
ways are not our ways.and His thoughts not our thoughts,
may I not for precisely the same reason refuse to fear
that endless misery will be the sinner's destiny ? Why
shall I assume that because in these transcendent
matters God judges not as man judges, therefore His
treatment of the sinner is more likely to be in the direc-
tion repudiated by my reason than in that which com-
mends itself to the only faculty for measuring abstract
right and wrong which God has Himself endowed me with ?
2. The impenitent sinner deserves endless punishment,
because he has consciously and deliberately rejected
the endless mercy of God. The argument melts away
beneath a single ray of common sense. How can a man
reject " endless " mercy ? If endless mercy be with-
drawn from him in consequence of such rejection, it
ceases to be " endless " : it never was " endless." He
has no more powrer to stop the flow of endless mercy
than to stop the action of the law of gravity ; he can no
more withdraw himself from it, than he can withdraw
himself from the universe. Try as he will he cannot
reject it ; it clasps him, though he tear himself from
it ; it discovers him, though he hide himself from it ;
it saves him, spite of himself.
62 IS SALVATION POSSIBLE AFTER DEATH ?
3. The alienation of the soul from God implied by a
life of unrepented sin, is a state in regard to which the
only change antecedently probable is an aggravation
of its worst characteristics. If a soul has continued
through life in sin and quits it in sin, it has given itself
an impetus that is only likely to increase in velocity as
time passes into eternity, not to alter in direction. This
difficulty is stated with much force at the conclusion of
Dr. Leathes' paper. " Judging from the nature of the
case, a state of alienation and departure from God is
calculated to increase in intensity, rather than to alter
in character. While obviously, if the nature becomes
more and more confirmed, it must become less and less
open to reformation." But is the inference drawn from
these data unassailable ? If repentance is possible at
any stage of an iniquitous life ; if, notwithstanding
the accumulating obstacles to a return to God offered
by endurance in sin, the recuperative powers of the
soul do often triumphantly assert themselves ; if, at the
very time when vitality is ebbing away, it has been
known to put forth its noblest efforts in a deathbed
repentance, why are we to conclude that after death
the soul in its essence undestroyed and indestructible,
shall be able to exercise all its spiritual functions except
that of repentance alone ? As a believer in personal
immortality, you admit that, after the death of the
body, the soul is conscious, employs memory, is sensitive
to spiritual pain and pleasure, can grieve and rejoice,
can even feel regret and contrition. One thing alone
it cannot do — it cannot repent. Its powers come to
an end when it reaches the borderland between remorse
and repentance !
4. Must not the moral effects springing from the
IS SALVATION POSSIBLE AFTER DEATH ? 63
promulgation of a belief in the possibility of repentance
and salvation after death be most pernicious ? It gives
an air of unreality to the most solemn exhortations of
religion. The sinner will say, " The secret is out ; I
have another chance ; it is indifferent where and when
I repent." I confess I am unaffected by such imaginary
alarms. For may not an objection of the same nature
be urged against the doctrine of repentance in this life ?
If to hold out the prospect of repentance hereafter is a
tampering with the duty of repentance here, then the
admission of the efficacy of repentance here is a tam-
pering with the gravity of sin itself. May not the
sinner abuse his priceless privilege, and say, " Since
the return is open to me at any moment of my life, for
the present I will throw myself into the full stream of
sin, and leave the backward journey to another time ? "
Yet all religions know how to meet such a perverse
attitude of the mind, if it ever displays itself, and every
one feels that there is nothing unreal in any religion
which condemns sin, and at the same time preaches the
saving power of repentance. The main thing is, after
all, to keep alive the conviction that justice will be done
to the worst as to the best. There is far more danger,
I venture to submit, to the cause of true religion, in
dogmatically maintaining a position against which our
sense of justice, as God Himself has implanted it in
us, revolts, than in clinging to the hope that, when the
penalty has been paid, and the afflicted soul regrets
its evil-doings, and yearns for reconciliation, the Lord
will not cast it off for ever, because " though He cause
grief, He will have compassion according to the multi-
tude of His mercies."
Thus far I have been considering this question apart
64 IS SALVATION POSSIBLE AFTER DEATH ?
from all special theological bias. It may, however,
prove a not uninteresting contribution to the discussion
to give a resume of some of those rabbinical teachings
which have helped to shape the belief now entertained
by the bulk of my co-religionists. It must be admitted
that the Rabbins, as a body, were not " universalists."
Yet many and striking are the indications to be met
with in the Talmud and Midrashim of a desire to soften
the terrors of the popular conceptions concerning the
Hereafter, and to breathe the spirit of hope into all
who are destined to pass to judgment through the dark
portals of the grave.1 Apart from repentance the effect
of which is irresistible even in articulo mortis, salvation
after death is rendered possible by —
I. The sufferings of the sinner on earth.
II. His death.
III. The purging of his offences in Gehinnom, and
the soul's unexhausted faculty of repentance.
IV. The prayers and pious works of survivors.
V. The intercession of beatified spirits, and
VI. The saving mercies of God.
i. The sight of all intense forms of human misery
suggested the thought that for those who are so severely
afflicted on earth, the end of life must be the beginning
of bliss. It is in accordance with this idea that the
Talmud (Erubin 4ib) remarks that three misfortunes
exempt men from the sight of Gehinnom, grinding
poverty, certain forms of disease, and subjection to
tyrannical rule. The judgment upon the generation
1 Our acknowledgments are due to the Ven. Archdeacon
Farrar for the valuable work he has done in the field of Rabbinic
Eschatology, in his Eternal Hope, his Mercy and Judgment
and in special articles ou the subject,
IS SALVATION POSSIBLE AFTER DEATH ? 65
of the Deluge lasted twelve months ; they underwent
their sentence, and have thus a share in the world to
come (Bereshith Kabbah, chapter 28). If the loss of a
tooth or an eye brought freedom to the slave, how much
more so will afflictions that purge of sin the whole body
of a man (Berachoth 5a). R. Simon ben Jochai said,
' ' three great gifts the Holy One, blessed be He, gave to
Israel and each of them, by means of affliction — the
Law, the land of Israel, and the world to come " (Ibid.).
R. Nehemiah said, " as sacrifices expiated for sins, so
do afflictions " (see Lev. xxvi. 41). Nay, the latter
are more efficacious than the former (Tanchuma on
Jithro). " By means of suffering men pass to the life
to come " (Bereshith Rabbah 9).
2. Death provided an atonement for sin. " All who
die expiate their offences by death " (Sifre 33a). One
who had been condemned to execution protested his
innocence in this way : If I have done this deed for
which I am now condemned, may my death be no atone-
ment for all my sins ; but if I am guiltless of this crime,
then may my death be an atonement for all my sins
(Sanhedrin 44b). The latter phrase seems indeed
to have been a common formula (Berachoth 6oa).
The more aggravated the circumstances accompanying
death, the more complete and certain was the expiation.
Korah and his confederates, as well as Achan, have a
share in the world to come (Bamidbar Rabbah 18, and
Tanchuma on Vayesheb). R. Nathan said (Sanhedrin
4ya), " It is a good sign when punishment comes upon a
man in death itself : if he perish and none lament and
none bury him ; or if a wild beast tear him, or rain drop
upon his bier — all this is a good sign for him " — " for
thus atonement is obtained for him " (Rashi). Bereshith
L.A. F
66 IS SALVATION POSSIBLE AFTER DEATH ?
Kabbah 65, relates how Jakim, a nephew of Jos£ of
Zeredah, as a penalty for breaking the Sabbath, pro-
nounced and carried out his own sentence of death ;
and how Jose beheld in a dream the coffin of his nephew
hovering in the air, and exclaimed, "In an easy hour
he has preceded me in finding entrance to the Garden
of Eden." The legendary character of the narrative
does not affect the belief of which it is a very striking
expression. " Death the Liberator " was a conception
not unfamiliar to the Jewish mind ; but it there became
a chief agent in man's spiritual discipline, and it was
valued, not as the last refuge of physical or moral
cowardice, but as one form of atonement for human
sin, and a consequent deliverance from some of its most
dreaded results. Bearing in mind the instinctive love
of life in all men, and the unwillingness with which, as
a rule, they part from it ; the mysterious and unfathom-
able change wrought by death ; the agonies that often
accompany the severance of the life-long partnership
between body and soul ; the vast possibilities of suffering
with which, unperceived by lookers-on, both memory
and anticipation may afflict the departing soul ; it was
hard to believe that even for the sinner death was all
loss, or, what is worse, only another stage forward to
a state of misery, immeasurable in intensity and endless
in time.
3. The doctrine generally prevalent in regard to the
relation of this life to the next was that expressed in
the words : " To-day is thine to do God's precepts,
to-morrow to receive thy recompense for them." " This
world is the vestibule, the next the banqueting chamber.
Prepare thyself in the one, that thou mayest enter the
other." But if this duty had been neglected, it was not
IS SALVATION POSSIBLE AFTER DEATH ? 67
denied that the soul, after having acquiesced in the
judgment pronounced upon it, and undergone its just
penalty, might by the aid of contrition (which, with its
other spiritual faculties, was indestructible), obtain
restoration to the Divine favour. The idea of eternal
punishment for temporary wrongdoing was repellent
to the native sense of justice of the Jew. " The period
of the judgment upon sinners in Gehinnom is twelve
months " (Adoyoth ii. 10). In Erubin iga, one view
is expressed to the effect that transgressors can repent
at the gates of Gehinnom. In the Othioth, or Alphabet
of R. Akiba (Oth Cheth), we read : The sins of the
wicked of Israel are accounted to them as righteousness
when they look upon the face of Gehinnom and submit
themselves to its judgment. And when they are
rescued thence and return repentant to the Holy One,
blessed be He, they are forthwith received by the
Shechinah even as the just who have not sinned, as
it is written (Ezek. xxxiii. 19) : " When the wicked turns
from his wickedness and does that which is lawful and
right, he shall live with them " (the preposition 'al
is here used, which has sometimes the force of " together
with," or " in addition to," as in Gen. xxviii. 9 and
Exod xxxv. 22), that is, he shall live with the righteous
and the perfect, the men of faith and good works in the
world to come. And not this alone ; but such penitents
shall be uplifted and seated near the Shechinah, because
they have humbled their heart in contrition before Him,
as it is said, " The Lord is near to the broken-hearted."
For the sake of one ardent "Amen," streaming from the
soul of the sinners in Gehinnom, they shall be delivered
from their agonies. When the voice of Zerubbabel
shall sound throughout the world in sanctification of the
68 IS SALVATION POSSIBLE AFTER DEATH ?
Divine name, the sinners of Israel remaining in Gehin-
nom shall respond " Amen," and confess the justice of
their fate. Instantly the mercies of the Holy One,
blessed be He, will be moved towards them exceedingly,
and He will say, " Why should I punish them still more,
it was ' the evil inclination ' that caused them to sin "
(Yalkut on Isa. xxvi., Eliahu Zutta xx.).
" God saw all that He had made, and behold it was
very good " — that is both Paradise and Gehinnom
(Midrash Koheleth). As the praises of God rise from the
just in the Garden of Eden, so also do they rise from
the wicked from Gehinnom. The sinners cool Gehin-
nom with their flowing tears (Shemoth Rabbah 7). Why
did God create Paradise and Gehinnom ? That the
one might deliver from the other. What is the space
between them ? R. Jochanan says, it is but the width
of a wall ; another, that of a span. Others, two fingers'
breadth (Midrash Koheleth on vii. 14). It was under such
figures as these that the Rabbins taught that it was not
an impossible thing to pass from a state of reprobation to
a state of bliss ; that as the spirit still lived, divorced
from the body that bound it to earth and earthly frail-
ties, it might continue, in its disencumbered state, to
perfect its way ; that the idea of future punishment,
most consonant to the character of God and the wants
of man, was that of a state which led through great
but limited suffering to ultimate and unending blessed-
ness ; and that there was no place where God holds
sway which could have borne such an inscription as
that over Dante's Inferno — " All hope abandon, ye who
enter here." l
1 The punishment of " Careth " excision, says Abarbanel
(Commentary to Numbers, section Shelach), may include a
IS SALVATION POSSIBLE AFTER DEATH ? 69
4. The prayers and pious works of survivors are
capable of affording relief to the departed soul in its
state of punishment. The remarkable passage in 2
Mace. xii. is a testimony to the antiquity of this belief
and the fervour of conviction with which it was held.
The same conviction is implied by the recital of the
Kaddish by orphans. It underlies also the " Hazcaroth
Neshamoth," or Souls' Memorial Service, in which
entreaty is made that God may in His mercy remember
the souls of departed kindred and friends, that they
may be bound up in the bond of life and their rest may
be glorious, while the supplicant himself gives proof
of his sincerity by acts of practical beneficence. Study
of the Law has likewise a redemptive force. (Zohar to
Lech Lecha. See Nishmath Chayim ii. 27.) " It is
written, ' Pardon Thy people Israel, whom Thou hast
redeemed' (Deut. xxi. 8). The first sentence speaks of
the living, the second of the dead. The living can
physical and a spiritual penalty — a physical in this world, in
that the life of the sinner is prematurely cut short ; a spiritual
in the life hereafter, in that the soul after its separation from
the body will be kept at a distance from the brightness of the
Shechinah, and from those higher influences which are enjoyed
by the spirits that merit to partake of the bond of life. This
punishment is called " a cutting off," a metaphorical expression
implying that just as a branch is cut from a tree from which,
while attached to it, it derives vitality and sustenance, so will
the soul be cut off from the bond of celestial life, and not receive
the Divine glory — the true spiritual bliss and recompense. But
this does not constitute a total deprivation or absolute loss for
the soul, which, being a spiritual self-existent substance, is in-
destructible. " Careth " is a great pain and punishment for the
soul, of which it will receive more or less (according to its deserts),
and after having undergone its penalty it will inherit Paradise
and bliss. " There is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it
will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not
cease."
70 IS SALVATION POSSIBLE AFTER DEATH ?
redeem the dead. Hence we are accustomed to make
mention of the dead on the Day of Atonement, and to
appoint a sum to be given in alms on their behalf. For
thus have we learnt in Torath Cohanim, that even after
death charity availeth as a means of redemption. The
troubled soul is then raised from its suffering, swiftly as
an arrow is shot from the bow ; it is cleansed as on the
day of its birth. It partakes henceforward continually
of the tree of life, planted in the region of the righteous ;
itself becomes righteous and lives for ever." (Tanchuma
to Haazinu.)
The passionate yearning to save those whom we have
loved and lost is not without its effect, teaches the Tal-
mud. Those whose own merits are too weak to plead
for them are sometimes saved by the intercession or
for the sake of others more worthy than themselves.
Thus the renegade Elisha ben Abuyah, " The Faust of
the Talmud," is saved from perdition by his pupil R.
Meir (Jems. Chagiga 5b); Antoninus Pius by R. Jehudah
the Holy (Abodah Zarah lob) ; the executioner of R.
Chananyah ben Teradyon by the martyr himself (Abodah
Zarah i8a) ; and a captain of Turnus Rufus by R.
Gamliel (Taanith 2ga). (See notes of Schlessinger on
Ikkarim, p. 679.) Upon the pathetic words uttered
by David when he hears of the death of Absalom, the
Talmud (Sotah lob) comments : " Eight times is the
cry repeated, ' My son.' The rebellious child of David
had been cast into the lowest of the seven grades of
Gehinnom. But with each invocation the broken-
hearted father lifted him a stage out of his misery, and
with the last drew him into heaven."
I am aware that in many quarters strong objections
are entertained against " prayers for the dead." (i) It
IS SALVATION POSSIBLE AFTER DEATH ? 71
is felt that to pray for the suspension or mitigation of
the penalties of the soul that has gone to its account,
is to challenge the Divine sentence and to seek to inter-
fere with the course of Divine justice. I answer that
the same objection may be raised against all entreaties
as well as against other more direct personal efforts to
lessen the sufferings of sinners on earth, when their
punishment has been the just recompense for their mis-
deeds. All prayer, in so far as it is specific, looks for
some response in the natural sense of the petition,
although it is true that response may also be given in
a higher sense, by an inflow of spiritual strength and
comfort. If God was not displeased with the patriarch
who wrestled in prayer for the sinners of Sodom, nor
with the " man of God," who pleaded for pardon for
his erring people, if these efforts involved no improper
intervention with the progress of God's just decree, it
is difficult to see why there should be anything contrary
to the Divine desire or outside the proper scope of
human entreaty, in prayer on behalf of the soul
awaiting or already enduring its merited punish-
ment.
Against the practice of praying for the departed, it
is contended — (2) That it is useless, because their
earthly life having come to a close, nothing that the
survivors can say or do will affect them. I reply, what
right have we thus to limit the power of prayer ? If
there be any efficacy at all in words poured from the
full human heart into the listening ear of God, shall we
say that it has vanished when the object of our prayer
is nearer to God than ever before, when the spirit has
returned to Him who gave it ? All our best prayers
are for others, not for ourselves. Can we feel that
72 IS SALVATION POSSIBLE AFTER DEATH ?
prayer is of avail when offered for the sick child, for
the dying parent, for the life of the sovereign and her
counsellors, for those that are in peril on land and sea,
even for the soul of some beloved being, beset by temp-
tations in its earthly career, — but that for the soul that
has quitted its temporal abode, perhaps called suddenly
hence, never, even after the longest and loudest warnings,
fully prepared — for it all our prayers are vain and self-
deceiving ? Unless we are prepared to maintain that
at his death the fate of man is fixed irretrievably and
for ever ; that therefore the sinner who rejected much
of God's love during a brief lifetime has lost all of it
eternally, prayer for the peace and salvation of the
departed soul commends itself as one of the highest
religious obligations.
5. That the bliss of the just in heaven must be over-
shadowed by the consciousness of the sufferings being
endured in hell, is a thought that occurs to every mind
which has formed a lofty ideal of happiness. What joy
can heavenly spirits feel while they are aware that those
who once were bound to them by the tenderest ties of
love or the strongest bonds of friendship, with whom
to be reunited is the all but universal hope of believers
in immortality, are condemned to have the gates of
hope for ever shut against them, and to pass eternity
in nameless torture and remorse ? There, where all
hate is extinct, can there be any satisfaction in the
unending torments of evildoers ? Can there be any
perfect peace above while there is infinite despair below ?
Must not the knowledge of the agonies endured with-
out prospect of cessation by even one of their own
species, quench every spark of joy in the assemblage of
the blessed, and impel them with one accord to petition
IS SALVATION POSSIBLE AFTER DEATH ? 73
the God of mercy in language like that of the inspired
lawgiver : " And now if Thou wilt forgive their sin —
but if not, blot me out, I beseech Thee, from the book
which Thou hast written ! "
It is said in Midrash Koheleth, that in the fulness of
time many parents and children will be found, reaping
the reward of their actions, these among the righteous,
those among transgressors. At the sight of the wretched-
ness of their parents, the children will burst into tears,
and will implore the Almighty Judge, " Restore our
parents to us." And the Holy One will answer, " Your
parents have sinned and deserve not to join you." And
the children will reply, " If we have merited the com-
passion of God, let our parents be given us again."
Then Elijah the prophet will arise, and plead their
cause saying, " Here are the guilty, and there the inno-
cent. May mercy prevail over wrath." And the Lord
will turn to the children and say, " You have spoken
well for your parents ; they shall be restored to
you."
6. But far more effectual than all these agencies is
the boundless compassion of the Most High, who " re-
taineth not His anger for ever, because He delighteth
in mercy," who, though He forsake the sinful for a brief
moment, gathereth them again in great compassion.
In Sabbath (8gb) occurs this beautiful passage. Quot-
ing the words of Isaiah (Ixiii. 16), " Surely Thou art
our Father : though Abraham will not know us, and
Israel will not recognize us, Thou, O Lord, art our
Father, our Redeemer from Eternity is Thy name " ;
the passage continues : "In the future life, when God
sits in judgment upon His creatures, He will turn to
Abraham and say, ' Thy children have sinned.' And
74 IS SALVATION POSSIBLE AFTER DEATH ?
Abraham mournfully assenting will answer, ' They must
be blotted out, for the sanctification of Thy name.' So
too will Israel answer. But Isaac intercedes on their
behalf, and the sinners of Israel look up to him and
say, " Surely thou art our father,' then he, directing
them to the Holy One, blessed be He, says to them,
' Praise Him, not me ; He is your Father.' And raising
their eyes on high, with one voice they exclaim, ' Yea,
though Abraham will not know us, and Israel will not
recognize us, Thou, 0 Lord, art our Father, our Redeemer
from Eternity is Thy name. Whom have we left but
Thee ? ' "' " When God hears them pleading thus, He
replies (Ibid.), ' Since it is upon My mercy you throw
yourselves, behold, though your sins be as scarlet they
shall be as white as snow, though they be red like crim-
son, they shall be as wool.' '
One other illustration may be given of the breadth
of view and the tenderness of spirit manifested by many
of the Rabbins in the treatment of this difficult subject.
It is found, with slight variations, in Shemoth Rabbah
25, in Tanchuma and in Yalkut. At the hour when
Moses stood before God on the mount, the Holy One,
blessed be He, showed him all the treasures of recom-
pense prepared for the righteous. Looking at one,
Moses said, " Whose treasure is this ? " " It is for
them that study the Law." " And this ? " " For
them that lead a just life." " And this other ? " " For
them that adopt the orphan." So he questioned and
was answered regarding every store. Then beholding
one larger far than the rest, he inquired, " For whom
is this designed ? " And the Lord answered him, " he
that hath merits of his own, to him will I give of his
own recompense. And he that hath none, with him I
IS SALVATION POSSIBLE AFTER DEATH ? 75
will deal mercifully for nought, and give him of this trea-
sure. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious
(not only to him to whom recompense is due) and I will
be merciful to whom I will be merciful."
THE EARLIEST JEWISH PRAYERS
FOR THE ENGLISH SOVEREIGN
(Read before the Jewish Historical Society of England on the
Accession of Edward VII.)
THE paper I am about to read is intended as an instal-
ment of a fuller one, in which I hope to treat of the
Synagogue in its relation to the Sovereign and the State.
Scattered about in various libraries, hidden away in
many out-of-the-way places, there is a considerable
amount of material — poems, hymns, and prayers, ser-
mons and addresses, in Hebrew, in Spanish, in Judaeo-
German, and in English, prompted by occasions of
special interest in the history of our country, and of
its rulers and their families, and forming a very respect-
able body of evidence testifying to the loyalty of English
Jews. A complete bibliography of these productions
remains, despite the publications of the Anglo- Jewish
Exhibition, a desideratum. Whether I shall be fortu-
nate enough to present such a record to the Jewish
Historical Society of England will depend upon the
kindness and public spirit of those who may be in pos-
session of the requisite material.
I do not know whether the dish, when duly prepared,
will prove altogether palatable to the cultivated tastes
of members of this Society. In view of the fact of the
76
PRAYERS FOR THE ENGLISH SOVEREIGN 77
accession of a new monarch, it may at least lay claim
to being seasonable.
There is a tradition in Megillath Taanith that when
Alexander the Great, instigated by the Samaritans,
the ancient rivals and enemies of the Jews, set out with
the object of destroying the temple, Simon the Just
went to meet the conqueror, and endeavoured to divert
him from his purpose, urging, among other reasons, the
following : " This is the place where we pray to God
for the welfare of yourself and of your kingdom, that
it may not be destroyed ; shall these men, then, per-
suade you to destroy this place ? " That it was the
practice, when Jews assembled for worship, to pray also
for the safety and welfare of the Ruler and State, is
proved by a whole host of witnesses, such as Ezra, the
authors of the Book of Baruch and of the first Maccabees,
Philo, Josephus, and others. The famous exhortation
of Jeremiah, " Seek the peace of the city, whither I
have caused you to be carried captive, and pray for it
unto the Lord, for in the peace thereof shall ye have
peace," was at all times and in all places at once the
sanction and the stimulus for such prayers. I doubt
not it was effective also among the Jews of England
in pre-expulsion times. It is true that in the Anglo-
Jewish Liturgy of that age, as preserved in the Prayer-
Book of R. Jacob, of London, and summarized by the
late Dr. D. Kaufmann in the Jewish Quarterly Review
(Vol. IV.), there is no set form given of a Prayer for
the King ; but it is hardly conceivable that the Jews,
who were eager to show their loyalty at the coronation
of Richard I by the presentation of costly gifts, for
which they got little thanks and much mauling, would
have neglected one of their chief religious duties within
78 THE EARLIEST JEWISH PRAYERS
the Synagogue itself. When Abudarham produced his
work on the Jewish Liturgy (fourteenth century) the
particular place in the Service where the Prayer for the
King was to be introduced was already fixed. " After
the Reading of the Law has been completed," he says,
"it is the custom to ask for a blessing on the King,
and to pray to God to help and strengthen him against
his enemies." Thereupon he quotes Jeremiah, and
explains that to " pray for the peace of the city " is
" to pray that God may enable the King to vanquish
his enemies." Then follow Talmudic authorities in
support of the custom of praying for the powers that be.
After the expulsion, the only Jewish prayers regarding
the Kings of England were probably to the effect that
Heaven might open their eyes to the folly of keeping
out such desirable citizens and subjects as the Jews.
We know how long it took before that wish was realized.
The earliest recorded instance of Prayer being pub-
licly offered up on behalf of the Royal House of England
occurred under sufficiently remarkable circumstances.
During the troubles of Charles I with the Parliament,
his Queen Henrietta Maria repaired to the Continent to
quicken interest in her husband's cause, and to induce
sympathy to take, if possible, a practical form. While
on this errand she spent some time in Holland, and
visited the Amsterdam Synagogue, and there, after a
Prayer for the rulers of the Netherlands, she heard her
own Royal House prayed for. This was in 1642. A
few years later.in 1651, the St. John Embassy, despatched
in the interests of the Commonwealth, also paid a visit
to the Synagogue, and there, as Menasseh ben Israel
states in his V indicia Judaorum (p. 5), " our nation
entertained him with musick, and all expressions of
FOR THE ENGLISH SOVEREIGN 79
joy and gladnesse, and also pronounced a blessing not
onely upon his honour, then present, but upon the whole
Commonwealth of England, for that they were a people
in league and amity."
But already, before the date of the St. John Embassy,
there occurs in a book printed in London the earliest
reference in the English language to the Prayer for the
Sovereign. This is in Edmund Chilmead's English
Translation of Leon Modena's The History of the Rites,
Customs, and Manner of Life of the Present Jews through-
out the World (London, 1650) . After describing the Lesson
from the Prophets, which, it is said, "is read by some
child, for the most part, to exercise him in reading the
Scriptures," the author continues (p. 115) : " After this,
they take the said book, and, holding it on high that
it may be seen by all, they bless all the assistants. Then
is there a solemn Benediction said for the Prince of the
State under which they live ; wherein they pray to
God that He would preserve him in Peace and Quiet-
nesse, and that He would prosper him and make him
great and powerful, and that He would also make him
favourable and kind to their nation ; observing to do
this from that passage in Jerem. Chap. xxix. ver. 7," etc.
By this time we find Menasseh ben Israel (may his
memory be a blessing) busy with his great scheme, as
may be seen from the introduction prefixed to the
Hope of Israel, and addressed to the Parliament, the
Supreme Court of England, and to the Right Honourable
the Council of State in 1651. In 1655 was issued " The
Humble Addresses " of Menasseh " To His Highnesse the
Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scot-
land, and Ireland," giving the motives of his coming
to England, and showing, first, " How Profitable the
8o THE EARLIEST JEWISH PRAYERS
Nation of the levves are," and next, " How faithfull the
Nation of the lewes are."
Here for the first time appears in full an English ver-
sion— and a capital one it is — of the Prayer for the
Head of the State. The translation is prefaced by these
words : —
" From the continuall and never broken custome of the
lews wheresoever they are, on the Sabbath Day, or
other solemn Feasts ; at which time all the lews from
all places come together to the Synagogue, after the
benediction of the Holy Law, before the Minister of the
Synagogue blesseth the people of the lews ; with a loud
voice he blesseth the Prince of the country under whom
they live, that all the lews may hear it, and say, Amen.
" The words he useth are these as in the printed book
of the lews may be seen :
" He that giveth salvation unto Kings, and dominion
unto Lords, He that delivered his servant David from
the sword of the enemy, He that made a way in the sea,
and a path in the strange (? strong) waters, blesse and
keep, preserve and rescue, exalt and magnify, and lift
up higher and higher, our Lord. [And then he names,
the Pope, the Emperour, the King, Duke, or any other
Prince under whom the lews live, and adds :] The King
of kings defend him in His mercy, making him joyfull,
and free him from all dangers and distresse. The King
of kings, for His goodness sake, raise up and exalt his
planetary star, and multiply his dayes over his King-
dome. The King of kings for His mercies sake, put
into his heart, and into the heart of his Counsellers,
and those that attend and administer to him, that he
may shew mercy unto us, and unto all the people of
Israel. In his dayes and in our dayes, let Judah be safe,
FOR THE ENGLISH SOVEREIGN 81
and Israel dwell securely, and let the Redeemer come
to Israel, and so may it please God. — Amen."
This was the Prayer which Pepys heard, in Hebrew,
of course, in the Synagogue, probably in Creechurch
Lane, on the occasion of his visit, described in a pas-
sage in his diary (October 13, 1663), when he formed a
very unfavourable opinion of Synagogue decorum.
" And in the end they had a prayer for the King,
in which they pronounced his name in Portugall ; but
the prayer, like the rest, in Hebrew."
But in addition to this translation of the traditional
form, still preserved in the main by Jews of both the
Sephardic and Ashkenazic rite, Menasseh has left
another and a very touching prayer for the Protector,
with which he ends his Vindicice Jud&orum. We can
almost picture him to ourselves, sitting in his study in
the Strand, not many hundred yards from the place
where we are gathered this evening, and as he nears
the completion of his noble Vindication on April 10,
1656, writing the last lines in the form of this fervent
prayer : —
" Now, O most high God, to Thee I make my prayer,
even to Thee, the God of our fathers. Thou who hast
been pleased to stile Thyself the Keeper of Israel ; Thou
who hast graciously promised by Thy holy prophet
Jeremiah (cap. 31), that Thou wilt not cast off all the
seed of Israel, for all the evill that they have done ;
Thou who by so many stupendious miracles didst bring
Thy people out of Egypt, the land of bondage, and didst
lead them into the Holy Land, graciously cause Thy holy
influence to descend down into the mind of the Prince (who
for no private interest, or respect at all, but onely out of
commiseration for our affliction, hath inclined himself to
L.A. G
82 THE EARLIEST JEWISH PRAYERS
protect and shelter us, for which extraordinary humanity,
neither I myself nor my nation, can ever expect to be able
to render him answerable, and sufficient thanks) , and also
into the minds of his most illustrious and prudent
Council, that they may determine that, which according
to Thine infinite wisdome may be best and most expedient
for us. For men (0 Lord) see that which is present,
but Thou in Thy omnisciencie, seest that which is afarre
off."
The first English prayer for an English King appears
in a somewhat curious connexion. Jacob Jehudah Leon
(Templo),1 born in the seventeenth century, was a man
of versatile talents. He was a scholar and a theologian,
as well as an artist and designer. He had made a special
study of the Tabernacle and Temple, and had con-
structed a model on an ample scale of Solomon's Temple
with all its furniture and utensils, according to the
details given of the sacred edifice in the Bible and the
Talmud. A short description, explaining the subject,
was published by him in pamphlet form. Temple's
work (the cognomen Templo explains itself) made a
considerable sensation at the time, and not in Holland
only, where the Government gave him a guarantee
against piracy, but wherever interest was taken in
Biblical antiquarian studies. Some time before 1645
the model was submitted to Henrietta Maria, the wife
of Charles I, and seems to have elicited her warm ad-
miration— she probably saw it during her visit to the
Continent to which I have already referred. Many
years later, in 1665, after the restoration, Templo
1 Comp. Graetz, X. pp. 200, 201 ; and Lucien Wolf, " Anglo-
Jewish Coats of Arms," Transactions Jewish Hist. Soc. of Eng.
II. pp. 156, 157.
FOR THE ENGLISH SOVEREIGN 83
bethought him of submitting his model to her son,
Charles II, and drew up a description in English, fur-
nishing it with a " Dedication to His Sacred Majesty "
in the eulogistic style of the period.
The pamphlet, entitled A Relation of the most memor-
able things in the Tabernacle of Moses and the Temple
of Salomon, by Jacob Jehudah Leon, Hebrew author of
the Model of Salomon's Temple, bears the Royal Arms
and initials, and was printed at Amsterdam by Peter
Messchaert, in the Stoof-Steech, 1665. On the back
of the title page, and before the Dedication, may be
read : —
" A PRAYER.
" FOR THE PROSPERITIE OF HIS ROYAL MAJESTIE.
" He that sends deliverance to Kings, and giveth Do-
minion to Princes, whose Kingdom and Dominion is
everlasting : He that delivered David his servant from
the Perillous sword, and He who made a way through
the Red Sea, and Pathes through the River Jordan :
He himself blesse, preserve, assist, make great, and
more and more Exalt our Gracious Lord CHARLES
the II King and Protector of England, Scotland, France
and Ireland. The King of Kings by his Merciful Benevo-
lence preserve, vivifie, and deliver him from all trouble
and danger. The Kings of Kings increase and highten
the Star of his Constellation, to prolong his dayes over
his glorious Kingdome. The King of Kings put it into
his heart, and into the hearts of his Nobles and Princes
to use benigne Clemencie towards Us, and to the Israel
of God, our brethren under his dominion. — Amen."
84 THE EARLIEST JEWISH PRAYERS
One notices here the curious variant, " He who made
a way through the Red Sea and Pathes through the
River Jordan." Perhaps an intentional departure from
the usual text, which is taken verbatim from Isaiah's
(xliii. 16) " Who maketh a way in the sea and a path
through mighty waters." Still more remarkable is the
omission of the sentence with which the prayer ends in
the usual readings : "In his days and in ours may
Judah be saved and Israel dwell securely ; and may
the Redeemer come unto Zion." Menasseh ben Israel,
it will be seen, includes this passage in his reproduc-
tion of the prayer with the one alteration of " let the
Redeemer come to Israel," in place of " Zion." Why
does Leon Templo omit it altogether ?
I suggest that the theologico-political attitude of
Jewish apologists had undergone a change with the
substitution of a Monarchy for the Commonwealth.
It had, of course, been part of Menasseh's policy to
conciliate the religious element in England, which was
keen on the interpretation of prophecy, giving it a close
literal application to contemporary events. The stir-
ring incidents of the Commonwealth, and the deeds
and character of its chief hero had roused extraordinary
hopes in large masses of the people. The millennium
was not far off, only the date needed fixing ; Fifth Mon-
archy men were getting ready for a greater metamor-
phosis than had ever yet been witnessed. The footsteps
of the Messiah might almost be heard by those who
listened intently for them. Menasseh, in fact, in his
Addresses to the Lord High Protector, mentioned among
his motives for coming to England : " Because the
opinion of many Christians and mine does concur herein,
that we both believe that the restoring time of our Nation
FOR THE ENGLISH SOVEREIGN 85
into their native country is very near at hand." l The
only thing needed was that certain other prophecies
should be fulfilled first, for according to Daniel xii. 7,
the dispersion of the Holy people must be complete,
and then their ingathering would also be made com-
plete. Now this dispersion was already very great.
The Jews were settled in nearly all countries ; even
America was shown in Menasseh's Hope of Israel to
have been peopled by the lost Ten Tribes. Ah1 that was
now required was that they should be admitted into
" this considerable and mighty Island." This only
remained to be done " before the Messiah come and
restore our Nation, that first we must have our seat here
likewise."
But arguments of this sort, if effective in the age of
Cromwell, would be likely to defeat their object in the
era of the Restoration. Charles II was not a man to
be in a hurry for the Messiah. Nothing would have
disconcerted him more than his advent. Templo,
moreover, probably did not consider the occasion an
appropriate one for introducing a special element of
Jewish dogmatics, and so stopped short of the wish,
" In his days and in ours may Judah be saved, and the
Redeemer come unto Zion."
It would be unfair to bring it as a charge against the
Jews that, after having prayed for the Protector and
the Commonwealth, they prayed for the King and the
Monarchy. Obviously no other course was open to them
in the development of events in a country they dared
not yet call their own. They asked for room to live,
and opportunity to take their part in the national life,
and they could not but give their blessing to whoever
1 " A Declaration to the Commonwealth of England."
86 THE EARLIEST JEWISH PRAYERS
made it possible for them to realize these not ignoble
hopes. But they had nothing in common with those
in high places and in low who were in such hot and
shameless haste to turn their backs upon themselves.
Those were the days of a Waller who, when complaint
was made that the poet's congratulation to the King was
inferior to the panegyric he had written upon the Pro-
tector, turned the position with " Poets, Sire, succeed
better in fiction than in truth." Similarly a Dry den
could compose such stanzas as these after the death of
Cromwell : —
No borrowed bays his temples did adorn,
But to our crown he did fresh jewels bring ;
Nor was his virtue poisoned, soon as born,
With the too early thoughts of being king.
And yet dominion was not his design ;
We owe that blessing not to him but heaven,
Which to fair acts unsought rewards did join,
Rewards that less to him than us were given.
Within eighteen months the author indites his " Astraea
Redux, a Poem on the Happy Restoration and Return
of His Sacred Majesty, Charles the Second," and tells
us : —
For his long absence Church and State did groan ;
Madness the pulpit, faction seized the throne.
Experienced age in deep despair was lost
To see the rebel thrive, the loyal crost.
And then addressing the restored King : —
The discontented now are only they
Whose crimes before did your just cause betray.
Nothing like this could be laid at the doors of the
nascent Jewish community, just beginning to breathe
the free air of England. Even if they had not — and we
FOR THE ENGLISH SOVEREIGN 87
know well that they had — reason to be thankful both
to the Protector and to the King, it must not be for-
gotten that the Synagogue is not a political organization ;
that, like the Church, it has to recognize accomplished
facts, and, enjoying the protection of the law, is bound
in honour as well as in duty to pray for the highest repre-
sentatives of the law. And the essence of the prayer
as we now use it is that the government may be wise
and inspired by just ideals.
ADOLPH JELLINEK
(From the "Jewish Chronicle," January i2th, 1894.)
THERE is unanimity for once in Jewry. Without a
dissentient voice, so far as I have heard, the verdict
has been given that in Jellinek we had, and by his
death have lost, the greatest Jewish preacher of our
time.
This is no mere piece of posthumous glorification.
His rank was assured and recognized before Death —
" which shuts the gate of envy and opens the gate of
Fame " — had claimed him. People only say now aloud,
in chorus, and in print, what they never had any doubt
about before.
Once only was it my privilege to hear him preach.
His personality was sufficiently striking. A huge head
set upon a small frame — the disproportion seemed
typical of the preponderance of the intellectual over
the material in the man — a face that had in it some-
thing of the bull-dog type, reminding one in certain
points of Charles Spurgeon, only that the eyes were
finer, and, while they did not appear to look at you,
attracted you by their " aloofness " ; the hands and
fingers, those of a young girl — such was Dr. Jellinek to
look at. His voice clear, penetrating, yet perfectly
flexible ; his gesture and deKvery easy and graceful ;
his language, the purest classical German, full and
83
ADOLPH JELLINEK 89
apt, and, with the enviable instinct of the born orator,
not only never pausing for a word, but never missing
the right one ; his style of treatment the most finished
and artistic, exhausting his subject, not his audience —
such was the preacher to listen to.
The occasion on which I heard him was the Sabbath,
Parshat Ki-tabo. His text was Deut. xxvi. 12-15. He
drew a picture of Jewish prosperous life in ancient
Palestine, and used it to suggest what Jewish life in
modern Vienna (and, for that matter, in modern Lon-
don) ought to be. I saw, and, as I recall the preacher
and the sermon, still see, the procession of a nation of
devotees pass in a living scene before me. The pas-
sage, indeed, is striking enough in the brief original.
But under Jellinek's hand it assumed form, colour and
movement I had never before suspected ; the obscure
references soon lightened in the fulness of the speaker's
knowledge of Talmud and Midrash ; the application
grew so naturally out of the introduction that I could
not explain to myself why I felt it to be so new ; while
the whole discourse was so free from pedantry as is only
possible with a preacher who has " Geist " as well as
learning, and something of the Miltonic union of
scholarship with imagination. As I listened, I was
affected by the sermon profoundly. As a would-be
preacher, it humiliated me no less profoundly. For
a time I was meditating vows of withdrawal from the
clergy. Unless one can preach like him, I said, one
should give the world the benefit of one's silence. If
the vow has not matured, the explanation is simple.
Since then I have heard and read sermons not a few
of other preachers, and, though I am far from happy,
I am more reconciled. A world which should never be
go ADOLPH JELLINEK
preached to unless by Jellineks would be in a parlous
state of spiritual destitution.
On one feature of his preaching I would like to touch.
His use of the Midrash is little less than a revelation —
(even to those whose business it is to know something
about it) — concerning the wealth of treasure in that
inexhaustible mine of homiletic gold.
Of course, we often have the Midrash and the Rab-
bins quoted in sermons, usually with a few words of
commendatory preface on the part of the preacher,
which conceal, not too subtly, a little praise to himself
for finding them out and introducing them to his audi-
ence. But, as a rule, these quotations are stuck clumsily
into the discourse, and leave upon the palate the flavour
of undissolved spice or sugar in an ill-prepared Sab-
bath or Festival dish. At best, the sermon holds the
Midrash in mechanical, not in chemical, solution. In
Jellinek the assimilation is perfect. It is bone of his
bone and flesh of his flesh. Whether the Midrash or the
preacher's theme came first, which went the longer way
to meet the other, is often as uncertain to determine as
the question, in the case of some of the finest songs,
whether the music suggested the words, or the words
the music.
However that question be settled, in a Master's hand,
like Jellinek's, Midrash and Talmudic Agadah are won-
drous, almost magical instruments. They are bright
with ever varying gleams of an exquisite fancy. Antique
in form, the spirit that breathes through them is of all
time. They produce the most surprising effects, rivet-
ing the attention, stirring the soul, rousing the dormant
affections, and casting an undreamed-of light upon every
subject that fitly occupies the Jewish pulpit — life, death ;
ADOLPH JELLINEK 91
Israel, the nations ; our history, our fortune ; our
shame, our glory, and our hope ; the home, the school,
the synagogue, the world ; earth and heaven ; man
and God.
Something has been said about what he derived from
the old-fashioned Rabbinical school — the Yeshiba —
and what from the more modern place of study — the
University. Would it not be truer to say that it was
to the cross-fertilization of Jewish learning with secular
culture that we owe the loveliest flowers and the finest
fruit in the garden of Jewish homiletics ? Finally,
let it be remembered, or rather primarily, that not by
" imposition of hands," nor by any special " grace "
of the Senate of the University is a preacher made. A
man is a preacher " by the grace of God." Such was
Jellinek.
My personal knowledge of Dr. Jellinek was enriched
by an interview he was courteous enough to afford me
one day in July, 1890. The occasion is indelibly im-
pressed on my mind, for on the same day the privilege
was mine of seeing and speaking with three men of no
less eminence in the field of Jewish learning than Weiss,
Gudemann and Jellinek. Partly owing to Jellinek's
deafness, a terrible malady borne with cheerful resig-
nation, partly perhaps from other causes, there was
little of that mutual give and take usually considered
an essential for the art of conversation. It was all ' ' give ' '
on his side, and all " take " on mine. But if he was
content, I certainly had nothing to complain of. The
magnetic influence under which the listener lay, while
Jellinek was in the pulpit, was quite as potent when
the speaker had you to himself. All that was needed
was to suggest a topic, and forthwith you were rewarded
92 ADOLPH JELLINEK
by a lavish outpouring of ideas, brilliant, wise, witty,
lofty or pathetic.
I try to furbish up my recollection of some of the good
things that float from him in an unbroken stream in
the course of half an hour. I am sorry I can only
remember the following : " Early Christianity was the
sick child of a sick mother. You look surprised ! Read
all that is authentic of the century before, and the cen-
tury after the birth of Christianity, and you will cease
to be surprised."
" They are always blaming us because our fathers
took away with them some of the jewels of Egypt. I
say to our critics, ' you take away our laws, and pass
them off as your own.' '
" Have you ever thought what a brave thing it was
of Moses to say, ' Thou shalt not worship any other
God : thou shalt not make unto thyself an image of
deity,' and to say this when all the world worshipped
idols ? Some one had to proclaim the truth, not half
or quarter, or an eighth of the truth, but the whole ;
and having proclaimed it, to trust that it would make
its way in the world. I know of no parallel to this
in moral courage and conviction."
" Judaism is a beautiful religion. What a pity it
is that the Jews spoil it ! "
" Yes," he said, in continuation of some general
remarks on Jewish characteristics, " the Jews are
incurably inquisitive. Why did Moses write the Ten
Commandments on stone ? Why not on parchment ?
If he had acted otherwise, the Israelites would never
have been content with simply looking at the document.
Every one of them would have put his finger on it, have
felt its texture and traced the letters over, and in a few
ADOLPH JELLINEK 93
months the whole inscription would have been obliter-
ated. Wise law-giver, to write his commandments on
stone ! "
" About the future ? Judaism has not yet existed, ;
it will exist when developed through the thought, the
devotion, the enthusiasm of its children."
These are but weak reproductions of a few from
among a crowd of ideas, duly to appreciate which de-
mands that one should have been confronted not merely
with the words, but with unique personality of Jellinek.
The good fortune that placed such an opportunity
within my reach is among the happiest of my remi-
niscences.
EARLY TRANSLATIONS AND TRANS-
LATORS OF THE JEWISH LITURGY IN
ENGLAND
(Read before the Jewish Historical Society of England,
1898 and 1899.)
THE first translation of a Hebrew book into a foreign
language is said to have been attended with dismal
portents. Three days of thick darkness followed upon
the day when the first Greek version of the Pentateuch
was ushered into the world. It was a day deemed to
be as full of sinister import as that on which the golden
calf was fashioned ; for that the Law could not be
adequately translated into any foreign language. An
annual fast (the 8th of Tebeth) was instituted in mourn-
ful commemoration of the event.1
In such ways the forebodings found expression of
devout and zealous men anxiously contemplating an
event, the consequences of which were beyond their
range of calculation. That there were men who did not
share these misgivings, and who regarded every effort
to make the Scriptures accessible to other than Hebrew-
speaking peoples a legitimate means of pushing forward
the spiritual frontiers of Judaism, will cause no surprise.
1 Sopherim, i. 7 ; Orach Chayim, 580, 2.
94
THE JEWISH LITURGY IN ENGLAND 95
The surprising thing is that, with a passionate devotion
to the Hebrew language as the choicest medium of inter-
communion between God and man, the ancient Jewish
doctors did, nevertheless, insist upon it that in prayer
the primary condition on the intellectual side was that
the worshipper should comprehend what he was uttering,
and that where he was ignorant of the holy tongue, he
might pray in any language with which he was familiar,
and in so doing would fulfil his duty. In Caesarea, in
Alexandria, and in other parts of the diaspora, Greek
was the recognized language of worship.1
When one Rabbi 2 insisted that the Shema was to be
spoken in Hebrew, because it contained the passage,
" And these words which I command thee this day, shall
be upon thine heart," he was refuted by others, who
pointed to the introductory exhortation, " Hear, O
Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one." Hearing
meant understanding ; if less than that, it meant nothing.
It is not the mechanical impact of certain waves of sound
upon the drum of the ear ; it is the mental audition,
the intellectual assent of the worshipper that is asked
for in " Hear, O Israel." And so the rule was formulated
and extended, that among the prayers that might be
offered up in any language were the Shema, the Ami-
dah or Eighteen Benedictions, the Grace after meals,
etc.
Maimonides 3 and Joseph Karo 4 embody this prin-
ciple in their respective codes, the caution being signifi-
cantly added, that he who reads the Shema in another
language should be on his guard against errors of speech,
and should pronounce the words with the same precision
1 See Schiirer, II. 543. * Bab. Ber. 133, Sotah 32b.
s Hilchoth Keriath Shema 2. * Orach Chayim 62.
96 EARLY TRANSLATIONS AND TRANSLATORS
and grammatical accuracy as it is his duty to observe
in Hebrew prayers. The celebrated Sepher Chasidim,
by Judah Chasid, dating from the thirteenth century,
re-echoes the Talmudic doctrine, and declares that a
God-fearing person who is unacquainted with the holy
tongue does well to offer up his prayer in the language
he understands.1 Translations of the Liturgy must
then have very early become a necessity. What was
true near, and even in, Palestine, and already before the
destruction of the Temple, would not be likely to be less
true at more distant points in time and space.
It is, however, translations that arose on English soil
in which the Jewish Historical Society of England may be
supposed more particularly interested, and which, with
their authors, form the subject of this paper.
The eye of the inquirer in this field wanders longingly
towards the pre-expulsion period. Unfortunately,
nothing meets him but a great expanse of possibilities.
The early English ritual bore great resemblance to that
of France, though the now much-discussed Etz Chayim,
of Jacob b. Judah of London, has features that differen-
tiate it from the parent stock. But the Jewish authors
of that time used French as their language of ordinary
intercourse.2 Instruction in Hebrew must have been
given through the medium of French, and there is high
probability that their liturgical literature was not lack-
ing in translations. If Mr. Joseph Jacobs 3 is correct in
assigning England as the birthplace of an Oxford MS.,
dating from the thirteenth century, of a work, Chukke
hat-tor ah, treating of Jewish education, we may learn
from it the interesting fact that it was deemed requisite
1 § 588. * Zunz, Die Ritus, 62.
3 Jews of Angevin England, 243.
OF THE JEWISH LITURGY IN ENGLAND 97
for teachers to translate the Bible into the vernacular
as well as into Aramaic. Is the work of translation
likely to have stopped there ? In the French ritual
it seems to have been customary on the Seder evening to
repeat in the vernacular the first two pieces before and
after the second cup of wine. 1 There is great likelihood
that the Jews of England, as a body, did not break with
that custom. It is true that Dr. Kaufmann, judging
from the Ritual of the Seder of the English Jews before
the Expulsion, compiled by the Rabbi Jacob b. Judah
of London before referred to, is led to think that that
custom was not kept up in England ; but it is not a
little remarkable that " Rabbi Jacob of London " (could
he have been the aforenamed Jacob b. Judah ?) pro-
duced a translation of the Passover Hagada for the
use of women and children,2 and thus did for the
Hagada, as a whole, what in the French Ritual had
been confined to a couple of the more important pass-
ages alone. Will this have been a solitary production
of its kind ?
Shall we ever recover this or other versions done on
English soil ? Most of the documentary evidences
of the period, mainly composed of Shetaroth, wear a
very monotonous aspect, and have in them, to my
thinking, little to inspire delight or even satisfaction
in their perusal. Alas ! no Court of Exchequer, Record
Office, or Rolls Court thought it worth while to preserve
those tokens of the spiritual and literary activity of the
Jews of England, whose intrinsic value, unlike that of
the Shetaroth, would not have lapsed by any efflux
1 See the Ritual of the Seder and the Agada of the English
Jews before the Expulsion, by Dr. David Kaufmann, Jewish Quar-
ttrly Review, IV. 550. a Zunz, Die Ritus, 62.
L.A. H
98 EARLY TRANSLATIONS AND TR AN SL ATORS
of time. There is, of course, a very simple explanation
of the paucity of Jewish literary treasures during the
pre-expulsion period. The exiles carried their sacred
manuscripts as the most precious among their posses-
sions away with them into other lands. If one asks
whether any are ever destined again to see the light,
the question is not so absurd as it appears. Who could
have dreamed that fortune would have favoured us,
after all these centuries, by the recovery of the very
Prayer Book and Hagada in use in England before
1290 ? l Perhaps fate may yet prove as propitious in
the discovery of the translations as she has been in regard
to the originals.
Scarcely have the first threads of our subject been
woven, when they are snapped asunder, to remain
severed for more than three centuries and a half. The
next reference to a translation of the Liturgy occurs in a
very unexpected connexion. It is by this time, thanks,
in great part, to the researches of Mr. Lucien Wolf, one
of the indisputable facts of Anglo- Jewish history that, the
expulsion notwithstanding, there was a considerable
number of Jews who were residents in, or visitors to,
England before the Resettlement. The intercourse
between England and Holland was especially active.
The records of interments in Amsterdam give, for ex-
ample, under the dates 1623 and 1625, the burial of the
daughter of an English Jew, and of the wife and children
of an English proselyte.2 It is in Holland also that we
1 Equally interesting, though smaller in contents, is the dis-
covery in Pembroke College, Cambridge, of a page of the
Prayer Book used in Bury St. Edmunds in the twelfth century.
This has been prepared for publication by the Rev. M. Abrahams
of Leeds for the Jews' College Jubilee Volume.
8 D. Henriques de Castro, Auswahl von Grabsteinen,
99
come across a reference to translations of the Jewish
Prayers into English. Our President, whose discoveries
in a field he has made peculiarly his own are so often
generously placed at other people's service, has drawn
my attention to an entry in John Evelyn's Diary,
which has hitherto been strangely overlooked. Under
place and date London, 1641, Evelyn writes : "I was
brought acquainted with a Burgundian Jew who had
married an apostate Kentish woman." This Jew gives
Evelyn an account of certain quaint Jewish beliefs, as
to the end of the world, the transmigration of souls,
the responsibility of the Romans for the death of Jesus,
and the manner in which, when the Messiah comes, all
the vessels of Holland will break from their moorings and
convey the Jews from all parts of the world to the Holy
City. What is, however, most interesting in this entry
is the following : "He showed me several books of their
devotions which he had translated into English for the
instruction of his wife." Here, then, we have these
remarkable points, that a Jew takes to himself a wife
of the daughters of Britain, that he converts her to
Judaism, and for her benefit translates the Jewish
Liturgy — all this having taken place presumably some
time before 1641. This Jewish husband of an English
woman seems to have been what would be called a strict
observer in other respects, for, although Evelyn describes
him as " a merry, drunken fellow," he adds, " but he
would by no means handle any money (for something
purchased of him), it being Saturday ; but desired me
to leave it in the window, meaning to receive it on Sunday
morning."
Again, we are left to conjecture what this version of the
Liturgy was like. It would almost appear that before
ioo EARLY TRANSLATIONS AND TRANSLATORS
we get to a still surviving translation of the Liturgy as
many must have arisen and disappeared as there are
cities buried beneath the upper levels of Rome or Jerusa-
lem.
Not all the translations are by Jewish or by friendly or
by honest hands. In 1656, at the time when the question
of the return of the Jews to England was passing out of
the academic stage and beginning seriously to occupy the
public mind, there appeared among a growing mass of
more or less hostile literature A View of the Jewish
Religion, containing the Manner of Life, Rites, and Cere-
monies of the Jewish Nation throughout the World at this
present Time, with the Articles of their Faith as now
received, Faithfully collected by A.R. (Alexander Ross).
A curious collection of rags and tags drawn from divers
sources, mingling fact and fiction with indiscriminate
hand, and presenting a strange travesty of the Jewish
Ritual. The bias of the writer is sufficiently pro-
nounced. He sees attacks upon Christ, Christians, and
Christianity in almost every page, and, always protesting
his own perfect impartiality, proves it by falling foul of
the Jewish people throughout the world, and attributing
to them the use in prayer of " fraudulent and blasphem-
ous words slavered forth out of their hellish mouths."
No one who objected to England becoming a vast
receptacle for alien immigrants, who, upon "A. R.'s "
hypothesis, must have been either vicious or insane,
would be likely to open the door to people of whom
he believed the things reported in that book. Neverthe-
less, the renderings the author offers of passages from the
Prayer Book are often of interest. The creeds, for
example, are well rendered, though the style, as seen,
for instance, in the use of the accusative of the noun
OF THE JEWISH LITURGY IN ENGLAND 101
with the infinitive verb in dependent sentences, indicates
that the author had before him a Latin translation, and
not the original of Maimonides' Articles of Faith. There
are translations, more or less accurate, of the morning
blessings, of the penitential Vehu rachum and Alenu,
of the Sabbath Sanctification, of the Prayers for the
Sick, even of the Zemiroth of Friday night, and so forth.
They are not likely to have been translated direct from
the original. I give two or three specimens. The first
is from the Zemiroth, Ma Yedidut Menuchatech and Yom
Shabbat Kodesh.
"Put on clothes that show forth mirth and joy,
Consecrate the Candle that it may burn well,
Depart from all work,
End all thy works on Friday,
Give thy selfe to all sorts of pleasures.
To Fish, Capons, and Quailes,
Take care to be ready in the Evening,
Seek out various delights,
Cramm'd Hens, and many dainties,
Make no small esteeme of Aromaticall Wine, etc.
*****
Go softly for pleasantnesse, and longer morning
Sleep is commanded by the Law.
*****
Silk and Satin clothes are to be high prized,
And they that weare them are to be honoured.
The day of the Sabbath is holy,
O happy man that can keep it exactly,
Let no cares trouble your minde.
Though spiders make nests in your pockets.
Be merry and joyfull-minded.
Though it be with much money of other men's,
Provide the most excellent Wine, Flesh, and Fish,
And with these three furnish thy table,
So large rewards for thee
Are laid up here and there." l
1 Pp. 233-4.
102 EARLY TRANSLATIONS AND TRANSLATORS
The following is from the Confession of the sick and
dying:—
" I acknowledge and confess before Thee, O Lord my God,
God of my Fathers, God of the spirits of all flesh, that my
health and death is in Thy hands. Restore me, I pray Thee, to
former health, be Thou mindful of me, and hear my prayers, as
in the time of King Hezekiah when he was sick : but if the time
of my visitation be come in which I must die, let my death be
an expiation for all my sinnes, iniquities, and transgressions,
which I have ignorantly or knowingly committed since I came
into the world. Grant, I beseech Thee, that I may have my
part in Paradise and the age to come, which is appointed for
the righteous, and make known to me the wayes of eternal life,
fill me with the joy of Thy countenance for ever. Blessed art
Thou, O Lord, which hearest our prayers." l
The prayer at the office of Shinnui has-shem, Change
of Name, now almost entirely out of use among Western
Jews, is thus reproduced : —
" The Lord have mercy upon N. and restore him to life and
health, and let his name hereafter be called N. (sic), and let
him rejoice in Thy name, and be confirmed in it, etc. Let it,
O God, I pray thee, be Thy good pleasure that the changing
his name may take away all hard decrees, and alter the sentence
of death given out against him : if death be decreed to N., yet
it is not to N. ; if a decree be made against N., yet it is not
against N. Behold this houre he is as a new man, a new crea-
ture, and as a child new born to a good life and length of dayes." *
The year 1689 gives us the earliest translation into
Spanish of a book on the Jewish Ritual, by a minister of
an Anglo- Jewish Congregation. The Compendia de
Dinim que todo Israel Deve Saber y Observar, though
printed in Amsterdam, was the work of David Pardo,
Cantor of the Portuguese Congregation in London.
The little volume is somewhat outside the scope of our
1 P. 402. * P. 403.
OF THE JEWISH LITURGY IN ENGLAND 103
title, and I will not refer to it further than to say that it
is a concise handbook of the more important Ritual
Laws, and that its author belonged to a remarkable
family, which gave Chachamim (Rabbis) to Amsterdam,
Surinam, and Jamaica, as well as Cantors to London,
who in their day were as learned as some Chachamim.
We now come to the first Jew who endeavoured to
give to English-speaking people, and primarily to non-
Jews, some idea of the contents of the Jewish Liturgy.
I might, perhaps, have made mention of the English
version by G. Chilmead, which appeared in 1650, of Leon
Modena's Italian work on The History of Modern Jews,
containing a translation of some of the Blessings. But
it is to Isaac Abendana that we are indebted for most
ably showing forth to the educated Christians in England
some of the beauties of the Jewish Prayer Book. Isaac
Abendana was the brother of Jacob Abendana, who was
chosen Chacham of London, in succession to Joshua da
Silva, in 1680. He belonged to a family of scholars.1
His brother, the Chacham, probably by way of reply to
attempts made to convert him by a Professor (Antonius
Halsius) at Leyden, translated the Cuzari, Jehuda Hale-
vi's system of the Jewish faith, into Spanish. But Isaac's
activity seems to have been even more considerable than
his brother's. He translated the Mishnah and parts of
Maimonides' Yad Hachazakah into Spanish. Together
with his brother, he edited, with additions, the Michlol
Yophi, and translated (the lion's share of the work
falling to him) the whole of the Mishnah into Latin — a
work which is in manuscript in six volumes in the
Cambridge University Library. Coming to England
with his brother Jacob, he settled in Oxford, became a
1 See Kayserling, Analekten in Frankcl's Monatschrift, vol. ix.
104 EARLY TRANSLATIONS AND TRANSLATORS
teacher of Hebrew, gave lectures in Hebrew literature,
and also spent several years in similar pursuits at Cam-
bridge.1 He is said to have been a man of delightful
conversation, and certainly he had the tact, while writing
in a manner that could not but advance respect for Jews
and Judaism, not to utter a word that might give umbrage
to Christians. He was in correspondence with many
learned Christians ; two inedited letters of his to Bux-
torf the younger, one in Hebrew and the other in English,
are extant.2 For several years he published a Jewish
Calendar, to which it was his habit to affix a dissertation
on some subject of Jewish interest. Those for 1695 and
1699 are enriched respectively with " An account of our
Publick Liturgy as at this day established among us,"
and " A Discourse concerning the Jewish Fasts, wherein
is a brief Account of the Great Day of Expiation."
They are avowedly intended to give Christians an idea of
Jewish rites and tenets.
The latter of these short treatises contains, among
other things, a description of the Abodah, the High
Priest's ministrations in the ancient Temple. It is
almost literally translated from Mishnah Yoma, and is as
lucid as the original, offering in this respect a striking
contrast to the involved and difficult Piyut, by Meshul-
lam b. Kalonymos, which in our Atonement Service
takes the place of the Mishnaic account. Here is a
specimen : —
1 The two men Isaac and Jacob Abendana are often con-
founded, and Jacob absorbs all that belonged to Isaac, probably
on account of his official position. Even Dr. Ginsburg, in his
article on " Abendana " inKitto's Encyclopedia, inextricably con-
fuses the two men as well as their works.
1 Carmoly, Mtdecins Juifs, i. 178 ; Kayserling, loc cit.
OF THE JEWISH LITURGY IN ENGLAND 105
" Then he went to his sin-offering which stood between the
porch and the Altar, and laying both his hands upon its head,
confest both his own and family's sins, after this manner : ' O
Lord, I and my house have committed iniquity, rebell'd and
sinn'd against Thee : therefore, O Lord, I beseech Thee, pardon
the iniquities, rebellion and sin, which I and my house have com-
mitted, according to Thy promise made to this purpose in the
Law of Moses.' " l
The form of resolution on the day previous to a volun-
tary fast is thus rendered : —
" O God, the Governor of the world, I resolve here, in Thy
awful presence, to afflict myself with fasting to-morrow. O
my God and God of my forefathers, be pleas'd to receive me
favourably, and graciously to hear my Prayers and answer
my Supplications. O Thou that hearest the Prayers of all
men, heal me ; and let the words of my mouth and the thoughts
of my heart be always pleasing in Thy sight, O my Strength
and my Redeemer." *
A passage or two from his Account of our Public
Liturgy can hardly fail to interest. First, a few sen-
tences from his introductory remarks : —
"As to the first requisite in prayer, viz., the qualifications
of the party that prayeth, be it observed that he must be duly
prepared and disposed in mind and affection before he presume
to appear in the presence of God, and that such previous dis-
positions are to be procured by a serious meditation on the
great solemnity of the action he is going about. (To which
purpose 'tis observable, that some of our pious ancients did use
to tarry some short space in the synagogue before prayers begun,
the better to settle and compose their thoughts.) At his en-
trance into the places of publick worship he must behave him-
self with all agreeable reverence, as being sensible of the great
holiness and sanctity thereof. Pursuant hereto his thoughts
must be sequestred from all vain and frivolous objects, and
fix'd with the most serious attention on the duty which he is
engag'd in, as knowing that wand'ring desires, and lazy, or
formal, or hypocritical devotion, will find no acceptance with
1 P. 10. « P. 86.
io6 EARLY TRANSLATIONS AND TRANSLATORS
God who searches the heart, and expects we should wholly
dedicate that to Him, and commands the service of the mind,
as well as of the mouth. To attain this end he must repeat
his prayers seriously, gravely, and deliberately, without haste
or precipitation, that his heart and his tongue may go together,
and God may be glorified by that as well as this." l
The summary he gives of the Shemoneh Esreh is
admirable in every way, while it would be difficult to
offer a better explanation or a more suitable version than
that contained in the following : —
" But because these prayers, being of a considerable length,
cannot in a short space of time be performed, especially in the
manner above related ; and because the exigencies of our
affairs may sometimes be such that we may have not sufficient
leasure to attend them : therefore in cases of extreme danger
to our persons, as in times of war and persecutions, and insuper-
able difficulties and necessities, as in a journey that requires
haste and expedition, some use the following form : ' The neces-
sities of Thy people are many ; their understanding is weak ;
may it please Thee, O Lord our God, to grant us what is suffi-
cient for our sustenance, and to send a supply proportioned
to every man's wants, and do what is good in Thine eyes. Blessed
be Thou, O Lord, that hearest prayer.' Others, instead of
that form, do on the like occasions use this following, entitled
Habhenenu, being a compendious abstract of the nineteen
principal prayers, beginning at the fourth and ending with the
sixteenth, and is thus conceived : ' Give us understanding, O
Lord our God, to know Thy ways ; circumcise our hearts, that
we may fear Thee ; grant us pardon that we may be cleansed
from our sins ; remove from us all grief and sorrows ; grant
that we may enjoy the pleasures of Thy habitation in Thy holy
Land ; gather the dispersed from the four corners of the earth ;
judge them that do err from Thy Law ; let the righteous be
glad in the restoration of Thy holy City, the re-establishment
of Thy Temple, and the restitution of the Kingdom of David,
that his name may shine, and his Crown flourish ; before we
call, do Thou answer, and whilst we are yet speaking, do Thou
hearken ; for Thou art our Redeemer and Deliverer in all our
1 Pp. 4-5-
107
tribulation and distress. Blessed be Thou, O God, that hearest
prayer." l
You will have no difficulty in recognizing in all this the
English of a cultured scholar of that age. If Isaac
Abendana had undertaken a complete translation of
our Liturgy, the work of subsequent translators would
have been greatly facilitated or might have been rendered
superfluous ; and I know at least one version of the
Prayer Book which would probably never have seen the
light.
Returning now from English to Spanish translators of
our Liturgy, we have to notice the work of two very
remarkable men. Of a high order of merit was the
contribution towards the translation of the Liturgy
made by Daniel Israel Lopez Laguna. Born in France
about the year 1660, a Marrano, he passed as a youth
into Spain, where he made practical experience of some
of the terrors of the Inquisition. Equipped with the
learning he had managed to gather in both countries, he
escaped from Spain and found his way to Jamaica, and
later to London. His life had been one of constant
peril in its earlier stages, and full of trial and suffering
to the last. Like many another who had made acquain-
tance with griefs, he found in the Psalms at once a
reflex of his sorrows and a spring of comfort under them.
He was among those unhappy ones who " are cradled
into poetry by wrong." The fruit of many years'
labour was given to the world in London in a metrical
translation of the Psalms under the title of Espejo fiel de
Vidas — Faithful Mirror of Lives. The book has a sub-
jective colouring, his own experience being occasionally
introduced into the very words of the text. But
1 Pp. 28-29.
io8 EARLY TRANSLATIONS AND TRANSLATORS
it was esteemed a very notable production, and the
poetical spirit that breathed through it inspired quite
a little host of admirers to break into song in commen-
dation of it.1
Of the very highest interest, however, in connexion
with our subject are the Spanish translations, which
appeared in London in 1740, of the Prayers for New
Year and Atonement (the latter supplemented by a
translation of Ibn Gabirol's Keter Malchut) and that of
Daily Prayers, New Moon, Hanucah and Purim, published
thirty-one years later — both by Isaac Nieto. Isaac
had succeeded his father, the celebrated David Nieto, in
the Chachamship in 1728. There were of course earlier
translations for the use of Spanish Jews ; but they were
generally in the Judaeo-Spanish jargon, against which
the cultured spirits of that time already revolted. A
remarkable point about these Spanish translations is
that they were printed without any corresponding
Hebrew text — a practice in which Nieto was but follow-
ing the example of the earlier editions of Amsterdam.
The question is for whom these translations were
intended. Some imagine that they were designed for
the special use of women and children. But the writers
make no mention of such a purpose, and that these
Prayer Books were equally intended for the use of men is
evident from their containing the old formula : " Blessed
art Thou, who hast not made me a woman." Ignorance
of Hebrew is not, as is too readily taken for granted, the
discreditable mark of our own age exclusively. In this
respect, as in a good many others, the caution may serve :
" Say not, How is it the former days were better than
1 See Kayserling's Sephardim, p. 297, and Graetz, Geschichle,
X. 326.
OF THE JEWISH LITURGY IN ENGLAND 109
these ? " During the last century the cry was already
heard, in pamphlets and elsewhere, that Hebrew was an
unknown tongue to many Jewish worshippers. Abra-
ham Pimentel, a distinguished member of the Portuguese
community in the early part of the last century, in a
preface to Laguna's Version of the Psalms, says dis-
tinctly that " our brethren who have fled from Spanish
and Portuguese persecutions hither to London were
compelled to pray in Spanish because of their ignorance
of the Hebrew." * The truth is that the Marranos, men
as well as women and children, were nearly always
unacquainted with Hebrew, though in other respects
abreast of the culture of their age, and it was to satisfy
a taste trained and educated on a pure Spanish dialect
that a different sort of version was needed from that
offered in the corrupt jargon whose fate it has somehow
been, whether in the Spanish or the German variety, to
be regarded with a species of superstitious awe, and as
but one degree less inspired than the Hebrew original.
With a courage and an enlightenment deserving of all
praise, Isaac Nieto set himself the task of dethroning
the Judaeo-Spanish jargon and setting up a more legiti-
mate successor in its stead. In his Introduction to the
Orden de las Oraciones de Ros-ashanah y Kippur, he gives
vent to the general complaint concerning the decline of
the devotional spirit. The cause, he thinks, is to be
sought in the little regard manifested for the require-
ments of the more educated classes. People said they
did not understand what they uttered, and how was
devotion to be excited by means of words without mean-
ing ? The version in use was full of unsuitable, bar-
1 See Early Jewish Literature in America, by G. A. Kohut, in
Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, III. in.
no EARLY TRANSLATIONS AND TRANSLATORS
barous, uncouth, and obsolete expressions ; the style
was unworthy to be employed in prayer to the Eternal
Omnipotent God. If it was possible to improve upon the
old translation, and to give the sense in terms the most
appropriate and the most intelligible in use in the lan-
guage, why not do it ? Were we to venerate mistakes
because they were old, or to respect what is unbecoming
because it was ancient ? Languages change in the course
of time. It was our duty to amend our versions in the
measure in which the language became modified. Again,
who did not know how widely the Hebrew language
differed in character and construction from the Castilian ?
If we prayed in Castilian, it was because we were ignorant
of Hebrew ; but if a translation was full of Hebraisms,
that would be to make us pray in Castiliano-Hebrew,
something that was neither Castilian nor Hebrew.
Then Nieto turns upon, and effectually disposes of, the
arguments of those who justify their use of the old
corrupt translations on the ground that there is a peculiar
sanctity and mystery attaching to versions of this sort,
which would vanish if another medium were resorted to.
The credit of producing the first printed Jewish Prayer
Book in the English language belongs again to the Span-
ish and Portuguese branch of the community. This
time, curiously enough, it is not in London, but in New
York that it sees the light. The book, a small quarto of
191 pages, is entitled Prayers for Shabbath, Rosh Has-
hanah and Kippur, or the Sabbath, the Beginning of the
Year and the Day of Atonements ; with the Amidah and
Musaph of the Moadim or Solemn Seasons ; According
to the Order of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews, Trans-
lated by Isaac Pinto, and for him printed by John Holt,
in New York, A.M. 5526=1766. The book may, how-
OF THE JEWISH LITURGY IN ENGLAND HI
ever, by a little breadth of interpretation, be considered
as covered by the title of this lecture, because in 1766
the United States had not yet formally severed their
connexion with England. Taking England, by synec-
doche, for the British Empire, Isaac Pinto, publishing
his English Prayer Book in New York, may be classed
among the early translators of the Jewish Prayer Book
in England.
The Preface is interesting, as it affords another indica-
tion of the state of Hebrew knowledge at the time.
After expressing his conviction of the importance of
Hebrew as a medium of Prayer, the translator continues
that that language " being imperfectly understood by
many, by some not at all, it has been necessary to
translate our Prayers in the language of the country
wherein it hath pleased the Divine Providence to ap-
point our lot. In Europe, the Spanish and Portuguese
Jews have a translation in Spanish, which, as they
generally understand, may be sufficient ; but that not
being the case in the British Dominions in America,
has induced me to Attempt a Translation, not without
Hope that it may tend to the Improvement of many of
my Brethren in their Devotion." Pinto acknowledges
his indebtedness to " the elegant Spanish Translation "
of " the Learned and Reverend H. H. R. Ishac Nieto."
As in the case of the Spanish translations to which I have
referred, no Hebrew appears in the book, and this fact
would seem to show that there must have been an appre-
ciable number of persons in the last century who, for
purposes of private worship at least, and perhaps also
while in attendance at synagogue, depended upon English
alone in their devotions.
Some crudities there are in this translation, but few
H2 EARLY TRANSLATIONS AND TRANSLATORS
serious mistakes, and the style has a genuine devotional
ring, as a single passage will testify. It is
THE CONFESSION OF THE MUSAPH, OF RABBENU SHEM TOB BEN
ARDUSIEL.
Ribbono Shel Olam.
" Lord of the World ! When I consider that the lustre of
my Youth is departed, and that my Prospects are all of them
become as a mere Shadow ; while my Sins appear red as Scarlet,
although my Locks are white as Snow, according to the Great
Number of Years wasted in the Pursuit of every Lust, and which
have been spent in transgressing every Precept ; now alas !
at an End without Hope, I almost despair the obtaining a
Reformation, or that I shall be able to repent, while the Time
is thus short, and the Labour exceeding great. Oh when will
the Time come (I was wont to say), that I may publickly con-
fess the sins I have with Presumption committed ; Now that
the Time is come, how shall I confess, in the few hours I have
remaining, the Sins and Iniquities which I have committed ? Or
that I should even be able to mention them, when to enumer-
ate them Words would be wanting ; If to write them. Books
and Volumes would not contain them : Days and Nights would
be consumed in the Confession, and there would yet remain
the greater Part to be confessed. Nevertheless, if with pleas-
ing and mellifluent Words, I implore Forgiveness of my Trans-
gressions, how good, and how agreeable would it be ? I will
begin then with the Confession of the Sin of an Evil Tongue ;
I will entreat with tender Expressions for the Sin of the Dis-
soluteness of Speech. As the Mouth hath been the occasion
of the Crime, may it now be the Instrument of obtaining Par-
don. But alas ! How shall the Speech of Lips be able to obtain
Forgiveness for the Blood wherewith the Hands are stained,
or for the Violence they have done. For the Sins past and
present already perpetrated and committed. Of what avail
can the Confession of a deceitful Tongue be ? What Advantage
can it be to him that is laden with Wickedness, the many un-
profitable Confessions, however frequent they may be made ?
For the Expiation of Transgression doth not consist in the
Multitude of Words : Is the Health of the Soul to be obtained
by the Motion of the Lips, however Eloquent, whilst the Heart
retaineth Malice, and the Thoughts are immersed in every
Abomination ? And although my Tears should fall in Drops,
OF THE JEWISH LITURGY IN ENGLAND 113
as the Rain, to entreat for the Sin which I have committed
against Thee through error, I should nevertheless be accountable
before Thy divine Tribunal, for the Sin which I have presumptu-
ously committed against Thee : Or if I were to hope obtaining
(as it were by a Miracle) Pardon for the Sin which I have com-
mitted against Thee by Constraint ; Woe of me, if I must suffer
Paui both hi Body and Mind, for the Sin which I have com-
mitted against Thee, with my Free Will. And although I
earnestly intreat, and my Pardon be granted for the Sin which
I have committed against Thee in Secret ; yet my Heart would
be parched up in the Fire of Terror, for the Sin which I have
committed against Thee in Public. Or if I should say, I will
for this Time fly from Thy Presence until Thine anger be passed
over ; how inconsistent ! When the whole Earth is full of
Thy Glory, and there is none to deliver from Thy Power ; the
very grave is naked before Thee : Whither shall I fly from
Thy Presence, when there is nothing hid from Thine Eyes ?
If I ascend up into Heaven, Thou art there ; and if I make the
Grave my Bed, Thou art there. I will be Dumb, and put my
Hand to my Mouth ; I am ashamed and confounded. With
Heart fearful, and trembling, absorpt and amazed in Mind, the
Thoughts in Suspense, unable to determine between liberty
and constraint, possible and impossible ; uncertain which may
be the most proper, whether to stand or fly, whether to be
fearful or have Hope ; halting between two opinions ; whether
I ought to call my Iniquities to Mind, or endeavour to forget
them ; whether I should speak or hold my Peace ? O the
dreadful Situation ! If I am silent my whole Frame trembles ;
And if I speak my Crimes are then discovered : O the Remorse
of my Heart, at my past Life ! If I think of hiding my Iniquity
in my own Bosom, and to lodge it in my own Breast, my Counte-
nance would be an Evidence of my Guilt : But above all, the
Judge intuitively beholdeth the most profound Secrets ; and
before Him there is no Oblivion. He respecteth not Persons,
nor will He receive Bribes. How very precious a thing is the
Redemption from Sin, and how shall I, that am poor and indi-
gent in good Works, be able to obtain Purification. I will
therefore bow down my Head as a Reed, my Tears tinged with
my Blood through Grief : And Inwardly I am rent in Pieces
through Anguish.
" But I stand self -reproved, my own Mind answering me
with Encouragement, saying : Although the Judge is awful
and tremendous, yet earnestly intreat for Redemption, for there
is still time ; nor dispair obtaining Mercy, For the Sun is yet
L.A. I
ii4 EARLY TRANSLATIONS AND TRANSLATORS
high, and hastened not yet to set, as a perfect Day : That there
may be Time for thy penitential Cry, and a Door opened to
thy Prayer, to grant thy Request : And although thy Crime
be ever so great, God is still infinitely greater to forgive, and
if thy Sins are as the Waters of the Sea, and the Waves there-
of, and thy Offences as the Stars of Heaven and their Hosts,
consider that the Mercy of the Lord is Eternal : And if thy
Iniquities surpass the Clouds, his divine Favour excelleth tho
Heavens, even the highest Heavens."
Messrs. Joseph Jacobs and Lucien Wolf assert * that
the Mahamad would not allow this translation to appear
in England. If this is a fact, it is a very mysterious
one, considering that the Spanish translation of Nieto
had been produced with the licence of the Mahamad
twenty-six years earlier. However, the ways of congre-
gations are sometimes mysterious, and their earlier course
is not always a guide to that which they will later adopt.
But this other fact also remains, that whatever the Span-
ish Jews in those days undertook was done with a
happy union of knowledge, dignity, and zeal. I wish
we could say the same of the German and Polish element
of that period. Zeal there may have been, but there was
little either of knowledge or dignity. Reference must
first be made to a volume entitled The Book of the
Religion, Ceremonies, and Prayers of the Jews. . . .
Translated immediately from the Hebrew by Gamaliel
Ben Pedahzur, Gent; Printed in London in 1738. It
is a pretentious volume, and one is at a loss whether to
be more amused at the audacity or at the ignorance of
this " Gent." Internal evidence shows him to have
sprung from the Ashkenazi section of the community.
This is his notion of the meaning of the Kaddish (Gama-
liel, p. 163) :—
1 Bibliotheca Anglo-Judaica, p. 174.
OF THE JEWISH LITURGY IN ENGLAND 115
Reader goes on with a loud voice.
He shall be magnify'd, and he shall be saiictify'd ; O his
great name in the world, his word, and his will ; and he shall
be king over all his kingdoms, in your lifetime, and in your
days, and during the life of the whole house of Israel, in his
triumphal chariot, yea very speedily, and ye shall say, Amen.
Cong. — Amen. His great name shall be blessed everlastingly,
throughout all worlds he shall be blessed.
Reader goes on with a loud voice.
He shall be blessed, and he shall be praised, and he shall
be beautify'd, and he shall be exalted, and he shall be raised,
and he shall be adorn'd with majesty, and he shall rise, and
he shall be extoll'd ; O the name of the holy one, blessed is he.
Cong. — Blessed is he already and for ever.
Reader goes on with a loud voice.
Already and for ever with all the blessings and singings,
praises and comforts it hath been said in the world, and ye
shall say, Amen.
Cong. — Amen. O that he may with mercy and with a good
will accept our prayers.
Reader goes on with a loud voice.
He shall accept of their prayers, and of their desire of the
whole house of Israel, offered up before him, who is their father
which is in heaven, and ye shall say, Amen.
Cong. — Amen. The name of the Lord shall be blessed, from
now unto the end of the world, for ever.
The Al Chet becomes as follows in his hands : —
" And for the sin which we have sinned against thee with a
lofty neck . . . with painting our eye . . . with the help of a
cross-eye . . . with an uncovered, or light and giddy head.
. . . And for the sins for which we deserved (the four dying
sentences of the house or hands of justice) Stoning, Burning,
Slaughtering, Strangling, on account of statutes commanded
to be observed and on account of statutes commanded not to be
observed, whether they be subsistant, thou shalt perform them ;
and if they be not subsistant thou shalt perform ; yea those
discovered unto us, and even those which are not discovered
unto us, we have already spoke of them unto thee," etc.
n6 EARLY TRANSLATIONS AND TRANSLATORS
But the topmost summit of absurdity is reached in
Gamaliel ben Pedahzur's version of R. Ishmael's thirteen
exegetical rules by which the Torah is expounded : —
" Rabbi Yeshmoel saith, that the law is preached in thirteen
different ways, by concluding the easy from the difficult, and
from judging between two equalities, from a main text written
in one place and from a main text written in two several places,
from generals and particulars, and from particulars and generals ;
the general and particular and general, you cannot judge but
as a particular of generals ; for it must be of particulars, and
of a particular ; for that must be from a general, and all things
that have been generals, and proceed from generals, to learn
and not to learn, answer for themselves, but to learn of the
generals answers all ; and everything that was in the generals
and went to reason any other reasoning not to the purpose,
is counted easy and not difficult, and everything that was in
general and went to judge of a new thing, thou couldst not
answer him to generals till the text is turn'd to generals ex-
plained, as learning the matter from its circumstances, and
learning the matter from its conclusions. And so it is with
two texts that contradict each other till the third text comes
in and determines between them." 1
The translator considerably adds in a note, " This
paragraph of R. Yeshmoel is just the same incoherence
in the Hebrew as it is here in the English." The excuse
recalls the well-known method of the schoolboy who
hands in incomprehensible translations of classical
authors and defends himself by pleading that the obscurity
is in the original. The argument is rarely accepted as
conclusive by judges.2
Efforts were made, when the century had passed three-
1 P. 15.
* There is strong reason to believe that Gamaliel ben Pedahzur
was an apostate from Judaism, and that his book was intended
to cast ridicule upon the community whom he had deserted.
The reader will probably be inclined to think that Gamaliel has
unintentionally succeeded in making himself ridiculous.
OF THE JEWISH LITURGY IN ENGLAND 117
score and ten, to improve upon Gamaliel, and, partly
with this avowed object, the first English translation of
the Prayer Book as a whole was produced by B. Myers
and A. Alexander. It was not a very decided step in
advance, and what was best in the book must have been
due to Mr. Myers rather than to Mr. Alexander. This
is the conclusion one arrives at on examining Alexander's
independent work. I am sorry to say Alexander trans-
lated the whole of the Festival Prayers of the Portuguese
Rite. It was a melancholy performance. Indeed, it
almost seems as if the worst literary service ever rendered
to the Portuguese was done by an Ashkenazi, and, as an
Ashkenazi, I feel inclined to apologize to them. In
justice to our sister community, I should mention that
the translation does not bear the Imprimatur of the
Mahamad. Wise Mahamad !
Mr. Alexander was a bold, bad, book-maker. He
published, among many other things, A Key to Part of
the Hebrew Liturgy, which, for its size, is about as big a
fraud as I know, page after page being lifted bodily,
without acknowledgment or hint, from Abendana's
work of nearly eighty years before — a sort of liturgical
resurrection-pie. What his style and that of his " assist-
ants " was like you may gather from a specimen taken
from the Hagadah, which was their joint production.
It appeared in 1770, and was the first edition of that
portion of our Liturgy printed with a translation and
directions in English.
" On the first and second night of Passover, the table at every
family's house is set off thus : The tablecloth is on as usual ;
in the middle of the table stands a large dish cover'd with a
napkin, on the napkin is laid a large Passover cake, mark'd
with three notches, which cake is called Yisrael, Israelite, that
cake is cover'd with a napkin, and on the napkin is laid a second
n8 EARLY TRANSLATIONS AND TRANSLATORS
cake, with two notches, which cake is called Levi, Levite, that
cake is cover'd with a napkin, and on the napkin is laid a third
cake, with one notch, which is called Cohen,1 a priest of the tribe
of Aaron, that cake is cover'd with a napkin, on which stands
a plate, and in the plate there is a2 shank-bone of a shoulder
with a small matter of meat on it, which is burnt quite brown
on the fire.3 A small quantity of raw charvil,4 a cup with
salt water,5 an egg roasted hard in hot ashes that it may not
be broke, a stick • of horse-radish, with the green top of it,7 a
couple of round balls about the bigness of a pigeon's egg, are made
of bitter almonds, pounded with apples, etc.
" Every person at the table has his glass, or cup, fill'd with
wine, at this ceremony four different times, as hereafter men-
tioned, which is called in Hebrew arba kosot, four cups, though
at supper many more are made use of, but at the ceremonies
no more than four.
8 " The seat of the master is three chairs, set close together,
in imitation of a couch, at the head of which are put pillows
to raise it high, for the master to lean on whilst he sits at table.
1 " Kohen, Levi, Yisrael, The above-mentioned three cakes
with one, two, and three notches, are made to distinguish the
one from the other, and to know how to place them in the dish,
and that the Reader may observe, the one notch is laid upper-
most, and that with two is put under that with one notch, and
that with three notches undermost. There is another cake
which is called saphek (i.e. doubtful), because it is uncertain
whether it will be wanted for any use at all, and if it should,
it is uncertain which of them.
2 " Is in remembrance of the flesh roasted with fire, that was
commanded to be eat this night in Egypt. See Exodus xii. 8.
• " In remembrance of the sower herbs, which were com-
manded to be eat this night in Egypt. See Ibid.
4 " In remembrance of the sea which the children of Israel
cross 'd over.
8 " In remembrance of the Paschal Lamb commanded this
night to be roasted whole, without blemish. See Exodus xii. 5.
• " In remembrance of hard labour, which made the eyes
water, and the green top is in remembrance of the bitterness
of the labour.
7 " In remembrance of working in bitterness in lime and
brick.
8 " The reason is to indicate masterly authority which we
are deprived of, being there in servitude and bondage.
OF THE JEWISH LITURGY IK ENGLAND 119
1 " In all families, the meanest of the Hebrew servants are
seated at table these two nights with their masters and mis-
tresses, and the rest of their superiors. One cup of wine is
always set on the table extraordinary, for Elias, the Prophet,
to drink of (which is always drank by the youngest at table
in his stead), and always filled, when the rest are at the cere-
monies. All things being thus in proper order, and every one
having first washed their hands, and seated round the table,
the master of the family takes his cup of wine in his right hand
(the rest at the table doing the same), he and altogether with
him in concert, sayeth."
It is not easy to keep one's countenance as one reads
that what our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt was
" the likeness of this poor bread " ; that it was called
" poor on account it was hard to digest " ; that " Thou
didst release from the lion's den he who interpreted the
horrors of the night " ; that " he who concealed blas-
phemy desiring exaltation his corps didst thou cause to
purify at night " ; that " Agagi retained an aversion "
— the translator's way of saying that Haman bore
Israel a grudge — and that the writing on the wall was the
work of " the hand that wrote to root out the root on the
Passover."
I have already reached the fair limit of a paper of this
kind, and I leave for next session the continuation of
this subject, which will take up the thread where I now
drop it, but will mainly concern itself with David Levi,
the man, his writings, and his times.
One word of caution in conclusion. Let it not for a
moment be imagined that, much as we value, and ought
to value, accuracy in rendering and purity of style, these
are the absolutely indispensable concomitants of depth
1 " The reason is because in Egypt they were all slaves alike,
therefore they make all equal, and are obliged to give the same
ceremonial thanks for their redemption."
120 EARLY TRANSLATIONS AND TRANSLATORS
and warmth of religious feeling. It would go hard with
the vast majority of mankind not only in the past, but
probably in the present also, if such were the case. True
enough it is — and I am prepared to withdraw anything
I may ever have uttered or implied to the contrary —
that, as George Eliot has somewhere said, it is quite
possible to be ignorant of ah1 the concords and habitually
to violate them, and at the same time to be in no wise
lacking in the higher spiritual graces — perfect sincerity
of heart and genuine devotion.
II.
WHEN I last had the privilege of addressing this Society,
I brought the subject of our inquiry down to the attempts
made by Isaac Pinto in 1766, and by Myers and Alex-
ander in 1770, to present the two branches of the com-
munity with translations of more or less complete
portions of their respective Liturgies, and I left off with
an undertaking again to take up the thread of our sub-
ject, with more particular reference to the work and the
life of David Levi, one of the most remarkable products of
the English Jewry of the eighteenth century — a man to
whom hitherto but scant justice has, I think, been done.
I have, however, to-night, in the first instance, to take
a step backward. For this somewhat erratic course you
will see that I am not to blame, but rather that some
one has to be praised — though it is not to me that praise
is due. Mr. Lucien Wolf, before his presidential sunset,
shot a kindly parting ray of light into my not too brightly
illuminated field of research. He has placed in my
hand an interesting volume which he received from
M. Cardozo of Paris. It is a translation in MS. of the
Daily and Sabbath and New Moon prayers, together
OF THE JEWISH LITURGY IN ENGLAND 121
with the more important parts of the festival services,
and the Scripture lessons appropriate to these days,
and it is dated at the end, in the handwriting of the
major part of the volume, " London, 1729, 23rd August."
The MS. is a stout little quarto of 716 pages, written in
a very legible script, the ink but slightly faded. Two
hands are clearly traceable in the mechanical part of
the work. The rite is the Sephardic. The translation
leaves much to be desired. Rabbinical passages, like
Ezehu Mekoman and Pittum hak-ketoret are omitted.
Difficult phrases such as ve-tichnas lanu liphnim mis-
shurat had-din, which even Dayan Haliva, as late as 1852,
pleased himself by rendering " Lead us within the tem-
perate line of strict justice," are left untouched ; so is
the sentence still retained in the Portuguese Liturgy,
she-hem mishtachevim le-hebel va-rik u-mithpallelim el
el lo Yodea — as though the fear of a censor lay upon the
translator. There are numerous mistakes in transla-
tion, as well as errors in grammatical construction. Yet
it is by no means devoid of merit, and it is marked in
many passages by a certain vigour of style and quaint-
ness of phraseology, which make one regret the many
inaccuracies that are spread over the book. Let me
give you a few specimens of the translator's style : —
" For ever may man be in fear of his Creator, in secret and
in public, and defend the truth, and speaking the truth of his
heart, and awake and say, O God of the worlds and Lord of
Lords, it is not for our righteousness that we offer our supplica-
tions before Thee, but for Thy many tender mercy's sake. O
Lord hear, O Lord pardon, O Lord hear and do, it is not too
late for Thee my God, for Thy name was called upon Thy city,
and upon Thy people. What are we ? what is our life ? and
what are our deserts ? what is our righteousness ? and what
is our salvation ? what is our strength ? what is our might ?
what shall we say before Thee ? O Lord our God, and God of
122 EARLY TRANSLATIONS AND TRANSLATORS
our Fathers, most certain the mighty ones are as nothing before
Thee ; and men of fame as if they were not, and learned men
as without knowledge and understanding, by reason that the
multitude of our actions are vanity, and the days of our life
are as nothing before Thee, and man has no advantage over the
beast, for all is vanity except the soul, for it is placed to give
account before the seat of Thy glory." — Pp. 12-13.
" Wind the great horn for our freedom, and set up that great
Standard to gather us from our Captivity, and gather even all
us from the four corners of the Earth unto our Lord ; Blessed
be Thou, O Lord, which gatherest the dispersed of Israel." —
P. 64.
" To the Renegado shall be no hope, and all the Heretics
and informers shall be destroyed, and all our enemies and them
that hate us shall be cut off, and the Kingdom of pride Thou
shalt pull up by the Root and break it, and Thou wUt consume
and cutt it off in our Days. Blessed be Thou, O Lord, which
weaknest our Enemies and tamest the proud ! " — P. 65.
" Though our mouths were full of singing like unto the noise
of the Sea, and our tongues full of musick like unto the sounds
of the waves, and our lips full of praise like unto the breadth
of Heaven, and our eyes full of light like unto the sun or moon,
and our hands spread like as the Eagles of Heaven, and our
feet as nimble as the Hart ; yet were they not sufficient to
praise Thee, O Lord our God, nor to bless Thy name, our King,
for a thousand millions of mercies," etc. — Pp. 220-1.
" O God, I was thirsty for Thy Salvation, and I composed
my prayer before Thee. Let the soul of Thy servant rejoice,
for Thou art full of Light, Let it be unto us for salvation, Let
the days of our rejoicing be as the number of days of our afflic-
tion, and the years that we have seen evill, Let the strength
of the walls and the gates be put aside (sic) and Mount Sion
alone Thou wilt make to rejoice, the Daughters of Judah shall
be glad when Thou stretchest out Thine hand a second time,"
etc.— Pp. 563-4.
From the Hosanoth of the First Day of Tabernacles.
The whole volume is tantalizing in the extreme. Who
was the author ? His name is not given, and there is
absolutely nothing to indicate his personality. On the
upper margin of the first page is written in red ink and
OF THE JEWISH LITURGY IN ENGLAND 123
in a different handwriting from the rest, " Cardozo de
Bethencourt " — the signature simply of a recent owner
of the book. It has been suggested that the work was
a translation from another, a Spanish or Portuguese
version. But this theory will not hold, because the
Spanish and Portuguese translations then in existence
were free from gross blunders, and were far ahead in
correctness and style of anything the German and Polish
portion of the community produced until nearly the end
of the century. In 1729, Isaac Nieto was Chacham,
the scholarly son of a scholarly father, David Nieto,
who died the year previously, and whom Isaac suc-
ceeded in the Rabbinate. Neither father nor son would
be likely to pass the book. For whom was it then
intended and for what purpose ? Could it have been
designed to be printed ? Here was a laborious piece of
work, which would hardly have been undertaken without
a specific purpose. The most probable conclusion that
suggests itself is, that it was intended as a volume of pri-
vate prayer for some pious but not very learned worship-
pers. Still it is all exceedingly puzzling, and suggestions
throwing any light on the subject would be very welcome.
The one clear result at which we can arrive is that the
MS. is a proof that already in 1729 the want was being
felt among English-speaking Jews of an English transla-
tion of their Liturgy, and that an effort, though not a
brilliant one, was made to supply that want.
The Mendelssohnian Revival in Germany during the
last quarter of the eighteenth century had no counter-
part in England. The smallness of the Jewish popu-
lation, their comparatively recent settlement in this
country, the character of their pursuits, which ran almost
exclusively in commercial channels, the low state of
124 EARLY TRANSLATIONS AND TRANSLATORS
education, both secular and religious, alike within and
outside the Jewish community, may help to explain the
absence among them at that period of men, I will not
say like Moses Mendelssohn himself — for genius is always
an incalculable phenomenon in regard alike to time,
place, and circumstances — but of men of the type of the
Meassephim generally. In England, the nearest approach
to that activity in religious literature, as adapted to
latter-day requirements, which was spreading from
Berlin over the whole of the Continent, was made by
David Levi. The story of his life and an account of the
work he accomplished would form as striking an illustra-
tion as is to be found, how a determined will conquers all
obstacles, and how little effect adverse circumstances
have upon the career of a man who believes in himself.
Born in London in 1740, l the son of Mordecai Levi, a
member of the German and Polish community, he was
early apprenticed to a shoemaker. For a short time
he practised the shoemaking craft, but without much
success. He next turned his attention to hat-making,
and to within a few years of his death in 1801 gained a
precarious living in this occupation. But there was within
him the conviction that the whole of his efforts ought
not to be absorbed by the labours, however useful and
necessary in themselves, of covering either one or the
other extremity of the persons of his fellowmen. Nature
had designed him for a scholar in despite of circumstances.
He was a diligent reader and an apt student. His talents
were recognized by those about him, and a design was
formed of sending the youth to Poland to study under
his great-grandfather. The plan came to nothing, owing
to the departure at that time of his great-grandfather
1 See Dictionary of National Biography.
OF THE JEWISH LITURGY IN ENGLAND 125
for Palestine. Meanwhile his Hebrew studies were
pursued with ardour ; he read Talmud and Midrash
to good effect ; he made himself master of the commen-
taries of Rashi, Kimchi, Aben Ezra, and Abarbanel,
his knowledge of the last being especially remarkable,
and he followed with close attention the works of the
chief Christian biblical and theological writers of his
time.
He does not seem to have rushed too early into print.
In 1783, when he was forty-three, appeared his first
printed work, entitled A Succinct Account of the
Rites and Ceremonies of the Jews, in which their Re-
ligious Principles and Tenets are Explained. Such
a work was undoubtedly much needed, if only to remove
the false and vicious impressions left by works like
those of the apostate Gamaliel ben Pedahzur. In the
Succinct Account the English Jews of a century
ago were taught in a fairly intelligent manner what
were the beliefs and observances of their religion, and it
must have satisfied their wants for a considerable time,
since nothing of a superior kind appeared for a good
half-century. The book was, however, written with one
eye on the Jewish, and the other on the general com-
munity, and, of course, contained the usual quantum
of apologetics in view of the non-Israelite. Especial
attention is devoted to " the doctrine of the Resurrec-
tion, Predestination, and Free-will ; and the opinion
of Dr. Prideaux concerning those tenets is fully investi-
gated, duly considered, and clearly refuted." His
mode of reasoning with the Gentile will probably not in
all cases commend itself to logicians of the stricter
order. Jews had been accused of being (i) superstitious,
(2) uncharitable in their ideas about Christians. David
126 EARLY TRANSLATIONS AND TRANSLATORS
Levi confounds those who charge Jews with superstition
by the following method of argument. All our cere-
monies are contained in either the written or the oral
Law. Now both were delivered by God to Moses to be
observed by Israel for ever. Therefore, if you charge
the Jews with being superstitious, you charge the
Supreme with the guilt of giving them superstitious
ceremonies — " And this nobody will be hardy enough to
advance." As to Jews being guilty of uncharitableness
towards Christians or heathens, the position is more
neatly turned by pointing out that, according to the
beliefs of the Jews, it is easier for the rest of mankind to
be saved than for themselves, God requiring of Jews
the due performance of the Law, whereas of the rest of
mankind He requires no more than the fulfilment of
the seven precepts given to the sons of Noah. The
inference is that spiritual intolerance is not to be charged
upon a people who make heaven easier of access
to others than to themselves.
From the appearance in 1783 of this book on the Rites,
Ceremonies, and Tenets of the Jews, until his death in
1801, he was incessantly at work with the production of
books on subjects of Jewish interest. His industry was
stupendous. Between 1785 and 1787, he published in
weekly instalments Lingua Sacra — a work with many
valuable and some amazing features. It is composed
of three parts. In the first, we have a " complete Hebrew
Grammar with points, clearly explained in English,
and digested in so easy a manner, that any person
capable of understanding the English grammar, may,
without the assistance of a master, arrive at a competent
knowledge of the Hebrew language." It is a solid
volume of 366 octavo pages, its usefulness marred
OF THE JEWISH LITURGY IN ENGLAND 127
to some extent by the argumentative tendency of
the writer, who is at perpetual pains to prove other
grammarians wrong. He speaks of " enriching the
volume with notes, in which are shown the grammatical
errors and inaccuracies of the most distinguished gram-
marians and other writers in the Hebrew language."
His views on disputed points of philology are of the
primitive and ultra-orthodox order. He lived, we must
remember, before the birth of the modern critical and
scientific spirit. He had no more doubts, for instance,
about the vowel points having been a direct revelation
from the Deity (Lingua Sacra, I. 33) than he had that
Hebrew was the original language of the human race
(Lingua Sacra, II. 4). The Dictionary, the second part
of Lingua Sacra, consists practically of three substantial
volumes. It professes to explain all Hebrew and Chal-
daic words to be found not only in the Bible, but in the
Targumim and the Talmud. In this respect, as might
be imagined, it is hardly true to its promise. But it
does something more than it promises : it is a biographical
and bibliographical dictionary ; it explains difficult
and disputed passages of the Scripture, and is a magazine
of all kinds of miscellaneous information on Jewish
law, doctrine, etc. The scientific value of the work is
vitiated to a considerable degree by the author's design
of " rescuing the lively oracles from the errors of real or
disguised friends, and the attacks of open and professed
enemies, whether Deists or Atheists." Both these
divisions of his work show a serious lack of system, and
little sense of proportion. But in both parts the
erudition of the author, somewhat undigested it must
be confessed, is very striking. It might fit out many
an ecclesiastic of a later age than David Levi's with
128 EARLY TRANSLATIONS AND TRANSLATORS
a good and serviceable stock of the raw material of
Jewish Divinity.
Nothing more pathetic can be imagined than the con-
ditions under which David Levi produced his works.
His motives were pure and high-minded.1 Neither
diamonds nor gold were to be picked up by pioneers
along the rocky road of Hebrew Literature, and lucky
was it if the toiler in that unpromising region did not
starve for his pains. Compelled to labour at a mechanical
trade for a livelihood for himself and family, there
remained, as he said, but few hours, besides those which
he could borrow from his natural rest, " to compile a
work which required at once a degree of study, perse-
verance, and patience known only to such as have been
employed in the arduous task of reducing to index order
the substance of many volumes."
A first instalment of the work had appeared, and brought
with it bitter disappointment for the author. The Jewish
public did not in those days buy works of Jewish scholar-
ship. Some thought he had undertaken more than he
could complete, and did what they could to prove them-
selves right by withdrawing the support on which alone
he could complete it. An arrangement with a friend
who was a publisher enabled him to get on a little quicker
with his task, but it meant sixteen hours at the desk out
of every twenty-four, and scarcely the barest subsis-
tence for his household and himself. The first volume
saw the light in 1785, and then the assistance which had
been rendered him so far was withdawn, and he was
obliged to return for several months to hat-making and
polishing. Meanwhile, want and sickness were preying
on him and on his wife. Yet he never seems to have lost
1 See " To the Public," end of Part III. Lingua Sacra.
OF THE JEWISH LITURGY IN ENGLAND 129
heart utterly, and a ray of light broke into his life when a
few benevolent people, who saw reason to be pleased
with the first portion of his labours, consented to provide
the means of carrying the work to a conclusion, repay-
ment of the loan to be made out of the proceeds of the
sale of the work. They advanced, in fact, altogether
nearly £400. David Levi was profoundly grateful, but
it is little short of heart-rending to note the apologetic
air with which he refers to the necessity of drawing on
these gentlemen for the sum of i8s. a week for his support
during the progress of the work. When it is considered
that he was practically without literary assistance, that
he was condemned to the scholar's worst hell — one
which not even the imagination of a Dante was lurid
enough to conceive — the task of compiling books of
scholarship without other books to make them with ;
that he was unknown to the generality of learned men
among Christians, access to whose libraries might have
been of much service to him ; that among Jews there
were at that time few, if any, who could lend him a help-
ing hand ; that not a single soul besides himself corrected
a line of the proof sheets ; that the innate perversity of
compositors was quite as pronounced 100 years ago as
in our day ; and that he was during this period also en-
gaged in writing his reply to Dr. Priestley's letters, as well
as in working at Lion Soesman's edition of the Penta-
teuch, and in correcting the whole edition for the press —
it is little less than marvellous to find the Lingua- Sacra
with all its imperfections, produced in three years (1785-
87) by this mere mechanic, even though he enjoyed an
income of i8s. a week during two-thirds of the time.
An appetite for polemics grows by what it feeds on.
Of all literary passions, it is, or it used to be, the most
L.A. K
130 EARLY TRANSLATIONS AND TRANSLATORS
insatiable. David Levi had tasted blood in his first
venture, had drunk a good draught of it in his second,
and now opportunities came for further indulgence which
were to him irresistible. In 1787 Dr. Joseph Priestley,
to whom belongs the rare distinction of having been
at once eminent as a scientist and redoubtable as a
theologian, published a number of " Letters addressed
to the Jews," inviting them to an amicable discussion
of the evidences of Christianity. They called forth two
replies — one by a waggish Oxonian, Solomon de A. R.,1
who, in the guise of a Jew, delivered a smart retort on the
Doctor for his sophisms and contradictions. This
pamphlet, however, Priestley considered too coarse to
notice. Another reply was given in a series of letters by
David Levi the same year. After the manner of contro-
versialists generally, secular and religious, Dr. Priestley
considered Levi's answer but a poor affair.2 Yet on
second thoughts he came to the conclusion that it would
be right to take the opportunity afforded by Levi's
reply, poor as it was, to address the Jews once more.
" It will tend to keep up their attention, and may bring
forth something of more value." The Gentlemen's
Magazine, noticing the answers both of the fictitious and
of the real Hebrew, spoke of Levi's as of a more
serious cast of reasoning than Solomon de A. R.'s, though
not so acute, and shrewdly added, " Yet it seems to have
weight with the Doctor, who has condescended to give a
reply." In the course of a few years it reached the dig-
nity of a third edition ; it was evidently appreciated
by his contemporaries.
In these letters David Levi addresses Priestley thus :
1 Gentleman's Magazine, 1787, p. 820.
* Rutt's Memoirs of Dr. Priestley, I. 410.
OF THE JEWISH LITURGY IN ENGLAND 131
" As you have invited our nation to an amicable dis-
cussion of the evidence of Christianity, I shall endeavour
to answer them as far as the extent of my abilities and the
little time I have open from my other vocations will
permit. Most of our learned men have declined the
invitation, (i) on account of aversion to entering into
religious disputes for fear lest they might be construed
as reflecting on and disturbing the national religion ;
(2) because the generality of learned foreigners are un-
acquainted with the English idiom." As to the first
objection, Levi maintains that there are no longer any
grounds for fear, thanks to the Reformation and the
Revolution. Further, we live in an enlightened age, when
theological discussion is accounted laudable. With
regard to the second difficulty, Levi is impelled to ex-
claim, like little David, " Let no man's heart fail because
of this Philistine ; I will go and fight with him." Met
with the reply, " Thou art not able against this Philis-
tine," he will answer, " Thy servant slew both the lion
(Dr. Prideaux) and the bear (Hutchinson),1 and this
uncircumcised Philistine shall be as one of them. He
cometh with a spear (elegance of diction), and a sword
(criticism), and shield (sophistry). I am come in the name
of the Lord of Hosts (i.e. simple truth)." This counter-
attack of Levi's provoked a fresh reply from Priestley,
and drew other warriors into the field as well — notably the
Rev. Richard Beere, in an Epistle to the Chief Priest
and Elder of the Jews (1789). Upon these Levi made a
fresh assault, and further disposed of a new antagonist,
Nathaniel BrasseyHalhed, M.P., dealing in effective style
with the latter's Testimony to the Authenticity of the
1 See Lingua Sacra, sub. voc. nSs. where, by the way, may
be read thirty-two pages under that one heading.
132 EARLY TRANSLATIONS AND TRANSLATORS
Prophecy of Richard Brothers, and the pretended mission
of the latter to recall the Jews. Richard Brothers was a
crazy enthusiast, who seems to have found, besides him-
self, at least one other person, and that an M.P., to believe
in him as a prophet to the Jews, and who was perfectly
sure that the hour was at hand for the restoration of the
Jews to their own land.
A few years later (1797) witnessed an even bolder
attempt of David Levi. It was nothing less than a
defence of the Old Testament in letters addressed to
Thomas Paine, the sceptic, whose influence as a bitter
foe of the Scriptures was then at its height. It was
printed, curiously enough, in New York.1 Why it
had to travel all that way for publication I do not know.
Tom Paine had told the Christian critics, along with
some unpleasant personalities, that their answers to
the Age of Reason were mere cobwebs. " It is there-
fore to be hoped," wrote David Levi, " that these letters,
written by one that is neither a Christian priest nor a
preacher, and who consequently has no interest in
preaching up tithes, as he is but a poor simple Levite,
without any living in the Jewish Church, may find
grace in your sight." The conclusion he arrived at
was, " That Moses wrote these books by Divine inspira-
tion is manifest from the exact accomplishment of
every event foretold by him." " Of this," he says, " I
shall produce such clear and unequivocal proofs as
to strike the Deist and the Infidel dumb." Whether
the effect was precisely of this knock-down character,
evidence is not forthcoming.
In his controversial writings David Levi seems to
have had the assistance of one Henry Lemoine, a man
1 By William A. Davis for Naphtali Judah, bookseller.
OF THE JEWISH LITURGY IN ENGLAND 133
of parts, and of some repute in his day. The connexion
between the two throws an interesting side-light upon
the social life of Jews of the more intellectual order at
that period. Lemoine, author and bookseller, was born
in Spitalfields, a descendant of a refugee Huguenot
family. Together with other minor literati of the day,
he and Levi often supped together at the house of George
Lackington, who kept " The Temple of the Muses,"
the earliest cheap bookshop — then one of the sights of
London — a tall domed structure, surmounted by a flag,
the interior consisting of a number of circular galleries
packed with books, which grew lower in price the higher
you had to mount for them. It was situated in a locality
some of us cannot help associating with the later annals
of Anglo- Jewry, namely, the corner of Finsbury Square.
Under the inspiration of old and firm friendship, this
same Lemoine wrote in the Gentleman's Magazine an
elegy on David Levi, after his friend's death.
David Levi's industry was, as I have said, stupendous.
Mention must be made of his Dissertations on the Pro-
phecies, in two parts, Part I. : Those that are applicable
to the coming of Messiah, the Restoration of the Jews,
and the Resurrection, whether so applied by Jews or
Christians. Part II. : Those applied to the Messiah by
Christians only, but which are shown not to be applicable
to the Messiah. The whole appeared in three volumes,
dedicated respectively to David Henriques, of Spanish
Town, Samuel Barreto de Veiga, M.D., of Kingston,
and Abraham Goldsmid, of London. The book is a
spirited exposition of prophecy from the point of view
of an orthodox Jew, who had made himself well ac-
quainted with Jewish and Gentile commentaries, and
presented his case with a certain dashing rhetorical
134 EARLY TRANSLATIONS AND TRANSLATORS
effect. The dissertations appeared between the years
1793 and 1800, but they were in reality the fruit of
twenty-five years of research and reflection. David
Levi's apologetics, though without a philosophic and
scientific basis, were quite up to, and in many respects
surpassed, the standard of works of that kind produced
in the eighteenth century by Christian champions of
the authenticity of the Bible. Even Bishop War-
burton's Divine Legation of Moses, much bepraised as
it was in its day, evoked the not altogether unmerited
criticism —
"So much he wrote, and long about it,
That e'en believers 'gan to doubt it."
That David Levi's defence is effective enough to con-
vince doubters of our day, I should not like to assert.
But at least, this may be said of it, and it is more than
can be claimed for a good many apologetic works,
that by means of it believers were strengthened in their
belief, while unbelievers were not hardened in their
unbelief.
But the most solid of the services rendered by Levi
to his contemporaries, and bequeathed to his successors,
were those in connexion with the translation of practi-
cally the whole of the Jewish Liturgies in use both
among Sephardim and Ashkenazim. It was in the
main unploughed ground, and even where others had
done some rough work before him, he went over the
whole again and independently, with an insight, a dili-
gence, and a conscientiousness that merit far greater
recognition than they have yet received. Regarded
merely from its mechanical side, the task was a colossal
one. Indeed, the differences between the Portuguese
OF THE JEWISH LITURGY IN ENGLAND 135
and the German rites in nearly all but the statutory
portions of the prayers, are sufficient to justify us in
considering them as two distinct, almost Herculean
labours. But the difficulties are gigantic in another
sense, as those well know who have tried their hand
at the work, by reason of the varieties and obscurities
of dialect and style, the curiously cramped poetical
forms employed, the tyranny of the acrostic, the wealth
of cryptic allusions to the Scriptures, the Talmud and
Midrash, and the enormous divergence between the
ways and habits of thought peculiar to the liturgists of
the Rabbinical and Poetanic Schools and those of a
modern European, especially of an Englishman. That
he has succeeded in every instance, or that he has always
been guided by the rules he himself prefixed to his
edition of the Machzor, is more than can be claimed for
him, or indeed for any one who has attempted to follow
him. But apart from errors of style, and occasional
absurdities (such as the one over which we have all
laughed — the rubric at the end of the service on Kol
Nidre night : " Those who sleep in synagogue say
Psalms and the Hymn of the Unity "), and apart from
the impossibility of unravelling the meaning of a fre-
quently corrupt text, David Levi's translations are
a monument of honest labour and of a sustained and
loyal, and, on the whole, a praiseworthy endeavour to
enter into the spirit of the original. There is the less
necessity to quote him at any length, seeing that his
translations are part of the religious outfit of almost
every Anglo- Jewish family. Those who would meet
him at his best should carefully peruse his rendering of
the Hymn of Glory. I offer here a passage from his
less known translation of the Fast-day Prayers of the
136 EARLY TRANSLATIONS AND TRANSLATORS
Sephardim. It is one that is also read in German and
Polish synagogues on the Ninth of Ab : —
" Samaria raiseth her voice, saying, ' My iniquities have over-
taken me ; my children are gone from me into another country ; '
and Aholibah l crieth, ' My palaces are burned,' and Zion saith,
' The Lord hath forsaken me.' — ' It is not for thee, O Aholibah,
to compare thine affliction to my affliction, nor to liken thy
suffering to my pain and suffering : for because that I, Aholah,8
turned aside, was rebellious and stubborn, my falling off and
rebellion rose up and testified against me ; so that in a short
time I paid my debt ; for Tiglath-Pileser destroyed my fruit,
and stripped me of all my desirable ornaments ; and after-
wards to Halah and Habor was I carried captive : be silent,
O Aholibah, thou hast not cause to weep as I weep ; I was
driven far distant, I have suffered sufficiently ; thy years were
protracted, but mine were not.' Aholibah replied, ' I also re-
belled, and, as Aholah, dealt treacherously by the husband of
my youth : be silent, O Aholah, for my sorrows have visited
me ; thou hast been removed once, but I have been cast out
often. Lo 1 I was subdued twice by the power of the Chaldeans,
and the Temple which contained all my glory was burned : and
in bitter affliction was I carried captive to Babylon ; I, how-
ever, returned to Zion, and again founded the Temple, but I
had scarce been established before I was again taken by Edom,
and nearly destroyed ; and now my multitude is scattered in
all countries.' — O may He who hath pity over all, pity their
degraded state, consider their desolation and the length of their
captivity. — O be not exceeding wrath to augment their poverty,
and do not for ever remember their iniquity and folly : O heal
their wound and comfort their mourning, for Thou art their
strength and their hope : O renew their days as of old, that
Zion may not say, ' The Lord hath forsaken me.' " — Pp. 212-13.
By way of comparison or contrast, let me place before
you a few verses from the Portuguese Machzor of Mr.
A. Alexander and assistants, from his or their metrical
translation of the Pizmon to be said before the sounding
of the Shofar : —
1 " Aholibah and Aholah represent respectively Jerusalem
and Samaria."
1 " See Ezekiel xxiii. 4."
OF THE JEWISH LITURGY IN ENGLAND 137
"It is even now that heaven's gates open, mercy to descend :
It is the day that my hands unto the Lord I do extend.
O remember unto me this chastening day and ever after,
The merits of the binder binded, and the holy altar.
In the latter proved by the son begotten by Sarah his wife,
Tho' thy soul be ever so much attached unto his life :
Arise ! O sacrifice him unto me
On the mountain, where glory shall come forth to thee.
Unto Sarah he said, Behold, Isaac thy beloved even
Is advanced in years, but not trained in the worship of heaven :
I'll go teach him to worship, his God to fear.
Go, she said, but not a great distance, I pray, my dear.
Depend upon the Lord, says he, that thy heart may cheer.
Of his servants inquiring, Do ye behold the great light
On the Mount Moriah ? Yet they answering, To them it was
night.
If thus, tarry here, ye stupid, compared unto asses,
And I and my son will behold that which passes.
Both alike advancing to be busied in God's desire,
Says Isaac to his father, Behold the wood and the fire :
But where is the lamb by God designed ?
Sure thou hast not neglected such to be minded !
He prepared the wood with heroism and composure of mind,
As you would a ram his son Isaac did bind ;
Then was the daylight in their mirrors as night,
His murmuring tears flowing with all their might,
With eyes weeping, but a heart filled with delight.
Acquaint my mother that her joy is fled,
Her son begotten after ninety years wed
Is become fire, fallen by the edge of the sword.
Whither shall I seek some comfort her to afford ?
Acuter than the blade to my mother will be the word.
Pray, father, sharpen the blade, he implored ;
Be strengthened during the time my flesh is to burn.
Some remains, my ashes to my kind mother return."
In fairness to Mr. Alexander it should be stated that
this version is dated 1771 in print. Twenty years
138 EARLY TRANSLATIONS AND TRANSLATORS
make a great difference in the progress of a community
like ours.
Besides the remarkable productions to which I have
referred, David Levi translated the Pentateuch in Lion
Soesman's edition, and supplied a large number of help-
ful notes, drawn mostly from Hebrew commentaries.
Many prayers on special occasions were likewise written
or translated by him, such as those during the King's
illness in 1788, on his recovery in 1789, at the Dedication
of the Great Synagogue in 1790, and the Hebrew ode
on the King's happy escape from assassination in 1795.
I submit to you a short extract from his translation of
the Piyut, composed by Chief Rabbi David Solomon
Schiff for the Dedication of the Great Synagogue. The
original is of course in rhyme : " It is the hand of the
Lord that hath thus given us honour and glory, grace
and favour in the sight of the nations under whose
shadow we dwell and are protected, as in this country,
where George the Third sways the sceptre. Whose
sole ambition is to promote his subjects' happiness,
governing them with kindness and equity ; and whose
amiable Queen Charlotte excels the most eminent
women in virtue. May they enjoy a long and happy
life, with George, Prince of Wales, and all the Royal
Family." Then, after reference to " the right noble
and virtuous lady " (Mrs. Levi of Albemarle Street)
" who bestowed a princely sum to beautify the house
of God," and to her father (Moses Hart, who of his own
expense erected the first Synagogue on that site), the
poem implores God's favourable attention to the wor-
shippers, and continues, " O may there always be found
in this house of prayer the number of ten, to repeat
the blessings, Sanctification and Kadeesh, with true
OF THE JEWISH LITURGY IN ENGLAND 139
piety and fervour. May we restrain our mouth from
idle discourse during the prayer and reading of the Law.
Of this let the Presidents and Elders be careful strictly
to admonish the community."
With all his passion for controversy, David Levi
seems to have had the tact and good sense to keep out
of communal disputes. Considering the work in which
he was engaged, this must occasionally have been
exceedingly difficult. There was a good deal of acidity
in the communal system in the good old days, as we
shall see when we come to treat of the period of the
Alexanders, and it argued not a little for the wisdom
and self-restraint of our ardent scholar that he never
mingled in the congregational squabbles of his age, but
devoted his energies to a scholarship which probably
was the best his contemporaries could appreciate, and
kept his controversial powder and shot for disputants
who hailed from outside his own community.
It is sad to think how hardly fate dealt with this
brave man all his life through. A very touching appeal
was drawn up on behalf of David Levi by a Christian
writer, probably the same Henry Lemoine to whom
reference has already been made, in the European
Magazine for May 1799. "As he had done," says the
writer, " a service equally to the two great classes of
Jews, the German and Portuguese, by translating their
books and prayers, it is to be hoped he will not be over-
looked by them in the present decline of his health. All
through life he has struggled with circumstances which
were unfavourable to study and literary pursuits.
These, however, he overcame, because they could be
surmounted by fortitude and perseverance ; but disa-
bilities from health, at least such as he labours under,
140 EARLY TRANSLATIONS AND TRANSLATORS
take away the powers of action. Deafness, asthma,
and palsy are a combination that have reduced poor
Mr. Levi to a real captivity, in which he can no longer
use his harp or add to the Songs of Zion. It is the
fervent hope of a Christian who has become acquainted
with Mr. Levi from a regard of his useful labours, that
the only Jew in this kingdom who has endeavoured by
his writings to do honour to the chair of Moses will not
be suffered by the Jewish nation to spend the remainder
of his worn-out life without a competent provision."
Within little more than a couple of years after these
words appeared in print, David Levi's sufferings, poverty,
and struggle were relieved. The translator was him-
self translated, and the controversialist passed to " where
beyond these voices there is peace."
JEWS IN THEIR RELATION TO OTHER
RACES.
(A Lecture delivered in Sottth Place Institute, March gth, 1890.)
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, — I would like to express to
you, however imperfectly, the sense of obligation under
which I feel at having been invited to take part in this
series of discourses on National Life and Thought.
Your course of lectures would certainly have lacked
one element of completeness, if it had even by implica-
tion excluded from the community of nations one of
the oldest, toughest, most virile and distinctively marked
of races. " The amount of information which people
do not possess " about Jews is really prodigious. In
an age of insatiable inquiry, when the electric light of
publicity plays upon almost every phase and illumines
almost every nook of the inner life of nations and fami-
lies, there is no race on the face of the earth at once so
ubiquitous and therefore so open to observation, and
at bottom so little understood. You may not go ah1
the way with what Heine wrote in his Confessions ; to
the main idea, however, contained in one of his remarks,
you can hardly withhold your assent : " Neither the
conduct nor the essential character of the Jews is under-
stood by the world. People think they know them
because they see their beards ; but more than that never
141
142 JEWS IN THEIR RELATION
was perceived of them ; and as in the middle ages so
they continue in modern times a wandering mystery."
But whose fault is it if they remain a wandering mys-
tery ? The more people, and especially our own coun-
trymen, know about Jews, the more they will find that
the greatest of all mysteries in reference to them is that
there is no mystery. Unlike the shrines of other nations,
even our Holy of Holies contained no secret What of
mystery then need there be about us, unless it be the
riddle, as insoluble to us as to you, of our existence,
and of the dual current, about which I shall presently
have to say more, that can be traced along the whole
channel of our lives.
With the particular doctrines, positive or negative,
held by the majority of those who are in the habit of
assembling here, I need hardly say I do not in any way
identify myself. But your action in regard to my own
particular community seems to me to claim some recog-
nition. If I were to go this afternoon into a place of
worship of any of the numerous sects into which Christen-
dom is divided, I should hear the Jews spoken of elo-
quently, dully, learnedly, ignorantly, wisely, absurdly,
lovingly, angrily, as the case might be : the only thing
which the greater part of the statements there to be
listened to would seem to me, as a Jew, to lack, would
be an approach to verisimilitude. Among public
bodies the distinction is in an eminent degree yours,
that in your search for truth you have gone on this
as on former occasions to those who may be presumed
qualified to speak with authority upon subjects with
which they personally are, or ought to be, best ac-
quainted.
On Wednesday evening last in all the Synagogues of
TO OTHER RACES 143
Jewry there was read aloud to the congregations there
assembled an old story to which, whatever else Bible
critics may have to say about it, they will not deny the
merits of dramatic force and, as regards the major part
of the book at least, literary skill. It was the account
of the perils and deliverance of that remnant of the house
of Israel which, after the fall of the first Temple, found
a home in lands later on to form part of the Medo-
Persian empire. One of the neatest passages in the book
is the preamble wherewith the Grand Vizier of Ahasuerus
introduced to the King his project of what I might call
" A short way with Jews." Many such " short ways "
have been proposed at various times. During the
height of the anti-Semitic fever in Berlin, about the
wittiest thing that emanated from our opponents was
the issue of a mock railway-ticket, marked, " To Jeru-
salem. Single ticket. No return tickets issued." This
was not Haman's method, but what he had to say was
interesting for another reason. It was not all false-
hood : that would have been too clumsy. Haman
knew his master too well to offer even such a gobe-
mouches a dish of undiluted lies. It was by no means
all truth ; but it was a deft mixture of the two, with the
evident object that the untruth might pass current
by reason of its being in good company, just as those
who utter counterfeit coin are generally found passing
genuine pieces along with the others in order to cover,
and divert suspicion from, the spurious ones. " There
is one people," said Haman, " scattered abroad and
dispersed among the peoples." Undeniable; the solidar-
ity of the Jewish race is a fact as patent as their disper-
sion ; they are one people though scattered. — " And
their laws are diverse from those of all other people.'
144 JEWS IN THEIR RELATION
That is only fractionally true. " And they do not keep
the king's laws." That is altogether false ; and the
inference drawn therefrom, that "it is not to the
king's profit to suffer them," is utterly baseless and
invalid.
Severe as the accusation sounds, these words express
not inaptly the sentiments with which, until compara-
tively recent times, most of the nations among whom
it has been Israel's lot to be divided, regarded them.
They have resented that singular and tenacious union
among Jews which no geographical distribution seems
able to break up ; they have blamed them for a spirit
of separateness which is both good and evil ; good in
so far as every race has to work out its own destiny on
its own lines ; evil in so far as it is the result of the
treatment to which their persecutors have subjected
them. They have declared them to be a burden and a
misfortune to the State, with no more grounds than
confident ignorance and ill-governed passions, envy
and the desire to have " their spoil for a prey," require
to justify themselves.
In the history and literature of the Jews a very differ-
ent tale is to be read. When once the work of the con-
quest of Canaan was effected — and not many European
nations have the right to sit in judgment upon Israel
in such a case — no State of ancient times was more
hospitable to the stranger. On the basis of certain funda-
mental principles of morality there was one law of right,
of protection and love for him and the native. In the
very Temple of the God of Israel, the prayers of the
stranger were welcome. The aboriginal races lived side
by side with the conquerors on terms of good-tempered
tolerance. When the Jewish State fell, though they
TO OTHER RACES 145
neither forgot Jerusalem nor gave up the hope of a
return thither, it was in no rancorous spirit that the
Jews lived among their captors. " Seek the peace
of the city whither I have caused you to be carried
captive," was the divine message which Jeremiah
delivered to his exiled brethren ; " and pray for it
unto the Lord, for in the peace thereof shall you have
peace."
Their Temple a second time destroyed, and their land
a prey to the enemy, the Jews once more found a home
in Babylon where the Parthians presented an invincible
front to the passion of Rome for universal empire. Con-
gregations and schools arose, the produce of whose
labours forms to this hour the chief intellectual food
upon which Rabbinic Judaism is fed all the world over.
Yet so completely did affection for their new country
become rooted within them, that one of their leaders
of that period could maintain that " he who quits
Babylon for Palestine, transgresses a positive com-
mand." !
The language of the country became not merely the
vernacular of the Jew ; it acquired a quasi-sacred
character, and prayers composed in the Aramaic dialect
found their way into the liturgy of the synagogue, and
have been retained there to the present time. Then,
too, the principle was established which is expressed in
the Talmudic maxim, " The law of the State is every-
where binding law for the Jew," 2 a principle that ever
since has regulated the relation of the Jew towards the
Gentile communities among whom he has been domi-
ciled, and is itself an explanation of the singularly law-
abiding character of the whole race.
1 Berachoth 246. * Baba Kama 1133.
L,A. L
146 JEWS IN THEIR RELATION
Without loosening his hold upon his own distinctive
laws and customs, the Jew never at any time was lack-
ing in the consciousness of a union with a larger world
outside his own race. He read the lesson of the unity
of mankind in the first pages of his Bible. The central
doctrine of his religious system — the Unity of God —
drove that belief still deeper into his heart ; for the
Brotherhood of man is the logical consequence of the
Fatherhood of God. " When God created Adam,"
says the Talmud, " He gathered dust from all parts of
the earth, and with it formed the parent of the human
race."1 Stripped of its garb of allegory, the saying
means that the whole world is the home of man, that the
very diversities in the families of mankind are within
the original design of the Creator, and, as complementary
one to the other, help to establish their essential unity.
It was no empty rhetoric that spoke in these words. One
practical result of such a theory was, for example, the
doctrine : " To rob a heathen is worse than robbing an
Israelite, because in addition to the breach of the great
moral law, there is the profanation of the name of God." 2
Where will you find a broader and loftier spirit of religi-
ous tolerance than that which is contained in this com-
ment of the Midrash on Canticles : " ' My beloved went
down to feed in the gardens and to gather lilies ' — ' the
gardens ' — these are the gentiles throughout the world
and ' the lilies ' — these are the righteous among them ? "
Or in this from a work that was the offspring of one of
the darkest periods of Israel's fortunes : "I call heaven
and earth to witness that, whether it be Israelite or Gen-
tile, man or woman, everything depends upon the deeds
1 Sanhedrin 383.
? Tosefta Baba Kama 10.
TO OTHER RACES 147
that are done, how far the Holy Spirit shall rest upon a
mortal ? " l
That not all utterances concerning non-Israelites are
conceived in the same strain will be readily imagined.
The relation of Jews to other races has of course been
regulated by the relation of other races to the Jews —
and the one will never be properly understood and be
done justice to until the other has been thoroughly
grasped. It is, however, no part of my purpose this
afternoon to recite to you a chapter out of the Romance
of Jewish Martyrdom. Read only what eminent Chris-
tians like Dollinger and Schleiden have written on this
subject, and you will not need to listen to the grim and
ghastly record from Jewish lips. This only I will say,
that in nothing has Christianity been so un-Christlike as
in its treatment of the Jew, from Church Fathers, and
Popes, and Grand Inquisitors, and Catholic Emperors,
to Protestant Reformers, Statesmen and Rulers, and that
there never was a Religion which suffered so little as
Christianity during its establishment compared with
the suffering it has itself caused since — two centuries of
intermittent persecution endured, against sixteen cen-
turies of incessant persecution inflicted.
Until the end of the last century all attempts on the
part of the more tolerant among the Gentiles to assert
for the Jewish race the status of full brother to other
races proved abortive. Even the British Parliament,
which in 1753 passed the Jews' Naturalization Bill, was
led to revoke its own righteous action the following year,
in obedience to clerical prejudice, commercial jealousy,
and popular clamour. It is to the French Revolution
that the Jews owe their improved position in the modern
1 Tana d'be Eliahu 9.
148 JEWS IN THEIR RELATION
world. That prolific parent of good and evil has at least
deserved well of them. It was the first to do justice, full
and unequivocal, to those whom every other great
political movement passed over as too insignificant or
too contemptible to be taken into account. Mirabeau
and the Abbe Gregoire, the one in his desire to secularize
the State, the other in his policy of Christianizing the
Revolution, as Graetz puts it, both urged on a movement
which in an incredibly short space of time succeeded in
effecting the complete emancipation of all the Jews under
the rule of the Republic. On the iyth September, 1791,
the National Assembly decreed the abolition of every
exceptional enactment previously in force against them,
and thus made them by law, what they had previously
been in heart, citizens of their country. He who started
as the child, afterwards to become the master of the
Revolution, proclaimed the same great principles of
religious equality wherever his victorious eagles pene-
trated. Since that dawn of a better time, the light has
spread more and more, though even now it is only here
and there that it has shone forth unto the perfect day.
If now you direct your attention to the attitude of
Jews towards their neighbours, you are made aware of
a most extraordinary, and in its degree a unique com-
bination ; you perceive a national individuality of singu-
lar strength and distinctiveness, side by side with an
equally remarkable power of adapation to the varying
circumstances of their existence. I admit it sounds like
a contradiction ; but reality is often a potent reconciler
of theoretical impossibilities, and here, at all events, is
a contradiction which is being acted out before our very
eyes, one that in the play and alternation of forces fur-
nishes all the elements for one of the most impressive
TO OTHER RACES 149
dramas of humanity. One side of the national character
has been depicted by Goethe in words to which all the
greater weight may be attached, seeing that they breathe
anything but a spirit of partiality towards the Israelitish
people : " At the Judgment-Seat of God, it is not asked
whether this is the best, the most excellent nation, but
only whether it lasts, whether it has endured. There
is little good in the Israelitish people, as its leaders,
judges, chiefs and prophets a thousand times reproach-
fully declared ; it possesses few virtues and most of
the faults of other nations ; but in self-reliance, stead-
fastness, valour, and, when all this could not serve, in
obstinate toughness, it has no match. It is the most per-
severant nation on earth ; it was, it is, it will be to glorify
the name of the Lord through all ages."1 True as much
of this undoubtedly is, it is not the whole truth regarding
the Jewish people. The other side of their character is
not less recognizable. They have the power of adapting
themselves to their surroundings with a rapidity and
completeness that is altogether unparalleled. I do not
propose to enter into the philosophical enquiry, What
constitutes a nation ? But I do venture to contest the
assumption that it requires so many generations of resi-
dence on the soil, and the ability to show that your ances-
tors upon arriving on these shores slew the ill-prepared
natives, and took violent possession of their land and
other effects, in order to constitute you a true English-
man. A man's country is the place where he enjoys the
protection of the laws, where he pursues his vocation
without let or hindrance, where his home is fixed, hal-
lowed by the tender ties of family life, where the interests
and the welfare of his neighbours have become inter-
1 Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre, II. 2.
150 JEWS IN THEIR RELATION
woven with his own, where he can worship God accord-
ing to the dictates of his conscience, and where his life is
able to perfect itself in every direction. Given these
conditions, or the chief of them, and the Jew not only
becomes soon mentally acclimatized, and assimilates
himself to the society by which he is surrounded, but repro-
duces its distinguishing characteristics in an accentuated
form in himself, becoming, as at this day he is often found
to be, more German than the Germans, more French
than the French, more English than the English. By
way of pendant to the judgment of Goethe, let me cite a
noteworthy utterance of one of the most gifted women of
our race, a valued friend of Emerson's, one whose brilli-
ant career closed far too soon for her people's good, though
not too early for her fame. " Every student of the
Hebrew language," says Emma Lazarus in her Epistles
to the Hebrews, " is aware that we have in the conjuga-
tions of our verbs a mode known as the intensive voice,
which, by means of an almost imperceptible modification
of vowel points, intensifies the meaning of the primitive
root. A similar significance seems to attach to the
Jews themselves in connexion with the people among
whom they dwell. They are the intensive form of any
nationality whose language they adopt."
Is it well to have kept a people like this at arm's length ?
It is not alone the Jews who have been sufferers by such
a policy. What monasticism did in one direction by
withdrawing for many centuries many of the best intel-
lects and noblest characters from the active business of
life, that was effected in another by the systematic re-
pression of the special genius of the Jew, and his exclu-
sion from all national fellowship. Both systems have
tended to the world's own impoverishment.
TO OTHER RACES 151
Leaving generalizations, however, let us regard the
Jews in their relation to some of those countries where
they have found a home. As types, let us take three,
as widely varied as possible — Russia, Germany, Eng-
land.
It is of course notorious that the Jews of Russia are,
with comparatively few exceptions, but loosely attached
to their fellow-subjects, and to the country which is to
them in the place of a fatherland. But the marvel is
not so much that they are loosely attached, as that they
are attached at all. It is not easy to form a conception
of the wretchedness in which a system of legalized in-
humanity has steeped the lives of between two and three
millions of our fellow-men. From his birth upwards
the Russo-Polish Jew is the object of a persecution,
which, were it not that he has inherited a vast capacity
for endurance from generations of luckless ancestors,
would soon suffice to crush the whole man within him.
Almost every avenue to an honourable livelihood is
closed against him. Barriers are put in his own country
beyond which he dare not pass. Certain provinces are
set apart for his domicile — they are an enlarged ghetto,
outside whose boundaries he strays at his peril. The
whole of the interior is shut against him as though he
were a leper. When he sets foot in it, it is on his way
to Siberia. He is enough of a foreigner to be denied the
rights of other Russians ; he is just Russian enough to
be heavily taxed. If he has sufficient means to pay for
it, he may purchase at a high price the privilege of being
allowed to establish himself in the capital or in a few
other important towns. But this elevation has no power
of raising his wife to the same status, and should he leave
his property to her, the State will not lend itself to so
152 JEWS IN THEIR RELATION
unnatural a proceeding, and takes charge of the inherit-
ance in perpetuity. If he is drawn for the army and
disappoints the string of hungry officials by not bribing
them to secure his exemption from military service, he
and his family bid each other farewell, without much hope
of meeting each other on this side the grave. With his
fellow recruits he is drafted off to the other extremity
of the colossal empire : for it is the Russian principle —
and in this it is quite impartial in its treatment of Jews
and Christians — not to foster anything like local attach-
ments in its soldiery. Needless to say that he has no
chance of rising from the ranks, whatever his military
qualities may be.
But what is resented with especial severity is the thirst
for knowledge which, despite all repression, the Jew so
often manifests. He presents himself perhaps fully
qualified in all other respects, for admission into a Russian
University. The chances are that the doors will be closed
against him, as the percentage fixed by law of Jewish to
other students has already been reached, or has been
lowered by a recent Ukase. That the Jew should be-
come more cultured than his taskmaster is not to be
thought of. He cannot even be a Christian any longer
in peace. The temptation has been and still remains
very strong to rid oneself by a single effort, a single con-
cession (the greatest, however, which a man of honour
can make), of all these galling disabilities. With this
object, and in order to ease the transition to their own
conscience, a few Jews have occasionally gone over to
Lutheranism, such a step being deemed not so gross
a breach with former habits of thought as joining
the Russian Church with its image and relic worship.
Within quite recent years, however, Lutheranism has
TO OTHER RACES 153
been declared no resting-place for a Jew who wishes to
be considered a Russian: and there is now, in a very mun-
dane sense, no salvation for him outside the pale of the
Orthodox Russian Church. Add to all this, that a per-
sistent scorn, more biting and degrading than the knout,
dogs him at every turn and movement of his life, and that
the knowledge that there is one section of the populace
against whom all manner of crimes can be perpetrated
without disgrace and with comparative impunity, is apt
to demoralize the most virtuously disposed of people —
and it will be seen that the fate of the Russian Jews is
about as melancholy and as desperate as that to which
any portion of the human race is at this moment con-
demned. The hardest thing about the whole business
remains to be spoken : these despised outcasts are
in many ways intellectually and morally the super-
iors of their tormentors. If any one considers this a
mere piece of racial or religious bias, let him read the
address of the Archbishop Nicanor at the University of
Odessa in September last. No professional advocate of
the Jewish cause could have contrasted more powerfully
the Russian and the Jewish characters, or could have
spoken in more glowing language of the industry, the
sobriety, the self-denial, the parental and filial devotion,
the love of learning and the unswerving attachment to
their faith of these same Russian Jews.
But they are charged with displaying an invincible
spirit of exclusiveness, and with taking to ignoble pur-
suits, to the vocations of the usurer and the inn-keeper,
who make their profit out of the follies and the vices of
their fellow-men. You shut up a man in prison without
cause, and accuse him of being unsociable ! You take
from him every serviceable brick and stone, and bid him
154 JEWS IN THEIR RELATION
build his hut of mud, and then you are surprised that he
has soiled his hands !
What an opportunity now lies before the Autocrat of
all the Russias and his ministers ! True, there is danger
in making concessions to an awakening people : is there
no danger in refusing them ? By a single exercise of his
authority the Czar could break every chain that has so
long fettered and disfigured his Jewish subjects. And
he, or whoever may do it, would have his reward in the
bursting forth of a pent-up spirit of loyalty and patriot-
ism : for there is not a people on earth more quick to
forgive injuries, and more grateful for kindnesses, than
the Jews. But truth makes its way slowly to a mon-
arch's ear. Have not others long been crying for justice
in that land where the east and the west have met, and
barbarism and civilization are so strangely mingled ?
We must not complain if their claims take precedence
over ours. The Sun of Freedom has always shone last
into the gloomy recesses of the Ghetto.
Turn now to Germany The problem there is differ-
ent in kind, but in certain respects even more acute.
The Jews are accused, strange to say, of diametrically
opposite faults. On the one hand, they are condemned
for hemming themselves in with a tribal exclusiveness
which nothing can pierce, for placing around them an
icy barrier no warmth of neighbourly love can melt ;
on the other hand they are charged with being too much
en evidence, with wanting to take their share and more
of public affairs, with desiring to make themselves indis-
pensable to their country. It would perhaps not be a
bad thing to let the objectors settle their differences,
which seem to fairly cancel each other, and then to deal
with the remainder, if any.
TO OTHER RACES 155
The attitude of the Teutonic anti-Semite recalls a
grim story narrated of the Emperor Hadrian in an old
rabbinical work. l A Jew happening one day to meet
the Emperor, greeted him respectfully. " Who art
thou ? " said Hadrian. " A Jew," was the humble reply.
" And thou, a Jew, art so bold as to greet the Emperor !
Thou shalt pay for it with thy head. ' ' Aware of the luck-
less fate of his brother Israelite, another Jew, who
chanced to cross the Emperor's path, thought it wise to
show more discretion, and omitted the customary sign
of homage. Hadrian stopped him, and again asked,
" Who art thou ? " "A Jew." " And thou darest to
pass the Emperor without greeting him ! Off with his
head ! " The counsellors who accompanied him, per-
plexed at this strange procedure, expressed their astonish-
ment that such punishment should be dealt out alike to
him who did and to him who did not greet the Emperor.
" Think you," said he, " Hadrian needs to be taught how
to rid himself of those whom he hates ? " Something
of the same spirit prevails among those who in their
hostility to the Jews are utterly regardless of the incon-
sistency and even the absurdity of their charges against
them. It is enough that they hate them. Need those
who hate be logical as well ?
Nominally, indeed, all Germans are equal before the law.
But during the last fifteen years or so, anti-Semitism,
that hideous recrudescence of the worst passions of the
middle ages, that " stain upon the German name," as the
Emperor Frederick called it, has striven to place and to
keep the Jew under a relentless social ban. There is no
more cruel instrument of torture than social persecution
and contempt can become in unscrupulous hands. One
1 Midrash Echa.
156 JEWS IN THEIR RELATION
illustration may suffice. In Germany the army is every-
thing. The Empire exists for the army, though in official
parlance the army is said to exist for the Empire. Under
the law of conscription, Jews have to render their period
of service exactly like the rest of the population. Per-
fectly just. But of all the Hebrews who have ever served
in the army, and they are to be numbered by tens of
thousands, one or two only have been permitted, with the
utmost difficulty, to rise to the rank of officer. They
may shed their blood on the battlefield, may make the
highest sacrifices for the good of the fatherland, as they
did in the great war of Liberation as well as in 1870 ;
they may render the most heroic, though less conspicu-
ous, services in giving medical aid to the wounded on the
field and in hosiptals ; but that they should wear the
epaulettes of an officer would be a not-to-be-thought-of
enormity. Not even baptism can wash the old Adam
out of the Jewish soldier. The corps of officers will
have none of him in any shape or colour.
The Jews of Germany have their faults, faults that
especially offend because they are so conspicuously
within view of all the world : they do not know how to
bear with becoming modesty their recently acquired
wealth and power. But their worst fault is, that they are
too clever, while they lack the grace, which Mr. Lang's
Prince Prigio acquired after many adventures, of being
clever without seeming so. In England, when the pro-
letariat was enfranchised, the cry among sensible politi-
cians was, " Now let us educate our masters." In Ger-
many, even before the first instalments of liberty and
equality were doled out to them, the Jews began to edu-
cate themselves. With the widening of their opportun-
ities in our own time there has gone on an educational.
TO OTHER RACES 157
development that has in it something truly astounding,
With a total population including Prussia of about
45,000,000, Germany had, in 1887,562,000 Jews, or I Jew
to 80 of the general population. One would expect some-
thing like the same proportion to be maintained between
Jews and non-Jews in the educational world. What,
however, is the actual case ? Among 1,326 University
Professors (exclusive of those who hold chairs in theology)
in the German Empire, there are 98 Jews, or about one-
thirteenth instead of one-eightieth of the total : of 529
Privat-Docenten 84 are Jews, or about one-sixth. In these
capacities they hold distinguished positions in the vari-
ous faculties of medicine, law, philosophy, arts, science,
and agriculture. A similar state of things is observable
in the High Schools. Taking Berlin as an example, with
a population of 1,400,000, including 67,000 Jews, we find
that the total number of students, boys and girls, in the
gymnasium, Real-Schulen, Fach-Schulen, and Hohere
Tochter-Schulen amounts to 23,481 ; of these 18,666
are Christian and 4,816 are Jewish students ; that is
the Jews are four or five times as numerous as their pro-
portion to the rest of the population would lead one to
expect ; or to state it in another way, every thousand
Christian inhabitants of the Prussian capital furnish 14
students to these schools ; every thousand Jewish inhabi-
tants supply 72 students.
I take these statistics not from a Jewish but from a
Christian source, the Anti-Semiten Katechismus, pub-
lished in Leipsic in 1887 — a book cunningly designed to
provide Jew-baiters with all weapons of offence in a
handy form, and to rouse the animosity and indignation
of German Christians against everything Jewish. Its
most triumphant passages are those that point to the
158 JEWS IN THEIR RELATION
status of the Jews in the educational world as a peril to
the State. Surely we may be pardoned if, while accept-
ing the figures cited by our enemies as accurate, we desire
no higher praise than is involved in a condemnation based
upon such grounds.
Now contrast the position of the Jew in both Germany
and Russia with that which he holds in England. The
English are slow to move in the direction of any political
change ; but when the time is ripe for it, and the
change is made, it is made generously, ungrudg-
ingly, and without irritating reservations. It is not
surprising to those who know how to read the Jewish
character that among the many races and religions
contained within the limits of the British Empire,
there is none that has more completely identified
itself with the national sentiments and aspirations
than the Jews. Making allowance for the difficulties
of undoing the results of long periods of misrule and of
inherited tendencies consequent in great measure upon
such misrule, the transformation has been astounding
at once in its rapidity and in its thoroughness. In
every walk of life Jews are taking their share : in pro-
fessions, in commerce, in handicrafts. They have de-
veloped a degree of public spirit, and a civic excellence
for which they were little credited before the experi-
ment had been made. They are to be found among the
foremost in every philanthropic and educational move-
ment, in every undertaking tending to the national wel-
fare and honour.
It would be difficult to find within the whole range of
modern history a more perfect realization than the Jews
of Great Britian present of Mr. Freeman's theory con-
cerning the influence which an adopting community is
TO OTHER RACES 159
able to exercise upon its adopted members : "It cannot
change their blood ; it cannot give them new natural
forefathers ; but it may do everything short of this :
it may make them in speech, in feeling, in thought, and
in habit, genuine members of the community which has
artificially made them its own." *
Perhaps the clearest proof of the manner in which the
Jews have assimilated the national life of this country is
their attitude in regard to politics. On the supposition,
into the merits of which this is not the occasion to enter,
that the division into political parties is a good thing for
this country, the Jews contribute in their measure to
the general benefit. They are the appanage of no politi-
cal party ; they are to be found in every one, reflecting
not unfairly the differences of opinion prevailing in
the various constituencies themselves. Of course this
would be impossible if their emancipation here had been
an incomplete one. As it is, their interests are iden-
tical with those of the rest of the population. There
is fortunately no Jewish question to distract their
attention from the wider duties of citizenship. Ill
would it fare with a Jewish clergyman who should
venture, from his pulpit or elsewhere, to dictate to his
congregants how they should or how they should not
vote.
Just now, indeed, the public mind is strangely agitated
by an industrial question in which the mass of immi-
grants of the Jewish race and faith are mainly concerned.
I believe the agitation will before long die a natural
death. The saving common sense of the British people
will not suffer fresh disabilities to be invented for, and to
be imposed upon one of the most law-abiding sections of
1 Race and Langiiage, by Edward A, Freeman.
160 JEWS IN THEIR RELATION
the population. It is one thing to protect them against
themselves, as others have had to be protected, by im-
proved factory legislation ; it is another to condemn
them and their fellows to the dismal fate which certainly
will befall them if England for the first time reverses its
traditional policy in their case. It is not conceivable
that the land whose boast it used to be that it afforded
an asylum impartially to kings fleeing from their fickle
subjects and to subjects fleeing from tyrannical kings,
will shut its gates permanently upon those who are drawn
hither by the same law of nature which bids a plant
seek the light and the air.
But you ask perhaps, apart from the present relations
of the Jews towards other races among whom they have
found a home, have they any thought or hope of ulti-
mate independence as a nationality with a territorial
base and a political centre ? Is Palestine still the Land
of Promise to the house of Israel ? I wish I could
answer that inquiry in the name of all my brethren
with a single voice. Upon no question unfortunately
are opinions more widely divided, though upon none has
the teaching of the Synagogue from time immemorial
been more unanimous, decided and emphatic. Leaving
aside those vacant souls, whose conception of happiness
is to be saved the trouble of thinking and the respon-
sibility of believing, the Jewish camp is divided into two
parties. There are those among us who have neither
heart nor mind for a restored Jewish state and a revived
Jewish nationality. The whole notion is uncongenial to
them. They will not pray for it, nor hope for it. The
ancient memories have died within them, stifled by the
weight of their new prosperity. They dispose of the
bare suggestion with a smile, and quote the well-worn
TO OTHER RACES 161
jest of the wealthy Parisian Jew who declared that when
the throne of David was re-occupied by one of his de-
scendants, he would make application for the post of
ambassador of his Judaic majesty at the Court of Paris.
But it would be a grave error to suppose that such a
method of regarding the destiny of Israel had altogether
displaced the faith of centuries — a faith sealed with
blood and tears, a faith that lent the one poetic charm
to the dark and dreary lives of fifty generations of our
fathers. There is still a goodly band of brethren in
whom that faith is as full of vitality to-day as ever it
was in Israel's history. Every time they open their
Bible or their Prayer Book, the sacred flame is fed within
them. With a keen eye they watch the progress of
events in the East, note with glad satisfaction that the
Jewish population of Palestine has trebled within the
last half-century, that agricultral colonies are springing
up on all sides, and that the exiled children of Judah no
longer seek the land of their fathers merely to let their
bones mingle with the hallowed soil. Tears of genuine
sorrow and of passionate yearning still flow at the recital
on the anniversary of the destruction of the Temple of
elegies like those of the Castilian Jehudah Halevi : —
Zion,
Hast thou no greeting for thy prisoned sons,
That seek thy peace, the remnant of thy flock ?
I would pour forth my soul upon each spot
Where once upon thy youths God's spirit breathed :
Prostrate upon thy soil now let me fall,
Embrace thy stones, and love thy very dust !
Shall food and drink delight me when I see
Thy lions torn by dogs ? What joy to me
Shall daylight bring if with it I behold
The ravens feasting on thine eagles' flesh ?
But where thy God himself made choice to dwell
A blest abode thy children yet shall find.
L.A. M
162 JEWS IN THEIR RELATION
If you ask me — Where are the men to come from who
are to bring about this revolution, not in the career alone,
but within the very hearts of a people, who are to van-
quish the indifference, to purify the sordid aims, to
enlarge the narrow hopes, that make up the lives of
Jewish as of other Philistines, I answer, I do not know.
But I know that the same question would have remained
unanswered if it had been put before the stirrings of
the pulses of the national idea was felt in Greece or
in Italy, before the genius of a Byron or a Mazzini re-
kindled the extinguished hopes and ambitions of these
nations.
Nor is it easy to say how this end is to be brought
about. Two oaths, says a doctor of the Talmud, God
imposes upon Israel 1. First, that they shall not seek
the restoration of their land by means of violence, and,
next, that they will not rebel against the nations among
whom they dwell. That is to say, it is not to physical
force but to the growth of moral influences that we are
to look for the realization of our ideals. " Not by force,
nor by might, but by My spirit, saith the Lord." It is
in the Jewish race itself that the breath of enthusiasm is
needed without which no people ever worked out or
deserved to accomplish its own regeneration. If, in
contemplating the actual condition of mind of multitudes
of his brethren, the believer in the destinies of Israel
does not always meet with a sympathtic response, he
is not dismayed or disheartened ; he looks to a higher
than earthly source for the vivifying impulse, and face
to face with the apathy and the ridicule of the world, he
prepares to fall in with the train of thought to which the
poetess, who has already enlightened us on one side of
1 Kethuboth ma.
TO OTHER RACES 163
the Jewish character, gives utterance in the " New
Ezekiel " :-
What ! Can these dead bones live, whose sap is dried
By twenty scorching centuries of wrong ?
Is this the House of Israel whose pride
Is as a tale that's told, an ancient song ?
Are these ignoble relics all that live
Of Psalmist, priest and prophet ? Can the breath
Of very heaven bid these bones revive.
Open the graves, and clothe the ribs of death ?
Yea, Prophesy, the Lord hath said again :
Say to the wind, Come forth and breathe afresh,
Even that they may live, upon these slain,
And bone to bone shall leap, and flesh to flesh.
The spirit is not dead, proclaim the word.
Where lay dead bones a host of armed men stand !
I ope your graves, My people, saith the Lord,
And I shall place you living in your land.
And the other peoples of the earth, have they anything
to fear from the realization of these Messianic hopes ?
Which of them will be losers ? Will not all of them
rather be gainers by the reconstitution of a community
which, without abandoning either its own character or
its mission, " carries the culture and sympathies of
every great nation in its bosom," and which has no
heart for a future of national glory apart from the glory
and the welfare of mankind, apart from the aspiration
to bring the whole world as a spiritual Israel nearer
to Zion's God ?
THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN JUDAISM
(A Paper read before the Jews' College Literary Society, May 22nd,
1887.)
ON the day, says the Talmud (Sabbath 3ia), when a
man comes before the last tribunal and account is ren-
dered by him of his life's thoughts and actions, one of
the first questions put to him will be, " Hast thou
watched for the promised salvation ? " or, as the words
might be more freely rendered, " Hast thou kept alive
thy faith in a better future ? "
It is not a bad test by which to try a man or a nation,
or even the whole race of mankind. Do you believe
that in the lapse of ages things have gone and are going
from bad to worse ? Do you hold with the Roman
poet that
A race of parents baser than their sires
Gave birth to us, a progeny more vile,
Who'll dower the world with offspring viler still ?
Or do you believe, without precisely maintaining that
each successive generation is in all respects an improve-
ment upon its predecessor, that on the whole the present
is better than the past, and that the future will be
better than either ; and are you therefore disposed to
join in the admission of the English poet —
Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs,
And the thoughts of man are widened with the process of the suns ?
164
THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN JUDAISM 165
There is more in this than a mere academic theme,
started for the purpose of testing how much can be
talked on either side. Upon the view taken in regard
to this question depends in great measure our attitude
towards God and the world, and the harmony of the
soul with itself. For, given the belief that the coming
ages have nought else in store for man but the struggles,
the failures, the pains, the sorrows, the sins, the cor-
ruptions of the past, if not an infinite aggravation of
them, then at every period he starts upon his lifework
heavy-laden, bearing his sentence of condemnation
with him and within him. Create and nourish the
conviction that the world's saddest experiences are not
destined to be perpetuated, except in the sense that
they make a happier future possible ; that the d6bris
of the past is to furnish materials for the glorious edifice
of the future ; that the highest triumphs of Religion
and Humanity, which seem unattainable to us, will
be within the reach of those who shall succeed us, then
the whole of mankind becomes ennobled by anticipation,
while the great hope thus tenaciously clung to, will
cany within itself the germs of its own fulfil-
ment.
Now this conception is in its best and most distinctive
features essentially Jewish. If the idea flashes forth
also in the greatest luminary of the Augustan age, it
was, there are good grounds for believing, because the
sun had already risen in its full strength in the East,
and its rays were caught and reflected by a Vergil. The
fourth Eclogue, however, was written for the glorification
not so much of the future of humanity as of a then
reigning sovereign, to whom men vied with each other
in paying an almost divine homage. The most cultured
166 THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN JUDAISM
of ancient nations were strangers to the hopeful feeling
regarding the future that animated the heart of the
Jew. A Hesiod and, following him, an Ovid conceived
the ages succeeding each other in the order — golden,
silver, brazen, iron — the work of degeneration going
on apace. The Jew, if he would not exactly have
reversed the series, would certainly have kept his golden
age ahead of him. The stream of time, he felt, was
not hurrying him away from it, but bearing him towards
it. True, there is at the commencement of the Bible
the story of man's brief sojourn in Eden, followed by
his expulsion therefrom. But how slender is the in-
fluence which a " Paradise Lost " has exercised over
the minds of " the People of the Book " ! That incident
once passed and recorded, one hears no wailing for the
lost treasures of Eden ; no cries for a return to its
" bowers of innocence and ignorance." It is not in
the childhood of mankind but in its maturity that the
ideal of happiness is to be sought. Leave the first
chapters of Genesis, and throughout the rest of the
Bible you will not meet with a single reference to
what in the language and for the purposes of sectarian
theology is called " the fall of man." Indeed is not
the phrase an altogether misleading one ? Far truer
would it be to assert that the Bible proclaims what all
science teaches — the doctrine not of the fall, but of
the rise of man.
The belief in the advance of the human race and
the doctrine of the Messiah are but expressions of the
same great truth. They are two parallel streams,
whose waters ultimately unite to flow on in a more
richly fertilizing flood. Upon the banks of one of
these streams we are about to make a brief stay this
THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN JUDAISM 167
evening, and to indulge ourselves in a few reflections
on the origin and development, the character and
tendency of the Messianic idea in Judaism. The sub-
ject is one upon which there is not much hope of saying
anything new. Where Schottgen, De Wette, Gfroerer,
Anger, Hausrath, Castelli, Weber, Schiirer, Drummond,
Hamburger, and Weiss have been at work — to mention
only a few of the modern writers, who have treated
of Jewish dogmatics and whose researches are open to
everybody — it is not likely that any coming after will
be rewarded by many new discoveries, or be able to
do much more than confess his acknowledgments to
some or all of these. But if the knowledge that the
best things have already been said, and better said,
is effectually to stop people's mouths, what a silent,
lectureless world this would be !
The doctrine of a Messiah and a Messianic age did
not come into existence suddenly. It did not burst
upon the world as an instantaneous discovery, complete
in all its parts. Great ideas require a process of time,
and the favouring combination of many elements and
circumstances to bring them to maturity. The Messianic
doctrine was in reality an organic growth to which
many generations contributed their share. Like other
such growths it had its periods of more and of less rapid
development ; and it had its excrescences — to some of
which we shall have to refer later on — which some-
times concealed and disfigured the nobler principle
beneath, and drew to themselves the nutriment that
ought to have fed the grand central idea.
One great difficulty meets us in endeavouring to trace
the origin of this idea in the Scriptures. It is the
embarrassment caused by the multitude of guides that
168 THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN JUDAISM
offer themselves and the pertinacity with which they
press their services upon us. Theological bias, now
in one direction, now in another, has forcibly annexed
to the Messianic realm many a Scriptural passage,
which must have struggled hard against the irrational
union, but which, in the course of time, in consquence
of a method of bold and confident reiteration, came to
be regarded by the popular mind as from the very first
a natural ally.
Endeavouring, however, to look at the Scriptures
with our own eyes, we may ask, What has the Penta-
teuch to tell us on the subject ? — Nothing of a definite
character. The name Messiah does not occur ; the
notion of a king was foreign and to a certain extent
antagonistic to the state Moses was bent on founding.
Even the broad conception of a Messianic age or state
is absent, and indeed would hardly have found accept-
ance at a period when the main object to be achieved
was the establishment of an independent people, with
a political and religious organization intended to keep
them for a time at least apart from other races, to
secure them from the danger of absorption by their
neighbours. A sound criticism, backed by a desire
to treat the Scriptural records with the same fairness
as we would any secular volume — a combined intellectual
and moral phenomenon not witnessed in every age
nor always witnessed even now — forces upon us the
conclusion that in none of those passages in which
partisans of some religious system or other have detected
forecasts of the person of the Messiah is anything of
the sort to be found. " Shiloh," in Jacob's blessing,
has to be separated from the person with whom it has
been fancifully associated not by Christians alone
THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN JUDAISM 169
(see Onkelos, Pseudo- Jonathan, Targum Yerushalmi,
Sanhed. gSb, Mid. Rab. and Yalkut in loc.), when it
is seen that the word is in strict agreement with the
local colouring and the limited purview marking the
whole of that benediction. " The star that goes forth
from Jacob and the sceptre that rises from Israel "
(Onkelos and Pseudo-Jonathan, Yerushalmi Taanith
iv. 8, Midrash Echa 66b, etc., notwithstanding) are
denned by the very words following, " And shall smite
the corners of Moab," and are most naturally referred
to David or other conqueror. Nor are there any better
grounds for regarding the " prophet," whom God would
raise up in the midst of Israel after Moses, like unto
him, as the Messiah (Acts iii. 22). Seeing that the
people had just been warned against trusting to diviners
and soothsayers, as the heathen around them did,
because God would provide them for a prophet when
their lawgiver was no more, " like unto him," the
meaning evidently was, " like unto him " in authority,
to whom they were to listen as they had listened to
him ; and it would surely have been no effective appeal
to say to them, that they were not to follow after false
prophets then, because a true one would arise in their
midst centuries or millenniums later, whom they could
never consult.
But although all such specific evidence must be put
aside as of more than doubtful value, signs are not
wanting that the germ of the idea underlying the fuller
conception of a Messianic age was in existence from the
time of the founders of the race of Israel. " In thy
seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed," was
the promise given both to Abraham and to Isaac. It
was a promise that reached far beyond the lifetime of
i;o THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN JUDAISM
each, farther than the limits of the temporal kingdom
their descendants founded ; that has obtained but
partial fulfilment up to our time, and looks for fullest
realization to that future towards which each of us in
his measure may contribute his share. In the midst of the
gloomy picture drawn in Leviticus xxvi., of the disasters
that were in store for an unfaithful Israel, rays of a
brighter time broke through. God would remember
His covenant with the fathers ; He would remember
the land : when they were in the land of their enemies
He would not cast His people off, nor consume them —
He would remain their God. And similarly, when the
sun was about to set upon the life of the Lawgiver,
and he was gathering all his strength to render his
people the last, and perhaps most memorable service,
he bade them be of good hope, for that when bitter
trouble had brought true repentance, God would again
gather them from all the nations whither He had driven
them. " If any of those driven out from among thee be
at the outmost parts under Heaven, from thence will
the Lord gather thee ; and He will bring thee unto
the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt
possess it, and He will do thee good and multiply thee
above thy fathers " (Deut. xxx). That this prediction
was not fulfilled, in the return of a fraction of the exiles
from Babylon, that a dispersion anticipated in the
words " thy outcasts at the outmost parts under
Heaven " was far more extensive than had occurred
during the first exile, need hardly be pointed out. It
was to a more distant future that the Prophet now
looked, and by his example he endeavoured to accustom
his people to the contemplation of an idea which, even
in its dim and imperfect form, was calculated to exercise
THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN JUDAISM 171
an elevating and inspiring effect upon those who cher-
ished it.
With the close of the career of the Lawgiver the
idea seems to have withdrawn into the background.
If not entirely forgotten, it ceased to operate in the
formation of the national character. It is not difficult
to account for this. Those were the days of Israel's
great struggle for existence. There was enough to do to
get and to hold possession of the land for which they
had set forth in high and triumphant hope. The task
was more arduous and took longer than they had an-
ticipated. A time ensued when all national affairs
were unsettled. Each tribe fought for its own hand.
There was no king, no central authority in Israel. The
political uncertainty and confusion were reflected in
the religious life of the people. " The word of God
was rare in those days." Amid the din and turmoil
of almost unceasing warfare, what chance had a Prophet's
voice of making itself heard ? If the nobler minds
to be met with in every age, however degenerate, still
cherished the patriarchal hopes for Israel's destiny,
the utterance of those hopes has not been preserved
to our day ; and judging from the general character
of that period, they found no place in the national
consciousness.
By the time of David a radical change had taken
place in the character of the nation. They may be
said to have passed through the wild unsettled period
of youth, and to have emerged into a manhood that
recognized its own dignity, its duties, and its prospects.
Here we reach a further stage in the formation of the
great hope. It is based now upon the house and king-
dom of David, and this element henceforth enters
172 THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN JUDAISM
largely into the conception of the Messianic age. The
reign of David was distinguished by an unprecedented
material and moral progress. But there was a yearn-
ing for something more and higher and more lasting.
Accordingly special promises were received by David
touching the establishment of his dynasty and the
peaceful stability of the nation. The prophet Nathan
brings him the assurance that God would appoint a
place for His people, and plant them, that they may
dwell in a place of their own, whence they shall move no
more, and where children of wickedness shall not again
afflict ; while as for David himself, " thy house and
thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee,
thy throne shall be established for ever " (2 Sam. vii.
10, 16).
So rooted had this conviction become in the heart
of the Psalmist-King, that towards the end of his life
he put it on grateful record that God " magnifieth
the salvation of His King, and sheweth mercy to His
anointed, to David and his seed for ever " (Psalm xviii.
50) ; almost his last testament to his son was an exhor-
tation to remember the divine promise made to him :
" If thy children take heed to their way, to walk before
Me in truth with all their heart and with all their soul,
there shall not fail thee a man on the throne of Israel "
(i. Kings ii. 4). If we may trust the superscription
of Psalm Ixviii, as well as the internal evidence, — both
of which point to David as the author — his hopes were
not limited to the future of his own race and family.
He had wilder views. " Princes shall come out of
Egypt, Ethiopia shall quickly stretch out her hands
unto God. Ye kingdoms of the earth, sing unto God,
sing praises unto the Lord." In another Psalm (xcvi.),
THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN JUDAISM 173
the authorship of which is hardly open to dispute
(comp. I Chron. xvi. 23-33), the same sentiment prevails,
but is more strongly emphasized. The Lord is repre-
sented as the righteous and truthful judge of all the
earth ; the families of nations are summoned to ascribe
glory and strength unto Him, the whole universe par-
ticipates in the joy at His coming. It was a prophetic
glance, clear and confident into the far future, for his
own experiences gave the Psalmist no grounds to expect
such a result in his own lifetime. He saw the brighter
age ahead of him, and left his message of hope as a
heritage for his fellow-men. (See this part of our
subject admirably treated in Weiss. Dor Dor Vedorshav,
Book I.)
These ideas underwent a further development in the
reign of Solomon. They grew especially in the direction
of a universal hope. Israel's function was, according
to him, not to monopolize, but to lead the praises of
God. At the dedication of his Temple, he entreats
the Most High to give ear from His heavenly habitation
to the prayer of the Gentile who is not of His people
Israel, and to do according to all that he prays for.
And why ? "In order that all the nations of the earth
might know Thy name, ' to fear Thee ' like Thy people
Israel " (i Kings viii. 43). In his measure he was
privileged to advance the very end he had in view.
The admiration excited by his wisdom was at times
transferred to the source whence it was derived. People
heard of the fame of Solomon, and through that also
" concerning the name of the Lord." (Ibid. x. i).
And such was the exalted level of prosperity and
glory, both material and moral, that had been reached
during the first period of his rule, that the poets of
174 THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN JUDAISM
that time took his reign as a model on which they
founded some of the noblest conceptions of an age
Messianic in all but the name.
The 72nd Psalm is a relic of that period. It speaks
of a King, such as had never yet been seen on earth.
Solomon may have suggested the description ; he
never could realize it in his own person. It meant
another — to appear in the fulness of time. " He shall
judge Thy people with righteousness, and Thy poor
with judgment ; he shall break in pieces the oppressor.
So that men shall fear Thee so long as sun and moon
endure. In his days shall the righteous flourish, and
abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth.
All things shall bow down to him, all nations serve
him. He is to redeem man's soul from deceit and
violence, to save the souls of the afflicted. Prayer
shall be made for him continually. His name shall
endure for ever ; men shall be blessed in him, while
all nations shall call him blessed."
For a considerable time after the reign of Solomon
the clue to Messianic hope is lost. It is not easy to
account for this. That was the time when the Schools
of the Prophets flourished and produced many a worthy
champion of the divine cause ; we should expect such
men as these not to be silent on a subject that must
have filled their minds in proportion to the moral and
spiritual degeneracy by which they were surrounded,
and against which they kept up a life-long struggle.
Some have accounted for their silence by the very nature
of that struggle. They were engaged in an active
contest with present evils. " Prophetism stood opposed
to idolatry and despotism and anarchy. Men who
instigated revolts and deposed kings and brought about
THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN JUDAISM 175
reforms by direct and practical measures were more
concerned with deeds than with words, and have con-
sequently left but slight literary remains of their work."
(Adeney's Study of Messianic Prophecy, p. 189). Per-
haps the more natural explanation would be, that we
have no full record of the prophetic utterances of those
times, and that much that would have been of interest
and value has been lost. It should be remembered
that the Bible, covering as it does a space of some 1,000
years, is not a full and exhaustive account of all that
was said and done during that period. There are
prophets of whom only a few sentences have come
down to us ; and even those, of whose speeches we
possess a more abundant record, can hardly have com-
pressed the literary tokens of their activity into a few
score chapters. It is reasonable then to suppose that
the Messianic hope, in a more or less definite form,
was not unknown to those early witnesses to God's
truth, but that in the vicissitudes, to which the books
as well as the lives of men are subject, much that would
have profited us greatly to possess has been irrecoverably
lost. It is certain, however, that when once the idea re-
appears, it has grown in strength and depth and clear-
ness, much as happens with certain rivers which at some
point in their course dive into the earth and disappear
from view, to emerge at a distance, swollen by unseen
tributaries, and purified in their untraceable passage.
Gathering up the various expressions found in the
inspired writers, the principal features of the Messianic
age in its developed form would be these : The physical
world has undergone a complete regeneration ; the
perpetual strife now visible in nature is stilled ; want
and disease are unknown ; long life is the universal
176 THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN JUDAISM
gift. The social transformation is not less complete.
War is no longer practised or learnt. Weapons of
destruction are broken in pieces, or converted into
instruments of utility. Under a king, descended from
David, ruling with equity and in the Spirit of the Lord,
divinely aided and directed, Israel forms a nation once
more in his own land and city ; but the lines of demar-
cation between him and the Gentiles become almost
obliterated in the growth of a larger spiritual Israel
grouped around or grafted upon God's people. It is
in spiritual treasures that the age is richest. A hunger
and thirst to hear God's word has seized upon all men ;
a knowledge of the Most High is their inalienable
privilege. God's Spirit is poured out on all flesh.
Harmony is at length evolved out of the conflicting
voices that have so long resounded under heaven, and
with one language and accord the whole family of man
joins in the worship of the One God.
In many of the prophecies these bright colours are
mingled, and as it seems to us somewhat blurred by
descriptions of the judgment to be executed upon the
heathen and the obdurate enemies of God. The speakers
probably found it difficult to imagine how all those
glorious ends to which they pointed were to be brought
about, so long as the triumph remained unchecked
of those who seemed to live only in order to thwart
them. These conceptions are of course not present
in every detail in any one prophet. They are the general
impression produced by the collective body of Messianic
prophecies. Each prophet, receiving within him the
divine light, reflected it, tinged in a manner by his own
predominant hue.
We may briefly glance at some of the specific utter-
THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN JUDAISM 177
ances of these inspired messengers. As regards the
period with which they deal the earliest of the prophetic
books, strictly so called, are Jonah and Joel. In Jonah
there are of course no Messianic prophecies. But the
whole subject matter of the book — the demonstration
of the divine love for erring Gentiles, their restitution
to the divine favour, and the employment of an Israelit-
ish Prophet in a work which is based upon the idea
of the universal fatherhood of God — is a remarkable
anticipation of the Messianic principle in its most de-
veloped form. Joel deals in the first part of his book with
a great disaster that had overtaken the land. It had
been visited by a plague of locusts. The calamity suggests
to him words of exhortation and warning. These,
however, pass over to a more hopeful form of address.
The bodily needs of his people, he promises, shall be
abundantly supplied. But there are higher wants
which have to be satisfied. The transition is very
striking. " Ye shall eat and be satisfied, and praise
the name of the Lord that hath dealt wondrously with
you, and My people shall not be put to shame for ever.
And it shall come to pass after that, I will pour out My
spirit upon all flesh ; and your sons and daughters
shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams,
your young men shall see visions, and also upon the
servants and the handmaids in those days will I pour
My spirit." Then follows a description of certain terri-
fying signs and potents ; after which the restoration
of the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem is to take
place, and judgment to be executed upon the nations
in the Valley of Jehoshaphat — perhaps a symbolic
expression for the place where, as the name implies,
" the Lord will judge."
L.A. N
178 THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN JUDAISM
Two of the characteristics of the Messianic age in
its maturest conception are lacking in this prophet —
the establishment of the throne of David as the centre
of the regenerated world, and the extension to the
Gentile of the blessings of the new era. They are
supplied by succeeding prophets, who often go over
and grave more deeply the lineaments drawn by their
predecessors. " After many days," says Hosea (iii. 4),
" the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord
their God and David their King." Micah (v. i) points
to Bethlehem, the birthplace of David, as the spot
from which the Messiah shall spring. Zechariah (ix.
9, 10) sees him coming as a just and helpful King, a
messenger of peace, riding not upon a battle-steed,
but on the unwarlike ass. " He shall speak peace unto
the nations, and his dominion shall be from sea to
sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth." Isaiah
(xi.) declares him distinctly to be "a rod from the
stem Jesse, and a branch sprung from his roots." En-
dowed with marvellous gifts, he shall employ them
righteously and faithfully. All angry passions shall
be calmed, violence come to an end. " They shall no
longer hurt and destroy in all my holy mountain."
Not contenting himself with generalities or a vague
and nebulous enthusiasm for humanity — an interesting
but sometimes a very cheap sentiment — this great
prophet was not afraid to run counter to the prejudices
of his time, and must have astounded some of his
countrymen not a little by the breadth and boldness
of his doctrine. He and his contemporary Micah are
among the first Prophets who proclaim in unequivocal
language that the coming blessedness is not to be the
exclusive heritage of their listeners and friends. The
THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN JUDAISM 179
northern Kingdom of Israel, notwithstanding its more
serious lapse from God, and — what implies a still loftier
spirit of toleration on the part of the Prophet — not-
withstanding the bitter hostility that had so long
marked the relations of Israel with their brethren of
Judah in the South, is to be restored (Isa. xi.) in
company with them. He would assemble the out-
casts of Israel and gather the dispersed of Judah, and
then Ephraim shall no more envy Judah nor Judah
vex Ephraim. Nay more, those whom they had been
accustomed to regard as their natural enemies, Egypt
and Assyria, between which two rival states Judea
lay, and from both of whom she suffered according
as one or the other was in the ascendant — even these
were to be included in the great redemption of the
future. " In that day there shall be a highway out
of Egypt and Assyria, and the Egyptians shall worship
with the Assyrians. In that day shall Israel be a third
with Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing in the
midst of the land ; whom the Lord of hosts shall bless,
saying, Blessed be Egypt and Assyria, the work of
My hands, and Israel Mine inheritance." Isaiah xix.
23-25-
It required no little courage on the part of men to
prophesy in this strain, as next to speaking unpleasant
things to people about themselves, there is nothing
that so much irritates them as speaking pleasant things
of their enemies. But these men were not hunters
after popularity ; they were seekers after truth ; and
the wider and deeper the spring of truth they found
and opened to the world, the better they liked it. Theirs
was the privilege not only to look far beyond their
own time, but to see clearly what could scarcely shape
i8o THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN JUDAISM
itself in others' thoughts. All the families of man
were to be heirs of the glorious time they anticipated.
" It shall come to pass in the last days that the mountain
of the Lord's house shah1 be established in the top of
the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills,
and all nations shall flow unto it. And many nations
shall set forth and say, Come let us go up to the mountain
of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob, and
He will teach us of His ways and we will walk in His
paths ; for out of Zion shall go forth the Law and the
word of the Lord from Jerusalem." He is to be the
Judge among the nations. The reign of justice will
supersede the fierce arbitrament of war ; and the weapons
designed for mutual slaughter will be converted into
instruments for the benefit of man. With the sup-
pression of the brute element in human nature, the
noble qualities will have freer play ; the earth shall be
full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover
the bed of the sea. The root of Jesse, still surviving
by the fostering care of God, shall stand as an ensign
to the peoples ; to him shall the nations resort, and
his rest shall be glorious (Isa. ii. and xi., Mic. iv.).
This universalistic spirit belongs in an eminent degree
to the prophets who lived during and after the exile.
It would not have been surprising had the iron entered
into their soul, and their conceptions of the great future
been tinged by strong national prejudices and antipathies.
But it is just these men in whom the spirit of humanity
burned most brightly, and from whose theological
creed all that was narrow and exclusive was absent.
They yearned for something grander than a mere
national restoration. The sufferings of their own
people, instead of contracting their sympathies, as it
THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN JUDAISM 181
is apt to do in meaner natures, opened their hearts
to the wants of all men. Thus, in the new distribution
of the land which Ezekiel foresaw, the strangers and
their children have a share (xlvii. 22, 23) ; and under
the figure of a cedar tree planted in the mountain
height of Israel, spreading its branches abroad and
affording shelter to all the birds of heaven, the prophet
foreshadows the ingathering under the divine pro-
tection of all the races of mankind (xvii. 22, 23). " Many
nations," says Zechariah (ii. n), " shall be joined to
the Lord in that day and shall be My people." " Yea
many people and strong nations shall come to seek the
Lord of hosts in Jerusalem and to pray before the
Lord." In the writings of the great unknown prophet
who lived at the time of the exile, these thoughts are
met with in extraordinary profusion. There we read
of one to whom it is said that "it is but a light thing
that thou shouldst be My servant to raise up the tribes
of Jacob and restore the preserved of Israel : I will
also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou
mayest be My salvation to the ends of the earth."
(Isa. xlix. 6). There too we read of " the sons of
the stranger that join themselves to the Lord, to serve
Him and to love His name," to whom the divine promise
is extended, " I will bring them to My holy mountain
and make them joyful in My house of prayer ; their
burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted
upon Mine altar ; for Mine house shall be called an
house of prayer for all the nations " (Isa. Ivi. 6, 7).
These and similar prophecies formed the storehouse
from which later ages drew their inspirations ; using
always the same materials, though now one and now
another element might predominate ; combining them
i82 THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN JUDAISM
in various ways, expanding and elaborating them ;
sometimes adorning, sometimes defacing them ; most
frequently welding them into forms corresponding
strictly to the politico-religious sentiment of the time.
I regret that the limits of this lecture forbid me to
even glance at the writings of Philo or at the mass of
apocryphal and apocalyptic literature dealing with
our subject. All this is sufficiently important in itself
to demand separate and careful treatment, which I
trust to be able to give it on a future occasion. For
the present we must content ourselves with inquiring
how the Messianic idea is conceived in those writings
which, next to the Scriptures, have had the greatest
influence in the formation and development of Jewish
doctrine.
The Messianic Kingdom is, as I understand the pre-
vailing Rabbinical view, an earthly state, purified
from the dross and the evil that cling to all earthly
things in their present condition. The scene of action
is this world in which we live ; the actors men and
women, who have established the sovereignty of their
higher over their lower natures. The time is placed
in the indefinite future ; but it precedes the Olam ha-ba,
" the World to come," which belongs to a totally different
class of conceptions. In making this statement I
am perhaps doing a bold thing. In an erudite article
on the Talmud, which appeared in the Westminster
Review of January, 1885, our friend, Mr. Schechter,
remarked : " What exact relation the terms ' the
World to come,' ' the Kingdom of Heaven,' and ' the
days of the Messiah,' bear to each other, in what
order they follow and in what places they shall be
experienced, are all questions which have been variously
THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN JUDAISM 183
disputed by Jewish scholars, without any very satis-
factory result having as yet been obtained." — It is
true there are authorities that can be quoted to prove
that the Messianic age belongs to this world, to the
interval between this and the next, to the beginning
of the next, and finally that it is identical with the
next. But the prevailing conception in Jewish theology
is that the Messianic age is to precede the " World to
come." All the Prophets have but prophesied con-
cerning the days of the Messiah ; but as to the " World
to come," no eye but thine, O God, hath seen what Thou
wilt do for him that waiteth for Thee. (Sabbath 63a).
And as the kingdom is an exalted earthly one, with
human beings in a more perfect condition than those
with whom we are acquainted, so the King of this
regenerated realm will be a mortal endowed with trans-
cendant attributes. Perhaps it was the polemic spirit
roused by the pretensions of the newly-risen creed
that was the cause of the saying recorded in Taanith
(21) : If a man says, " I am God," he lies ; if he says
" I am the son of God," he will regret it ; if he says
" I shall rise to heaven," he will not fulfil it. — In a
celebrated dialogue which Justin Martyr held with
the Jew Tryphon (see p. 263 below), he makes the
Jew express the opinion : We all expect that the
Messiah will come into being as a man from among
men (Dial. ch. 49). It is to my mind the loftiest
idea in the whole doctrine that it is this earth which
is to be the scene of a better state of things, and that
through human agencies, divinely helped and guided
though they be, the Messianic glories are to be achieved.
But though the vision of the brighter future is clear,
and the hope that it would be reached unfaltering, it
i84 THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN JUDAISM
was felt that many a stormy sea would have to be crossed
before the blissful haven could be entered. Evil was
an active, ever present force ; it gave no signs of diminu-
tion, rather it grew and spread ; and how was that state
of material and moral perfection to be attained while
suffering and sin were darkening men's lives, and ex-
perience mocked their most ardent beliefs ? There
was a double source of evil to be dealt with — one from
without, another from within. In the discussion of this
side of our subject it must be confessed that the spirit
of pessimism rules for the most part. The enemies of
Israel and of God do not give up their hostility, and
destruction awaits them. There is something pro-
foundly terrifying in the pictures drawn of the slaughter
of the foes in the Targumim and the Talmud. If I do
not dwell on these scenes or deal with the strange figure
of Armilus — the Anti-Christ of Jewish legend, the re-
presentative (Romulus ?) of the arch-enemy of Israel, or
the epr)M.6\ao<i or people-devourer (as Balaam was
connected with bila-am), the personification of the last
surviving powers of evil — it is because any one who
follows up these conceptions must perceive how greatly
they were coloured by the embittered experiences of
the writers. They had not yet reached that stage in
religious philosophy which enables men to conceive the
cause of the righteous being established without in-
volving the destruction of their persecutors. Are we
sure that we have got much beyond the theory or the
sentiment expressed in these words ? How seldom
do we witness the establishment of a righteous cause
without a struggle that carries with it the destruction
of its adversaries ! Does not liberty grow upon a soil
often saturated with the blood of tyrants, and is not
THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN JUDAISM 185
truth itself made triumphant in the defeat and dis-
comfiture of the champions of falsehood ? — But gentler
and more tolerant views had their advocates as 'well.
In the days of the Messiah, we read in Abodah Zarah
(240), all the heathens will of their own accord
seek to become proselytes. According to Sifre (76b),
every one will long to have a dwelling in the Land of
Israel, as the great and mighty of the nations now
give themselves no rest until they have a palace of
their own in Rome. The Messiah, says Shir rabba
24a, with a play upon the word Chadrakh in Zechariah
ix. i, is called by this name because he leads all the
nations of the world in repentance before the Holy
One.
It is, however, in anticipations of every kind of cal-
amity and the last extremes of misfortune, as well as of the
utter corruption and degeneracy of Israel and the world,
all which events are to precede the advent of Messiah,
that one perceives how deep a gloom oppressed at times
the most hopeful spirits. The conviction rooted itself
and spread abroad that things would be much worse
before they would take a turn for the better. Messiah
will not see the light of day before the CheUe ham-
Mashiach, the pangs of the Messianic birth, have been
endured. It is noteworthy that while the apocalyptic
literature, when treating of those far-off times, dwells
by preference upon dread signs and portents in nature, —
such as earthquakes and conflagrations, the sun shining
by night and the moon by day, blood dropping from
wood, and stones'giving forth a voice, swords drawn across
the heavens, and troops of soldiers marching through
the clouds — the rabbinical writings, emphasize rather
such sorrowful signs as the decadence and confusion of
i86 THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN JUDAISM
all principles and a deep and wide-spread depravity.
All social and moral bonds are snapped asunder. " At
the heels, or in the foot-prints of Messiah, Insolence
will be triumphant and Pride prevail. The vine will
give its fruits, yet wine will be dear (there will be many
drunkards). The governing powers will turn them-
selves to heresy. There will be no reproof. The house
of assembly (the synagogue) will be used for vile purposes.
Galilee will be destroyed, and Gablan laid waste, and
the men of Gebul wander from city to city, and find
no favour. The wisdom of the scribes will be abhorred,
and those who fear sin despised, and truth will fail.
Boys will make the colour come and go in the faces of
old men. The old will rise up before the young. The
son puts the father to shame, the daughter rises against
her mother, the daughter-in-law against the mother-
in-law. The enemies of a man are the members of his
own household. The face of that generation is like
the face of the dog. Whom have we then on whom
to rely ? Our Father who is in Heaven ! " (Sotah
ix. 15, and Sanhed. 97a). In a similar strain the
following is conceived. " Judges will cease in Irsael ;
traitors will multiply, and students of the law diminish ;
universal poverty will prevail, and the redemption be
despaired of : then the son of David will come. In the
generation in which the son of David comes the disciples
of the wise shall diminish, and as to others, their eyes
shall fail them by reason of sorrow and groaning.
Many evils and cruel decrees will be renewed. While
the first is being appointed, the second hasteneth to
come." (Ibid.).
But gloomy as these forebodings were, those who
uttered them never meant by such language to preach
THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN JUDAISM 187
the Gospel of despair. It served as the dark back-
ground that threw up but the more brightly the radiant
figure of Messiah. — " Seest thou an age pining and
dwindling away — hope for him, for so it is written
(2 Sam. xxii. 28) : ' An afflicted people Thou wilt
save.' Seest thou a generation whom many troubles
overwhelm as a flood, hope for him, for so it is written
(Isa. lix. 19, 20) : ' When the enemy shall come in like a
flood, the spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard
against him, and the Redeemer shall come unto Zion ' "
(Sanhed. g8a.). Still more emphatic is the declaration
of faith in Shir Rab. (on Canticles ii. 13) : " If thou
seest generation after generation reviling and blas-
pheming, look then for traces of the Messiah, for so it
is said (Ps. Ixxxix. 51) : ' Remember, Lord, the revilings
wherewith thine enemies have reviled the steps of thine
anointed,' following immediately upon which it is
said : ' Blessed be the Lord for ever and ever ' " (52).
AH these passages go but to show that though their
authors knew something of the evil side of human
nature and were prepared for even worse than they
knew, they did not allow the issue of the great struggle
between hope and fear, that has to be fought out in
every human breast, to remain long in doubt for them.
To their thinking also, "When need is highest, then aid
is nighest." God had not abdicated ; and the con-
viction dominated their souls, that His over-ruling
Providence must ultimately subdue all men and things
to His own beneficent plan.
Somewhat akin to this branch of our subject, which
deals with the misfortunes that are to precede the
Messianic age, is the question whether the conception
of the Messiah himself as a sufferer has any true and
i88 THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN JUDAISM
permanent foundation in Judaism. We know how
enormous a superstructure has been built upon it.
That the idea is to be met with in a few out-of-the-way
places in Judaism, is not to be denied. Very stirring
is the story to be found in Yalkut on Isaiah and in the
Pesikta (37) of the pains Messiah takes upon himself ;
his anxiety to learn how long they are to last ; his
acceptance of them, provided God would, in considera-
tion thereof, spare His people, both those that have
been and those that shall be born. Very startling, too,
it is to read of the heavy iron beam placed upon his
neck, beneath which he bends and groans, pleading for
some regard for his weakness — he is but flesh and blood
— and of God's assuring him that He too suffers
in the misfortunes of His people ; and then of Messiah's
reply, that he is content, for that the servant may well
fare like the Master. All this is interesting enough, if
not very intelligible. How is it to be accounted for ?
The whole theory is based upon an uncritical treat-
ment of Isaiah liii. Grant that this chapter is Messianic,
and it becomes necessary to reconcile it with the ac-
counts everywhere else to be met with, which represent
the Redeemer as exalted and triumphant throughout.
A polemical device accordingly created a Messiah, son
of Joseph, or of Ephraim, who was to suffer in the
manner we have seen ; to head the war against Gog
and Magog — types of the brute forces arrayed against
the righteous in the distant future, and even to perish
in that war ; and who was to be succeeded by Messiah
son of David, to whom the kingdom should belong.
Now I do not conceive it our duty to defend every-
thing that has been written by Jews in the Hebrew, or
Aramaic, or any other tongue. I suppose the literature
THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN JUDAISM 189
of a people has to swallow its proverbial peck of dust,
just like any mother's son among us, in this dusty world
of ours. We are commanded to distinguish between
the clean and the unclean, between the holy and the
unholy ; and that is a duty which assuredly should
not be limited to what enters our mouths. Not all is
gold that glitters, even in the Talmud. Many a pretty
tale may make bad theology. It would therefore be
well to reject, as un- Jewish, whatever confuses the
personality, or dims the glory of Messiah.
Be it observed especially, that it is not so much the
idea of the anointed of the Lord having to make experi-
ence of sorrow, that is opposed to Judaism, as that his
sorrow is to be the atonement for the sins of those whom
he is to deliver. To the formation of the highest type of
character some acquaintance with grief is necessary :
but that God should bargain for the agonies of one man
as a compensation for the sins of all other men, is no less
opposed to Judaism than it is revolting to the dictates
of uncorrupted reason. We may therefore pass by
the doctrine of a suffering Messiah and of a Messiah son
of Joseph, as the offspring of that mystical school, in
which the union of intense religious enthusiasm with a
defective judgment was productive of results involving
at times no little danger to that very religion it meant
to honour and exalt.
In this same mystical school originated also the doc-
trines of the pre-existence and concealment of Messiah.
Pesachim, 54a, includes his name among the seven
things created before the world was called into being.
(See also Beresh. Rab. I., Pirke 'd R. Eliezer 3, and
the Targum on Is. ix. 5.) Probably nothing more was
meant than that the Messiah had a place in the original
igo THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN JUDAISM
scheme of God for the welfare of the beings He was
about to create. Glancing with the eye of omniscience
into the most distant future, He perceived what would
be the crowning need of humanity, and provided for
it. Other writers went further than this, and conceived
him as being actually in existence from the creation of
the world (Mid. Proverbs 6jc), as living in Paradise
with Elijah even to the present day (Kolbo 237a and
Abodath Hakkodesch 43), weeping over the deferred
hopes of Israel, and being visited, now by the patri-
archs and other holy men, who seek to comfort him in
the delayed fulfilment of his mission, now by sinners
like Korah and his companions, who anxiously inquire
when the hoped-for deliverance to be effected through
him is to take place. The uncritical knowledge, that
so long prevailed, of the Bible may have laid the founda-
tion for these and other vagaries. There was the
remark of Micah regarding the ruler who was to spring
from Bethlehem (chap. v. i), which of course only
meant that his descent should be a very ancient one.
There was the vision in Daniel vii. 17, equally misunder-
stood,— concerning a son of man who comes with the
clouds of heaven — clearly representing Israel in contrast
to the beasts who figure for the other earthly powers.
These would provide a starting point on the road of
error, along which it is always easier to advance than to
retrace one's steps. Indeed the misconceptions to
which Daniel gave rise are traceable already in the
apocalyptic literature, both pre- and post-Christian,
notably in the book of Enoch and 4th Ezra. There is,
however, more than one sense in which the pre-exist-
ence of the Messiah may be more readily admitted.
On the hypothesis — a favourite one in rabbinical litera-
THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN JUDAISM 191
ture (to which Friedmann on Pesikta 37 draws attention)
— that the souls of all men were called into being before
the creation of Adam, and that each was from the first
destined to inhabit a certain body, the union taking
place at birth, one can conceive how Messiah also had a
premundane existence. One is reminded how the gulf
that divides rabbinical from English literature is bridged
by a common philosophy older than either :
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting :
The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar :
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home.
Or we may say : in the benign purposes of God, Messiah
lives from of old. God would not be what He is, were
it otherwise. We go our way, unconscious of the
ripening seed beneath our feet ; we pursue our narrow
aims, ignorant of the consequences to which they may
lead. Meanwhile the Guardian of Israel relaxes not
His watchfulness, His eye penetrating to the end of all
generations, and His almighty hand shaping all things
to His own ends. This thought you may see finely
expressed in the Midrash (Ber. Rab. 85) on the passage,
" and Judah went down to Adullam." " Judah was
occupied in taking unto himself a wife ; the Holy One,
blessed be He, was occupied in creating the light of King
Messiah. And thus it happened that before the birth
of Israel's first persecutor (Pharaoh), his last deliverer
was born " — that is to say, the descendant of Judah,
to whom the task of the final redemption was assigned,
I92 THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN JUDAISM
existed potentially from the time of Judah's marriage.
He who can produce the clean even from the unclean,
predetermined this.
It is of course not to be supposed that all Jews idealized
these conceptions in the way just indicated. We must
not blame them too severely when we bear in mind that
there are still people to be found to whom words do not
suggest ideas, to whom they stand in the place of things.
A Messiah, who was long ago called into being, must be
somewhere. He lived, it was thought, in concealment
until the hour for his earthly mission should strike. The
Targum on Micah iv. 8 runs, " Thou Messiah of Israel,
who art concealed on account of the offences of the
congregation of Zion, to thee the kingdom shall come."
It was even said that like Moses, he would come, dis-
appear, and come again (Pesikta 4Qa). Some thought
he would proceed from the North (Vayikra Rab. 9), the
north being the unknown and unexplored region to the
ancient Jews. But the prevalent belief was that Rome
would be his hiding-place until the day when he would
manifest himself to the world. As Moses grew up in
Pharaoh's house, without the king knowing that he was
harbouring the future avenger of Israel, so will the
Messiah, who is to execute vengeance on Edom (the
Roman Empire), live in the capital of that realm, un-
noticed and unsuspected (Shemoth Rab.i). R. Joshua
ben Levi meets Elijah and says to him, " When comes
the Messiah ? " The prophet answers, " Go and ask
himself." " And where is he ? " "At the gate of the
city of Rome." " And what is his sign, how can he
be recognized ? " "He sits among the poor who are
suffering from sickness ; all these people open and at
once bind up again the bandages on their wounds. He,
THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN JUDAISM 193
however, binds up one at a time, saying, Perhaps there
may be need for me (suddenly), and I shall cause no
delay " (Sanhed. 98 a).
But one of the most mysterious of the many legends
in connexion with the Messiah is the following, to
be found in Talmud Yerushalmi, Berachoth II. 4,
and with slight variations in Midrash Echa, I.
16.
A man was engaged in ploughing, when one of his
oxen bellowed. An Arab was passing, and, hearing the
oxen bellow, said, " Son of a Jew, loose thy oxen and
loose thy ploughs, for the Temple is laid waste." The
ox bellowed a second time. The Arab said to him,
" Yoke, thy oxen and fit thy ploughs ; for King Messiah
has just been born." " But," said the Jew, " what is his
name ? " " Menachem," replied the Arab. " And his
father's name ? " " Chizkijah." " And where do they
dwell ? " "In the palace of the King of Bethlehem —
Judah." Away he went and sold his oxen, and became
a seller of infants' swaddling clothes. And he passed
from town to town until he came to that place. There all
the women bought of him, but the mother of Menachem
bought nothing. He heard the voice of the women
saying, " O thou mother of Menachem ! O thou mother
of Menachem ! Come and buy bargains for thy son."
But she replied, " I would rather strangle the enemy of
Israel, because on the day that he was born the Temple
was laid waste." He said to her, " But we trust in the
Lord of the Universe, that as it was laid waste at his
feet, so at his feet it will soon be rebuilt." She said,
" I have no money." To whom he replied, " What
matters it ? Buy bargains for him, and if you have no
money to-day, after some days I will come back and
L.A. O
I94 THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN JUDAISM
receive it." After some days he returned to the place
and said to her, " How is the child doing ? " And she
replied, " After the time you saw me last, winds and
tempests came and snatched him away from me." (See
the legend translated in Drummond's Jewish Messiah
p. 279).
One essentially Jewish feature ought to be noticed
in this legend, and that is, that the Messiah was
born at the very time when the Temple was des-
troyed. It is another form of the old and beautiful
doctrine, that God never inflicts a wound without
first providing a remedy. Here also the heaviest blow
levelled against Israel, of incalculable consequences
to them and to the world, is neutralized by the pro-
duction of one who is to be the restorer of all
things.
One is inevitably struck also with the peculiar likeness
between this quaint story and certain events related
of one for whom the Messiahship is claimed on grounds
that are unsatisfactory to thinking Israelites. How
comes such a tale to find a place in Jewish writings ?
Is it perhaps the remnant of an original bit of folklore,
from which others borrowed and which they adapted to
their own purposes ? Or was it, as has been suggested,
also in regard to a few other startling passages in the
Yalkut and Pesikta, the work of people who had already
gone half the road toward Christianity ? Or, if I may
hazard the explanation — Was it a mere parody of cur-
rent beliefs and designed to show how little there was in
them ? I am persuaded that many a startling Midrash
can be accounted for on this hypothesis. The Rabbins
had a delicious caustic humour of their own ; they could
hit off the follies of their time without always making
THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN JUDAISM 195
proclamation of their intention to shoot ; and, like good
story-tellers, they managed to keep their countenances
when they gravely said things which made the over-
simple open their eyes and the over-clever shake their
head. That the strange tale I have quoted was the
result of a predilection on their part " ridentem dicere
vemm," seems not unlikely from the remark it instantly
called forth. R. Abun said, " What need is there for
us to learn this from an Arab ? Is there not a plain
Scripture that teaches the same lesson ? The loth
chapter of Isaiah ends with the words, ' And Lebanon
shall fall by a mighty one.' The nth begins,' But a rod
shall come forth from the stem of Jesse, and a branch
grow from his roots.' '
I can make no more than a passing reference to the
theory that finds especial favour with the neologian
school — the theory of a Messianic state without a
Messiah. It is sometimes felt that a higher homage is
paid to the future of humanity by omitting the central
figure from the conception of the Messianic age. The
gain is a doubtful one, at the best. A chief with exalted
attributes, such as we have seen assigned to him, is
not a disturbing element in a conception of an ideal state
of society ; he is, in truth, its necessary complement.
Certainly, there is very little in the history of the doctrine,
as it has been developed in Judaism, to justify any
modern follower of our faith in banishing Messiah the
King from the Messianic Kingdom. When R. Hillel
(Sanhed. g8b and gga.) expressed the view that there was
no Messiah in store for Israel, for that they had already
enjoyed him in the days of King Hezekiah, R. Joseph
answered, " May God forgive R. Hillel ! When did
Hezekiah live ? In the time of the first Temple. But
196 THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN JUDAISM
Zechariah, who foretold the Messiah's coming, lived in
the time of the second Temple."
The transformation in the physical and moral condition
of the world, that is to form a principal feature in the
new era, leads to the question, put with more or less
timidity, What will become of the Torah in the days
of the Messiah ? The characters of men having under-
gone a complete change, will the Law be abolished and
another substituted, will it be modified, or will it be re-
tained in its original integrity ? I venture to think that
this, though a very tempting topic of discussion, is not
a very profitable one. When the golden age has come
for all mankind, those who will be privileged to live
in it will have no difficulty in deciding to what extent
the authority of the Torah has survived.
It is, however, not surprising that this question has
engaged the attention of Jewish thinkers. It may
perhaps be regarded as the Jewish mode of treating
the great ethical problem, whether the foundation of
morals is absolute and eternal, or conditional and tem-
porary. A passage here and there seems to speak of
a new Law in the Messianic age. So Yalkut Isaiah 296,
" the Holy one, blessed be He, will sit and expound the
new Law which He will give by the hands of Messiah."
But an examination of the passage shows that the re-
ference is not to the Messianic age, but to the next life,
of the laws of which we of course can know nothing.
Generally speaking, the expression tor ah chadashah
has the meaning not of a new law, but of a renewed law
— one that receives new life, owing to the method in
which it is studied and applied — in strict agreement
with the " new law " promised in Jeremiah xxi. 30, 31,
which is immediately explained to mean " not like
THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN JUDAISM 197
the one I gave to their fathers, which my law they
brake ; but I will write my law in their heart, etc.,"
tor ah chadashah heeno chiddush tor ah, says Vayikra
Rab. (13). A " new law" means the " renewal of the old
law." In Midrash Shir Hashirim ii. 13 occurs a passage,
a different and perhaps an earlier reading of Sanhedrin
97a, which relates how the seven years immediately
preceding the advent of Messiah will be spent. " The
Law becomes new once more ; renews itself to Israel."
The immutability of the Law was a principle strongly
insisted upon in view of a well-known weakness of
human nature. Admit that the Messianic era is to be
signalized by the suspension of any religious ordinance,
and the tendency will show itself to anticipate the age,
at least in so far as it can be done by the easy method
of violating or neglecting the Law ; while, if the occasion
arose when a Messiah seemed about to appear — not a
rare event in Jewish history — then indeed the temptation
would be well-nigh irresistible to relax all moral and
religious ties, and to make Religion itself an excuse for
licence and irreligion.
The chief question, however, that occupied men's
minds was always, When would he come ? The
longing to lift the veil that shrouds the future becomes
intensified when present trouble presses heavily upon
the heart. Every dark and enigmatic utterance was
made to give up its secret, and to answer questions in
the terms and in the spirit of the inquirer. The fancy
of interpreters ran riot in seeking for hints as to the hoped-
for day, and in finding them too in verses never intended
to be put to so unnatural a use, or in words whose letters
were believed to conceal, under the forms of an artificial
system of later introduction, exact information as to
198 THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN JUDAISM
the time of the expected advent of Messiah. Hence
those innumerable and conflicting calculations of the
great day, which alternately roused the credulous to
the highest pitch of enthusiasm and plunged them into
the lowest depths of despair. It was a sort of game
of scriptural hide-and-seek, pardonable perhaps in the
age of the chilhood of faith, but none the less fraught
with serious consequences both to the characters of
the players and to the dignity of the Religion which,
through the use of such methods, became the subject of
a more or less ingenious sport.
What Christianity owes to a totally mistaken inter-
pretation of Daniel's Weeks is well-known, and is now
admitted by theologians not of the Jewish Church alone.
In Gemara Sanhedrin 97a and Abodah Zarah gb, we
have various estimates of the date of Messiah's coming.
One view very generally favoured — partly perhaps be-
cause it removed the end to a safe distance — was that the
present state of things would last 6,000 years, and that
the next 1,000 years would be the time of deliverance ;
just as there is one year of release in every seven years,
and one day of rest in every seven. The Sabbath
Psalm is to be sung on " that day," which is to be an
unbroken Sabbath, and one day with God is equal to
1,000 years, according to the verse "for a thousand
years are in Thy sight as yesterday " (Ps. xc. 15). In the
School of Eliahu it was taught that the period of
6,000 years was divided into three equal parts : the first
2,000 years were passed in moral chaos tohu ; the next
2,000, commencing from the call of Abraham, under
the dominion of the Law ; and the last 2,000 would be
the age of the Messiah. Now, as the destruction of the
Temple took place in the year 3828, it follows that the
THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN JUDAISM 199
Messiah might be expected any time after 172 years
had elapsed from the destruction of the Temple. Fol-
lowing this hint the date was confidently fixed, and
when events falsified the popular expectation, as con-
fidently readjusted.
So strongly rooted was the conviction that they were
within measurable distance of the Messianic age, that
R. Chananyah counselled his readers (Abodah Zarah, 9),
" If any one were to say to thee 400 years after the
destruction of the Temple, ' buy this field for a denar,'
although it was worth a thousand, buy it not, for the
time of the Messiah is at hand. ' ' A mournful commentary
on this calculating craze is afforded by the fact that
when a date had been fixed upon for the appearance
of the deliverer, it usually turned out to be the tune
that witnessed disasters of the severest nature befalling
the sanguine folk. Thus there is good ground for
believing, for the statement is circumstantially made
by Josephus (Wars vi., v., 4), by Tacitus (Hist. v. 13)
and by Suetonius (Vesp. 4), that the period about 70
of the c.E. was looked forward to as likely to see the
advancement of a Judean to the place of governor of
the habitable world. In Matthew xxiv. 34, Mark xiii.
30, and Luke xxi. 32, some of the most striking tokens of
the Messianic age were declared to be about "to be
fulfilled before that generation passed away." But
in place of the realization of all these high-wrought
hopes, the year 70 witnessed the destruction of the
Temple and the fall of the Jewish nation.
The sympathy of R. Akiba for the revolutionary
movement under Bar Kochba was due in part at least
to his interpretation of certain verses of scripture, which
seemed to him to point to the man and to his time.
200 THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN JUDAISM
In vain was it that one of his comrades confronted him
with the words, " Grass will grow on thy cheeks Akiba
and the Messiah not yet have come ! " (Midrash
Echa 2). He staked his life on the result ; and his
error was terribly avenged, not only on him but on the
multitudes whose justification lay in his example. Or,
to take an example from mediaeval times : It
had been computed, as the result of a mystical inter-
pretation of the word ranu — (=the Hebrew consonants
of which are resh=200, nun=^o, and vav=6) — in
Jeremiah xxxi. 7, that the son of David would appear
towards the end of the 256th lunar cycle, between 1096
and 1104 of the C.E., and lead Israel back to their own
land. But the former year marked the melancholy
epoch of the first crusade, and " in lieu of the trumpet
blast of the Redeemer they heard the wild execrations of
a mob thirsting for their blood."
The "Calculation of the End" seems to have exercised
an irresistible fascination upon minds in other respects
sober enough. Even men like Saadyah yielded to the
temptation ; while Maimonides (Iggereth Teman),
after taking his great predecessor to task for his weakness,
himself " treads the primrose path of dalliance," and
makes a calculation of his own, according to which
Messiah ought to have appeared in the year of the
creation 4976, corresponding to 1216 C.E., from about
which time dates, in the opinion of Graetz, the deepest
degradation of the Jews of Europe during six centuries.
Far healthier was the tone, although the language
was rather blunt, of those who, like R. Shemuel b.
Nachmeni, and R. Jonathan, said (San. 97b.), " Let
the bones be broken of those who calculate the end ;
because when the set time has arrived and the prediction
THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN JUDAISM 201
has not been verified, it is the belief in the Messiah that
suffers, and people think he will not come at all. But
hope patiently for him, as is written, Though he tarrieth
hope for him ! " The day of redemption lies outside
the range of human vision. " It will come in the ripeness
of time and with the grace of God," said one. " All
the computed terms have passed and the matter de-
pendeth now on repentance and good deeds," taught
another (San. gyb. Yer. Taan., i., Debarim Rab. 2).
While a third, dealing with the seeming contradiction
in Isaiah (Ix. 22), " I the Lord, will hasten it in its time,"
offered this beautiful reconciliation, "If my people are
worthy, I will hasten their deliverance ; if not, it
shall come — in its appointed time."
Let this suffice for us also, if there are any here or
elsewhere eager to know when and how we shall reach that
happy age. Tokens are not wanting that we are on the
right way, tokens that meet us on our voyage through
life, like those which the mariner sometimes passes on
the seas and which tell him that land must lie beyond.
Since this great hope was first proclaimed in clear and
full tones to the world, how vast has been the progress
that has blessed every branch of human endeavour,
how incalculable the change for the better in almost all
conditions of human life ! Still the warning is needed
to beware of confusion between the material and the
moral progress of the world. Of the former no one is
likely to be left in ignorance in this the 50th year
of the reign of Queen Victoria. But we live for other
purposes than the accumulation of wealth, the distri-
bution of commodities and the spread of Empire ;
and other and nobler work awaits us, before we
shall sight the realm over which Messiah shall reign —
202 THE MESSIANIC IDEA IN JUDAISM
not a heavenly kingdom, be it still borne in mind, but
an earthly one, in labouring for which we may find
perhaps
Earth but the shadow of Heaven, and things therein
Each to the other like more than on earth is thought.
WHERE THE CLERGY FAIL
(An Address delivered at Queen Square House on Sunday, Jan. 17,
1904, as Hon. President of Jews' College Union Society.)
IN the Romanes Lecture for 1896, the late Bishop of
London, Dr. Mandell Creighton, relates how, on one
occasion, when he was a Fellow of his College, conver-
sation at dinner turned upon university life. In a
pause, one who had until then been silent addressed
the only stranger present thus : "I think you ought to
know that in Oxford we are all so well acquainted with
one another's good qualities that we only talk about
those points which are capable of amendment." I
might give a similar reason for my choice of subject for
the address it is my duty and privilege to deliver as
Hon. President of the Jews' College Union. To dwell
upon the merits and successes of the clergy would be
a work of supererogation ; we all know them. Our
time can, therefore, be more profitably employed in
directing our attention to some of the points in which
they fail to come up to, I will not say an ideal standard,
but to the requirements of a fair and sober conception
of what the clerical office demands. And though there
is a certain difficulty, there is also a certain advantage,
in a clergyman speaking on this topic to others who
are, or are to be, members of the same profession as him-
self. He can mingle experience with observation,
criticism with confession.
203
204 WHERE THE CLERGY FAIL
Let me admit forthwith that it is in the very nature
of things that any man occupying the position of a
minister of religion, I care not who he is, must fail often
and lamentably. The character and the magnitude
of his office make that result inevitable. The well-
nigh universal rule among all denominations of having
a body of men trained and recognized as leaders in
religion, and our own familiarity with the fact itself
within the limits of our own community, may blunt
our appreciation of what the name of clergyman properly
stands for. But can we blind ourselves to the solemn
issues involved in the existence of such a profession as
the clergy ? How is any one man entitled to be con-
sidered more a servant of God than any other ? Can
we, rightly speaking, justify such a differentiation of
functions, in Judaism at least ? And admitting, for
the sake of argument, that religious teachers must form
a profession by themselves, because what is everybody's
business is nobody's business, what vast and varied,
what rare and lofty qualifications are needed to make
the true clergyman ! Among all professions, that of
the clergy stands in need of knowledge the fullest, of
sympathy the deepest, of unselfishness the most perfect,
of character the most spotless. T do not know if any
of my clerical colleagues lay claim to all these qualifi-
cations, or if any of their generous friends or admiring
relations do so for them. For myself, whenever I think
of it, I marvel at my own temerity. Had I not been
so young when I entered upon this sacred calling, I
doubt if later I should have had the courage to do so.
In no other profession is the temptation to vanity
so great. A young man, generally at an age when he
would be very unlikely to have any mundane business
WHERE THE CLERGY FAIL 205
of importance entrusted to him, is suddenly raised to
a position that places him on a spiritual elevation above
the greater number of his brethren. He is conscious
that all eyes are focussed upon him. In office he is
arrayed in a distinctive uniform. Out of office he wears
a garb usually closely copied from the prevailing fashion
of the dominant Church. He has assigned to him a
distinctive title of honour and reverence. He leads the
devotions of his people. He addresses with a certain
note of authority, without contradiction or interrup-
tion, assemblies of men and women, many of whom
are old enough to be his parents or grandparents, and
not a few who are at least his equals in intellectual power
and attainments. He has also, perhaps, a number of
ardent unreasoning admirers. In short, he blossoms
out all at once into a personage whose very office is re-
garded as a token that its incumbent is a man of more
than ordinary wisdom and virtue. It is no wonder if
Satan, in the form of vanity, lays siege to his soul, and
puts him in perils from which nothing but innate strength
of character and the grace of God can deliver him.
Even when he grows older, the old besetting sin is not
always cast behind him.
If a parable could cure people of conceit, the follow-
ing from the Russo-Jewish fabulist, Gordon, ought to
do it. When the Philistines wished to send back the
captured ark of Israel, they placed it in a cart, and
to the cart they harnessed a couple of cows. Behind
marched the lords of the Philistines. And the cows,
making their way to Beth-Shemesh, lowing as they went,
noticed that wherever they passed the Israelites came
to meet them, rejoicing, and paying them honour, and
bowing down before them. Then said the cows to each
206 WHERE THE CLERGY FAIL
other : " We are no ordinary cows ; look how the
people are reverencing us ; we must be divine." But
they knew not, silly creatures, that it was not to them
that men bowed down and paid homage, but to the
precious treasure they were carrying. And when the
cows came to the field of Joshua the Beth-Shemite, the
people took possession of the ark, but the cows they
slaughtered and offered them up as a burnt-offering.
So, many a vain synagogue functionary, holding the
Law aloft, and seeing the congregation bowing down
before him, is uplifted in his own esteem and deems
himself more than a common mortal ; but he considers
not, foolish man, that not to him is this homage paid,
but to the Torah, and after it is taken from him he
is accounted a thing of nought. The parallel halts
somewhat at the end, for the fate of the cows does not
overtake the vain precentor, but it is close enough in
other respects for those who have eyes to see.
It is a frequent complaint that clergymen are not
always treated with the respect due to their calling.
But what if it should be found that they themselves
fail to treat their calling with the respect due to it ?
Can they complain if those whom they are supposed
to instruct not only learn from them, but better the
instruction ? Take the performance of the sacred offices
of the synagogue. These admit of two vicious extremes,
though which of the two is more fatal to clerical dignity —
not to speak of higher and more important interests — I
am not prepared to decide. There is perfunctoriness
at the one end. A man is soon found out whose idea
of service in the sanctuary is something to be got through
with as little preparation as possible beforehand, and
with as little cost as possible of thought during the
WHERE THE CLERGY FAIL 207
actual process. The disinclination to concentrate the
whole mind and heart on the act of worship for the time
being ; the tendency to what, in the rabbinic dis-
cipline, is so often referred to, and condemned as
" Heseach Hadaath," is a defect that may need strug-
gling against even in the best of us ; but if it be not
resisted, especially during the earlier and formative
period of a clergyman's life, the effect will be sure to
make itself apparent in his every unguarded look and
tone and gesture. What is in him will show through him.
And it will sink into the very soul of the laity, who
will consider themselves justified in treating their
minister as little better than a praying machine ; though
just because he is a living, and not an inanimate, machine
they will decline to regard him with the holy awe with
which the Tibetan regards that other curious apparatus
of worship — his praying wheel.
And, as with the offices of prayer and praise, so with
the responsible task of preaching. All perfunctoriness
in this sacred work ; all inadequate, slovenly, indolent
preparation for preaching ; all listless, lifeless, soulless,
senseless sermons, will have to be paid for in the loss
of the esteem of your hearers. Vain is it to complain
of this. We reap as we have sown.
But there is the other vicious extreme, and the mis-
chief it does is not easily calculated. Is it surprising
that clergymen should fail to secure the respect of those
whose respect is worth having, if they make the sanctu-
ary and the Divine service the place and the occasion
of personal display ? All " showing off " in voice and
manner, all histrionic tricks, all ostentation and affecta-
tion, all simulated or artificially stimulated emotion,
are an abomination in the sight of those who know
208 WHERE THE CLERGY FAIL
and can judge. To whom, one is often forced to ask,
does the precentor or the preacher address his prayers
in synagogue — to God or to the congregation ? That
question was answered in an account, of which I have
heard, of a great religious meeting held in Boston, some
time ago. The reporter, by a couch of inspiration,
described the prayer offered up by the Rev. Dr. Blank
as " one of the most beautiful and effective prayers ever
delivered to a Boston audience." Every form of dis-
play argues unreality, and unreality, however disguised,
leaves the heart unconvinced, and, need one say, un-
converted. When Rabbi Zera was appointed to his
sacred office, they greeted him with snatches of a bridal
song ; " No cosmetics, no rouge, no hair-curling, but
yet what a graceful gazelle ! "
A clerical caste is a national calamity. But clergy-
men themselves are the greatest losers if a barrier is
allowed to grow up between them and the laity. Such
a thing did not exist in olden times. Nor, happily, does
it always exist in modern days. Mr. Claude Monte-
fiore, in his tribute to Dr. P. F. Frankl, the Berlin Rabbi,
refers to him as one of the ministers to whom one could
speak not only as to a clergyman, but as to a man.
Yet it is, unfortunately, too true that the clergyman
is often the last man to whom a layman will open his
heart.
One reason why we often fail to convince, or even to
impress, those to whom we minister, is that we make no
sufficient effort to get at the layman's point of view on
religious questions. We deal with these questions in a
professional way — a way which does not appeal to the
non-professional mind. We may, possibly, be grasping
the truth, but we hold it in such a manner that others do
WHERE THE CLERGY FAIL 209
not and cannot see it, and we leave upon them the
impression that we have not really got hold of it our-
selves, but are only engaged in a piece of make-believe.
It is good, therefore, to put ourselves into frequent and
close communication with the best minds of the laity,
to study their difficulties, even to ask for suggestions
as to matters in which they wish for light and help from
the pulpit. I believe that many a lay sermon might
teach a congregation of clergymen more than many a
clerical sermon teaches a congregation of laymen.
Anyhow, it is of vital consequence that we should be
familiar with both points of view. The genial Pro-
fessor at the Breakfast Table speaks of " the parallax of
thought and feeling as they appear to the observers
from two very different points of view." "If," he
says, " you wish to get the distance of a heavenly body,
you know that you must take two observations from
remote points of the earth's orbit, in midwinter and mid-
summer, for instance. To get the parallax of heavenly
truths you must take an observation from the position
of the laity, as well as of the clergy. Teachers and
students of theology get a certain look, certain tones of
the voice, a clerical gait, a professional neckcloth, and
habits of mind as professional as their externals."
It is these habits we ought to strive to correct, and in
proportion as we succeed in this, in the same propor-
tion our usefulness will increase as religious teachers.
Do not, however, from what I have just said, fall
into the opposite error of imagining that the whole
drift and character of your teaching is to be guided and
shaped by the will of one or two masterful members
of the congregation. In every synagogue there are
a few such masterful ones, but unless a man has a
L.A. P
210 WHERE THE CLERGY FAIL
conscience which is more sacred to him than his skin,
he may be driven to play false with his highest ideals
simply from dread of displeasing the influential Mr.
So-and-So. No clergyman is more despicable than he
who, afraid to say what he thinks, says just what he
thinks other people expect him to think. Of such a
one the Scriptures says, " Cursed be he that doeth the
work of the Lord deceitfully."
There is another temptation to which young preachers,
and I fear some who are no longer young, sometimes
succumb. It it to preach in order to show how clever
they are. Learning, well - assimilated learning — not
chunks of undigested quotations — is, of course, of the
very essence of a good sermon. (I owe an apology for
making so obvious a remark in Jews' College, and before
men who have studied homiletics under Mr. Israel
Abrahams.) But the difference between the scholar
and the showman is seen nowhere more clearly than
in the pulpit, and deliberately to utilize the pulpit in
order to let people know what a lot of things you know
is, to say the least, offensive. Equally offensive and
objectionable is the tendency to say smart things, so
that you may get yourself talked of, and impose upon
your hearers by your ingenuity, It would be a good
thing if all such efforts were rewarded as were those
of a candidate for the ministry who hoped to make
a sensation by preaching his trial sermon on the word
but. He took his text from 2 Kings v. i : " Now
Naaman, captain of the host of the king of Syria, was a
great man with his master, and honourable ; he was
also a mighty man in valour, but he was a leper."
The preacher's object was to show that the greatest
men had their trials and their defects. Men might be
WHERE THE CLERGY FAIL 211
this and they might be that, but there was always some-
thing against them. And the preacher prided himself
not a little on his cleverness in delivering a whole sermon
round a simple conjunction like " but." Of course,
he was no Hebraist, for, as all here know, the Hebrew
original is innocent of any " but." It runs simply :
" And the man was a mighty man in valour, a leper,"
the connective being omitted by the rhetorical figure
known as asyndeton. But trifles like these do not
affect some homilists. When he had finished, and met
the wardens and others in the vestry, they said to
him, " Well, sir, you have certainly preached a very
remarkable sermon, but you are not the man to suit
this place ; that is all we have to say to you."
You say, perhaps, " But Jewish congregations have
such bad taste in sermons." Supposing it to be the
case that the taste of an average congregation among
us is bad — and I am not prepared to deny it — it is
the minister's duty to raise and improve it, and no
amount of praise we may evoke for our performance
is a compensation for the feeling that, in our desire
to tickle people's fancy, or to pander to their prejudices,
we have been unfaithful to the highest we knew.
It is the fashion nowadays to disparage preaching.
In how far the clergy have themselves contributed to
this result it is not for me to say, but I want, in this
place above all, most emphatically to impress upon
those who will before long be my colleagues in the
ministry, and will, I trust, live to do greater honour
to it, that nothing can take the place of the preacher's
work in the service of the sanctuary. Chazanuth is
good ; secretarial work is good ; visiting the poor and
sick is good ; attending meetings for communal purposes
212 WHERE THE CLERGY FAIL
is good ; begging for synagogues, charities, and schools
is good, if unpleasant ; making yourself amiable all
round is good and pleasant ; but with all these the
great work for which men enter the ministry must not
be lost sight of — it is in order, with all the force of a
well-stored mind and highly trained intellect, and a
profound moral conviction and purpose, to teach the
Word of God to their brethren, young and old ; to
help them to the perception of the highest truths of
religion ; to uplift their souls out of the rut of the com-
mon, the sordid, the selfish, in life ; to speak a message
of comfort to the sorrowing, of hope to the despondent,
of counsel to the perplexed, of courage to the struggling
and aspiring.
Make no mistake about this. Preaching is not only
the most important, it is the most difficult — good preach-
ing, I mean, is the most difficult, the most arduous,
the most exacting of all a clegryman's duties, and on
that account alone an honest minister will not shirk it,
or treat it as a light thing, but will put his heart and
soul into it ; will take care his flock shall be fed with
the best, the purest, the most nutritious food it is in
his power to supply. I do not for a moment under-
rate the other parts of a clergyman's duties, but unless
he is prepared to fail as a religious influence, he must
realize in all moral earnestness that he is, with all his
defects, the nearest approach our day provides to the
prophets of old, and that the distinctive function of the
prophet was to speak out from his heart to the heart
of his people.
If the glory that rests upon a minister of religion is
often more than he deserves, the burden of respon-
sibility that is laid upon him is sometimes more than he is
WHERE THE CLERGY FAIL 213
fitted to bear. It is a fearful thing to think that for what-
ever goes wrong, morally or religiously, with his flock,
he is held primarily answerable. Against such a sweep-
ing condemnatory judgment he may at times justly
protest. One result of his labours there is, however,
for which he cannot repudiate, or even attenuate, his
responsibility. No man, let us remember, ever leaves the
house of worship exactly as he enters it ; he is either
better or worse for his visit. For Heaven's sake, my
brothers, and for the sake of our own honour and con-
science, let no one, through aught we may have done
or said, quit that house a worse man than he entered it.
But though a clergyman's influence culminates in
the synagogue, it is not there that the foundation of it
is laid. For him service begins long before he reaches
the door of the sanctuary. It is impossible to separate
a man's preaching from his life. Laymen have an
infallible instinct in this matter. " A man's life," says
Canon Newbolt, " follows him into the pulpit, and
his sermon is a palimpsest on another writing, only
imperfectly obliterated to the eyes of those who have
become acquainted with it during the week." The
whole scheme of a Jewish minister's duty is set out
before us in one sentence of Holy Writ : " Now Ezra
prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord, and to
do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments."
Of all a preacher's sins, the one for which pardon is
hardest to obtain is preaching at inordinate length.
Not many of us, I fear, have a perfectly clean record
in that respect. What is long or short in a sermon
depends, of course, to a great extent, upon the appetite
of your congregation. There are people, our own
people, too — need I say they are not English Jews ? —
214 WHERE THE CLERGY FAIL
who do not object to sit for two or three hours at a
homiletic meal. But very few of us are likely to have
to cater for such a congregation. And very few of us,
to speak candidly, have the right to speak at great
length. It is all very well to plead, " But I must do
justice to my subject." In doing justice to our sub-
ject are we excused showing mercy to our hearers ?
Besides, what is the use of talking of justice to our
subject when the jury will not listen, and become im-
patient, irritable, and irate ? Is not that the very way
to prevent justice being done to our subject ? A
barrister who acted in that manner would soon be left
without clients.
Every now and then the question is started as to
which is the right mode of presenting a sermon. Sermons,
it has been said, are produced either by the viviparous
or the oviparous mode — terms intended to denote the
production of a discourse by a direct or living birth
(extempore), and the production of it by the process of
the written composition, the manuscript representing
the egg. I do not think any hard and fast line can be
laid down on the subject. Different men have different
faculties. Each method has something in its favour,
and something against it. That, however, the weight
of evidence is on the side of the extempore discourse as
the more effective with the masses, there can be no
doubt. I say " extempore," not what our foreign
brethren call " memorized " sermons. I do not think
the most consummate pulpit artist ever gets rid of the
artifical ring in a sermon learned by rote. At all events,
any other pulpit artist, consummate or not, can detect
it ; and the essential difference between the man who
preaches from notes, and the one who preaches by
\YHERE THE CLERGY FAIL 215
heart, is that the one has his manuscript on his pulpit,
and the other has it in his desk. For my own part,
I have never listened to that kind of sermon without
recalling the lines : —
" They say he has no heart, but I deny it ;
He has a heart, and gets his speeches by it."
Thrice favoured of the gods is he who has a genuine
gift of extempore speech. Let him cultivate it with
care, yea, with fear and trembling. The gift has in-
sidious dangers of its own. It may inflate some men
with pride to be praised, as the new curate was praised
by the old lady : " Mr. Tawkaway, I do love to hear
you preach. You speak all extrumpery, and your
language is so fluid." But it is a mighty instrument
of power in the mouth of a man with brains in his head.
The subject well thought out, prepared, and ordered ;
the word free — there is the ideal. The greatest preacher
I ever heard, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, adopted that
method. Before him lay the plan and outline of his
discourse, to which ever and anon he would refer ; his
system of division, of articulation of parts, was in itself
a revelation in homiletic art ; but, to watch how, under
the magic of his treatment, his " skeleton," as preachers
call it, became a thing of flesh and blood, a marvellous
organic whole, living, breathing, throbbing with every
human emotion, aglow with spiritual fire — to watch all
this was enough to ravish you, and, if you happened to
be young, with some pretensions to be a preacher your-
self, the happy prerogative of youth — was enough to
humiliate you.
Such magicians are rare. If some of us are not among
them, let us comfort ourselves with the thought that
216 WHERE THE CLERGY FAIL
men like Stanley and Newman held the attention and
reached the very heart of their hearers, though they
read every word of their sermons, without the least
attempt at oratory, and that the discourses, unequalled
in their day, of the Scotch divine, Dr. Thomas Chalmers,
and of the great English preacher, Canon Liddon, were
delivered straight from the manuscript before them.
These examples ought to suffice to convince us that,
providing the subject of the lecture is interesting, the
matter sound, and the construction good, the fact that
it is not memorized or spoken extempore is no bar
to its being rendered acceptable to your hearers, or
to its being delivered with all requisite energy and fire.
Still, I am bound to confess that if my time came over
again, and if I had gifts which I do not possess, and if
I were wiser than I am, I should in this, and in many
other things, do differently from what I have done.
A great deal is made of the gift or the absence of the
gift of a good voice. I am convinced that the value
of the voice element is grossly exaggerated as an item
in a preacher's success or failure. Some of the greatest
speakers have had inferior voices, but they knew what
to do with such an instrument as was theirs, and often,
despite natural defects, learned to be clear in speech
as they already were in thought. Gladstone, asked
who was the best speaker he had ever heard, said
Richard Lalor Sheil, although it was notorious that
Sheil had a high-pitched and singularly unpleasant
voice. Dr. Joel, the Philosopher-Rabbi of Breslau,
had a curious sort of cavernous voice, but his preaching
found its way effectually to men's minds and hearts because
it was luminous with the pure light of the most logical
reasoning, and touched with a live coal from the altar
WHERE THE CLERGY FAIL 217
of the Lord. Where our preachers so often fail is that
they do not know what to do with the voice they have.
They drawl or bawl, they mumble and mouth, they
persistently refuse to come out from behind their own
noses, or they imagine that to be impressive they must
never preach in their own natural week-a-day, work-
a-day voices. A frequent result of this strained and
artificial use of the voice is — apart altogether from its
effect upon the congregation — " Clergyman's sore throat. "
If I had my way, I would have every minister of a syna-
gogue, who was medically certified as suffering from
clergyman's sore throat, fined a week's stipend. It
would be cheapest in the end, and most merciful to all
parties.
And here I might, in an elder-brotherly spirit, offer
you a few cautions you may find of service when you are
actively engaged in pastoral work. Feed your flock
with food that is convenient for them. Don't talk over
people's heads. Take the advice of an old preacher, and
don't address your flock as if they were a herd of giraffes.
Be not over lavish in the use of figures, and images, and
tropes. They are dangerous things to deal with in
quantities, and they often fall out with one another,
making sad havoc of such sense as you may have put
into your sermon. Don't mistake a florid style for
eloquence and grace. Besides, it does not suit the
English taste, and is usually an outrage upon the English
language. That preacher was a fortunate man who,
before he had got to his second sermon, received from
a candid friend a line cut out of a newspaper column of
death advertisements, " No flowers, by request," and
took the hint. Do not get into the habit of scolding
people in the pulpit, whether they be present or absent.
218
The absent don't know, and the present, after a while,
don't care. Reserve rebuke for rare occasions, and it
will be more effective. The Tochechah is only read
twice a year.
Don't, in the name of pastoral decency, air your,per-
sonal grievances in the pulpit. It is taking your
people at an unfair advantage. Be careful never to
take direct notice of what you imagine is rudeness
shown to you during the service. Here is an item out
of my own experience. When I delivered my trial
sermon at the first synagogue to which I was appointed,
I noticed that, though on the whole people listened
with a kindly attention, one man, sitting in a front
row, from the very beginning looked contemptuously at
me, and seemed on the point of laughing aloud. My
most passionate and pathetic periods left him appar-
ently untouched, an unregenerate scoffer. The more
I pleaded, the more grossly amused he seemed. I was
on the point of protesting against the insult, but either
my good angel or the fear of " losing the thread of my
discourse " restrained me, and I descended from the
pulpit with mingled emotions, some that could not be
classed as clerical. After service I protested to the
authorities. But they only smiled, and said, " Why,
that was mad So-and-So ; nobody minds him. He is
in the charge of Mr. ." Upon inquiring why so
prominent a place was given/ him, I was told that the
new synagogue grew out of the old, and took over
everything from the old, the congregation being strictly
conservative. I was unconvinced by the argument,
but I was devoutly grateful for having been saved
from the indiscretion of bandying words from the pulpit
with a harmless idiot.
WHERE THE CLERGY FAIL 219
How ill advised retaliation from the pulpit is may be
learnt from the report of a case in a police court a
week or so ago. The senior curate of a church near
Cardiff summoned the local doctor for assault. The
clergyman, it appears, had, in a sermon, referred to
Oliver Cromwell as a murderer, and to Charles I as a
sainted martyr. The doctor had not so read his history.
This fundamental difference of view upon two points
on which universal agreement seems unobtainable led
to considerable ill-feeling. The doctor conveyed his
opinion of the curate by coming late to church, talking
with his wife during the service, and interrupting, at
times, with a loud and satirical " Amen," especially
after the words from the Litany, " from envy, hatred,
malice, and all uncharitableness deliver us." There-
upon the clergyman turned to his congregation and
said : " It is a pity that people not only come to church
late, but also disturb the service." They met in the
vestry, and angry words ensued between them. When
they got outside, the doctor offered to fight the curate,
and asked him to nominate two gentlemen as seconds.
The latter made no reply, and the doctor then struck
him on the neck with his clenched fist. In the result
the defendant was fined twenty shillings and costs, but
the plaintiff fared far worse, for not only did he obtain
no' credit for his efforts to preserve the peace, but he
was severely rebuked by .the Bench for having said what
he did, and was told that his observation was a most
unfortunate one for a clergyman to make, having regard
to the personal feeling which existed between him and
the doctor. The chief moral from this true tale seems
to be, that in contests of this kind, whatever the apparent
result, a clergyman always loses more than he gains.
220 WHERE THE CLERGY FAIL
The only occasion on which I allowed myself any-
thing like retaliation (if I may be forgiven for again
drawing upon my own experience) is when some irre-
pressible congregant, having before him a Hebrew
Pentateuch, provided with vowel points and accents,
dodges around me with irresponsible voice, while I am
trying my utmost to read the Sedrah correctly out of
the Sepher Torah. I am but a mediocre Baal Koreh, but
I like to be left alone to work my way through all in-
tricacies and difficulties, and when I am interrupted
and led on the wrong tack by my prompter, whose
key is always different from my own, and who, as a
rule, can read neither the notes nor the words accurately,
I sometimes stop suddenly, and let him roll along a little,
all alone, and by his own impetus. Two or three such
breaks usually leave me in undisputed possession of
the field. I hope there is not much harm in such conduct.
I regard it as a legitimate form of " passive resistance."
No doubt clergymen, like other mortals, have a good
deal to put up with from all sorts of peculiar people.
There are the faddists and the fussy, and the cavillers,
the self-important, the petty, the unduly exacting, the
seemingly unsatisfiable. They are all very irritating,
no doubt. But a little self-restraint, tact, and good
humour on our part will go a long way to make us
proof against vexations that are very seldom inten-
tionally inflicted, and we shall live to make friends of
those we once deemed " impossible " persons, and dis-
cover that there is some good in them after all, even
although they did not recognize the good in us at first
sight.
In the long run — though I know the risk to which I
expose myself in making this dogmatic assertion — in the
WHERE THE CLERGY FAIL 221
long run all constituencies on a democratic basis get
the representatives they deserve. So also congre-
gations, with their free electoral system, get the ministers
they deserve, or at least those they want. Conversely,
all candidates for clerical offices get — but no, gentlemen,
I am not going to expose myself to a fierce volley from
all my friends and foes upon whom fortune has not yet
benignantly shone, or between whose estimate of them-
selves and the estimate formed of them by congregations
there is a regrettable disharmony. Perhaps, I may
more conveniently state the case in the form of an
anecdote. A clergyman, of the impatient and not over
modest order, was once bewailing his fate to a friend.
" Isn't mine a pitiable case ? " he said. " I don't seem
to make any impression upon my congregation. Week
after week I have to preach to nothing but a lot of
asses." " Well," replied his friend, " you must admit
you have got what you deserve." " But I don't admit
it." " Yes, you do ; don't you regularly address that
lot of asses as ' my dear brethren ' ? "
To hold your people, and to lead them, you must seek
them, and generally outside the synagogue. Visiting
among our congregants is one of the most important,
as well as most agreeable, branches of our work, though
it is also one that grows ever more difficult. Only too
well we know how neglect of it lessens our chances of
usefulness.
I suppose there are very few who can take credit to
themselves for doing this part of their task thoroughly.
A clergyman must often decide between a variety of
claims upon his time and energies, and, providing he
is not downright self-indulgent and slothful, it is to be
hoped that his people will judge him leniently. However,
222 WHERE THE CLERGY FAIL
in visiting among his people, a sensible clergyman will
be careful not to obtrude his own personality. He will
be so interested in his flock that he will sink all thought
of the shepherd. Least of all will he allow it to be
thought that he has done an act of condescension.
There are men in clerical garb who imagine that the
chief thing they have to do when they call upon the
members of their congregation is to hold forth about
their precious selves, about what they know, and have
done, or about the wrongs they have suffered, and the
wilful blindness of those who cannot recognize in them
what they so manifestly are — stars of the first magni-
tude. All this is shockingly bad pastoral manners.
So, too, is the clerical habit of trying to monopolize
the conversation on these occasions. Clergymen do it
quite unconsciously. Of course, you may be a great
talker. Many a man who can't preach a sermon to
save his life can talk enough to shorten other people's.
But we shall ah1 do well to remember that the visited
should be encouraged to speak their minds, and open
their hearts to the visitor. You must not even mind
their saying, supposing the subject to turn on religion,
" I don't profess to be an orthodox Jew, and I hope I
shall not shock you, but my idea of religion is ."
Then comes your opportunity, if you only know how
wisely to avail yourself of it. Anyhow, you may take
it that the golden rule for all social intercourse, both
lay and clerical, is : "In conversation the exchange
should always be at par."
One matter there is upon which turns far oftener
than is suspected the success or failure of a clergyman's
career. It is a matter which I believe is not dealt with
in the usual treatises on pastoral theology, and about
WHERE THE CLERGY FAIL 223
which, I am sure — though I have not made particular
inquiries upon the subject — nothing is taught in the
curriculum of the students of this institution. I refer
to the minister's choice of a wife. Everybody has
heard the old rabbinic adages about " Ezer " and
" Kenegdo," that, according to a man's deserts, or the
lack of them, so is his wife to him a help or a hindrance,
and about " Matsa " and " Motsa," that " a woman
makes or mars her husband." True enough hi their
general application, with no class of the community are
they more true than with the clergy. Since, in the
Jewish pastorate, celibacy is not regarded as a qualifi-
cation, importance attaches to the shepherdess, as well
as to the shepherd. In how many ways can she directly
and indirectly help forward her husband's work, and
contribute to the welfare and progress of his flock ! In
the social sphere, failure in which may seriously cripple
a clergyman's general usefulness, who does not know
that she is the predominant partner ? If she is sensible
enough not to consider the whole world in league against
her husband because people do not fall down and
worship him, how often may she save him, too, from
making a fool of himself. Few clergymen who have
been fortunate enough to have made even a moderate
success of their careers, will hesitate to acknowledge
to what human co-operation that success has been, in
great measure, due. But this is for the maturer clergy,
who have already "built their house and planted their
vineyard."
Let my last words be words of brotherly counsel to
my younger colleagues, those whose period of appren-
ticeship seems so long and hard to them, to take heart
of grace, and not consider their career a failure because
224 WHERE THE CLERGY FAIL
their work is done in an inconspicuous and contracted
sphere. The community is getting more and more
capable of appreciating true worth in its ministers. Its
judgment is growing, and, I believe, its taste is improv-
ing. For its own sake it will be careful to select the
most fitting instruments. You won't be left for ever
to do inferior work, if you are fit for superior. " The
stone that is fit for the wall will not be left in the road-
way," says an Eastern proverb. " No man is chosen
for great things until he has been tried in little."
But is not the division into great and little altogether
misleading, and unworthy of us when we speak of the
work we are permitted to do for God and His people ?
Let me cite to you a passage out of one of the ordination
addresses of Dr. Stubbs, late Bishop of Oxford. With
the change of a word or two, you will find them per-
fectly applicable to the case of Jewish ministers, whose
lot it is to be bound to the wheel of clerical routine
and drudgery : —
" Under the weariness of intensely prosaic routine,
under the repulsiveness of unvaried commonplace,
quite as much as in the stirring, stimulating, struggling
energy of open combat, the servant of the Lord finds
his errand and his reward. The daily visit to the village
school, the ever-recurring need of trying to make the
things that are to be made clearer to children clearer
to yourself ; the daily visiting of the people, trying to
get them to see that their cares, their burdens, their
sorrows and their sins, are cares, burdens, sorrows, sins
on your own heart and conscience, but ending, in nine
cases out of ten, nine days out of ten, in the simplest ex-
change of civil words and the maintenance of familiar
acquaintanceship ; the daily looking over the pages of
WHERE THE CLERGY FAIL 225
the Bible, which are as familiar to you as your own
thoughts and in danger of becoming quite as immaterial ;
the daily performance, if you do perform them, of the
prescribed offices of devotion ; the hammering out of
sermons, which, whilst you write them, seem to lose all
chance of touching the hearts of those for whom you
mean them, and to become cold and humdrum as the
ink dries, which yet He may direct to the heart of the
hearer ; is it not one test of your mission, your fitness,
and your earnestness, how far you can put into these
simple expressions of outside work these principles of
the mission you have undertaken ? ' If He had asked
of me some great thing, would I not have done it ? '
If I fail in these small things, what could I do in the
great ? "
L.A.
JEWS AND CORONATIONS
(Paper read before the Jewish Historical Society of England
April 19, 1903.)
THIS Society has a fine sense of the fitness of things and
times if not of persons, and it was arranged that I should
make a few remarks on Jews and Coronations on the
morrow of the day originally fixed for the coronation of
Edward VII. The serious illness of the King rendered
this arrangement inappropriate, and the proposed lec-
ture was for the moment abandoned. But though the
whole idea was thus shorn of its topical glamour, I have
been held to my promise, and I now redeem it.
After this preamble, I trust your expectations will not
be abnormally raised as to the value of what will be placed
before you this evening. The fact is, the material is
not so abundant as I had hoped, or perhaps I should
rather say that I am not so gifted with the sleuth-
hound's scent of some of my friends and colleagues for
hidden-away material of interest to the Anglo-Jewish-
historian. However, I must do my best with my limita-
tions from whatever cause. I divide this lecture into
two parts — the one dealing with Jews as personally
affected by the coronation of English sovereigns, the other
treating of Jewish influence upon the Coronation Service.
In pre-expulsion days the Jews were not specially
affected by the accession of a new monarch. No tallage
was imposed, and the new king simply walked into the
rights which his predecessor enjoyed over the person and
2:5
JEWS AND CORONATIONS 227
property of the Jews. It is remarkable that the first
coronation of which we have a full and circumstantial
account is that of Richard I, September 3, 1189. Stubbs
(Const. Hist., i. 496) says that it was carried out in such
splendour and minute formality as to form a precedent for
all subsequent ceremonies of the sort. The event has
been often described, and as every one here knows it was
full of melancholy interest to the Jews of this country.
Let us glance at the sources from which later accounts
have had to draw. The original authority1 was a writer
formerly described as Benedictus Abbas (Benedict of
Peterboro'2), but now virtually known to be Richard Fitz
Nigel. He was a contemporary writer, and as the King's
Treasurer, was probably an eyewitness of what he relates.
Mr. J. H. Round disputes the view that some now lost
Exchequer record was used by Richard Fitz Nigel, and
contends with much ingenuity that the author of the
Gesta wrote from his own knowledge. Fitz Nigel's
account is followed by Roger of Hoveden,3 also a con-
temporary, but not an eyewitness,4 adding matters of
very little importance, and making a few changes which,
as we shall see, do not improve the narrative. The next
is Roger of Wendover, a younger contemporary, who 5
uses Hoveden. Matthew Paris,6 a later writer, born
about 1200 or a little earlier, repeats Wendover.
The fullest account of the Jewish incident is that
1 J. H. Round, The Commune of London, p. 201.
* Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi, Benedicti Abbatis, ed. Stubbs
(1867), ii. 83.
3 Chronica Magistri Rogeri de Hoveden, ed. Stubbs, p. 11.
4 He was in Yorkshire on the death of Henry II. and accession
and early years of Richard I.
5 Chronica sive Flares Historiarum.
* Both in his Historia Anglorum, Historia Minor, ed. Madden,
ii. 9 ; and in Chronica Majora, ed. Luard, ii. 350.
228 JEWS AND CORONATIONS
by William of Newburgh,1 also living at the time of the
coronation of Richard but not present, and giving
what seems like an expanded version of Benedict.
So that we get the following genealogical sequence : —
BENEDICT ABBAS.
I
WILLIAM OF NEWBURGH AND HOVEDEN.
I
WENDOVER and MATTHEW PARIS.
All but the last, be it remembered, were living at the time,
1189, of which they speak. There is also a brief allusion
to the incidents in Ralph of Coggeshale's contemporary
Chronicon Anglicamm (ed. Stevenson, p. 27) ; and a
further reference may be found in another contemporary,
Ralph de Diceto's Ymagines Historiarium (ed. Stubbs,
ii. p. 69).
Let me now read to you the translation of the first of
these documents. Richard Fitz Nigel's account runs as
follows : —
Meanwhile the King had divested himself of his crown and
royal robes, and had put on a crown and garments of a lighter
sort, and thus arrayed he went to dine. And the archbishops
and abbots and the other clergy sat with him at his table, each
one according to his order and dignity. The earls, however, and
barons and knights sat at other tables and feasted magnificently.
To them while dining enter the chiefs of the Jews, despite the
King's prohibition. And because the King had on the previous
day by public edict forbidden any Jew or woman to come to his
coronation, the courtiers stretched forth their hands against the
Jews, robbed and scourged them and cast them out of the King's
court. Some they slew, some they left half dead. But one of
those Jews, who was called Benedict, a Jew of York, was so
severely beaten and wounded that his life was despaired of ;
he was in such terror of death that he accepted baptism from
William, the prior of the church of St. Mar}- of York, and received
the name of William. Thus he escaped the peril of death at the
hands of the persecutors.
1 Ed. Hewlett, bk. iii. ch. i. (vol. i. p. 294).
JEWS AND CORONATIONS 229
But the people of the city of London, hearing how the courtiers
had raged against the Jews, attacked the Jews of the city and
spoiled them, and slew many of both sexes, set fire to their houses,
and reduced them to dust and ashes. Nevertheless a few of them
escaped that slaughter, shutting themselves in the Tower of
London, or they lay hid in the houses of their friends. On the
following day, when the King heard what had been done, he sent
his servants through the city and had a number of these male-
factors arrested and brought before him. Three of them were
hanged, after judgment, by order of the court, one of them
because he had stolen the property of a Christian, and the other
two because they had set fire to the city, whence the houses of
Christians were burned. Then the King sent for the man who
had already from being a Jew been made a Christian, those being
present who had seen him baptized, and asked him if he were
a real Christian (effectus). He answered, No, but that in order
to escape death he had allowed the Christians to do with him what
they pleased. Thereupon the King asked the Archbishop of
Canterbury, many being present, archbishops and bishops, what
was to be done with him. The Archbishop replied, less dis-
creetly than he should, saying, " If he will not be a God's man, let
him be the devil's man." (Si ipse homo Dei esse non vult, sit
homo diaboli.} And so he who had been a Christian returned to
the Jewish law (Ad legem Judaicam).
On the following day the King received the homage and oaths
of fidelity from the archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, and
barons of his land. Meanwhile the King sent messengers and
letters through all the counties of England, commanding that the
Jews should suffer no forfeiture, that they should be left in peace.
But before the publication of that edict (the) Jews who were in the
town of Dunstable were converted to the Christian faith, and bap-
tized, and divorced their wives. A similar thing happened in
many cities of England.
We will next take Roger of Hoveden's account : —
While the King was seated at table, the chief men of the Jews
came to offer presents to him, but as they had been forbidden the
day before to come to the King's court on the day of the corona-
tion, the common people, with scornful eye and insatiable heart,
rushed upon the Jews and stripped them, and then scourging
them, cast them forth out of the King's hall. Among these was
Benedict, a Jew of York, who, after having been so maltreated
and wounded by the Christians that his life was despaired of,
230 JEWS AND CORONATIONS
was baptized by William, prior of the church of St. Mary of
York, in the church of the Innocents, and was named William,
and thus escaped the peril of death at the hands of the persecutors.
The citizens of London, on hearing this, attacked the Jews in
the city and burned their houses, but by the kindness of their
Christian friends, some few made their escape. On the day after
the coronation, the King sent his servants, and caused those
offenders to be arrested who had set fire to the city ; not for the
sake of the Jews, but on account of the houses and property of
the Christians which they had burned and plundered, and he
ordered some of them to be hanged. On the same day, the King
ordered the before named William, who from a Jew had become a
Christian, to be presented to him, on which the King said to him,
" Who are you ? " He replied, " I am Benedict, thy Jew, of
York." On this the King turned to the Archbishop of Canter-
bury and the others who had told him that the said Benedict
had become a Christian, and said to them, " Did you not tell me
that he had become a Christian ? " To which they answered,
" Even so, my lord." Whereupon he said to them, " What are
we to do with him To which the Archbishop of Canterbury,
less circumspectly than he might, in a spirit of anger, made reply,
" If he does not choose to be a Christian, let him be a man of tlae
devil ; " whereas he ought to have answered, " We demand
that he shall be brought to a Christian trial, as he has become a
Christian, and now contradicts that fact." But inasmuch as
there was no person to offer any opposition thereto, the aforesaid
William relapsed into Jewish wickedness (reversus est ad Jttdaicam
pravitatem). After a short time he died at Northampton, and he
was refused burial in the common cemetery, as well of the Jews
as of the Christians, on the one hand because he had been a
Christian, and on the other because, " like a dog, he had returned
to his vomit."
You will notice the discrepancies between the two
accounts. They are not without significance. Hoveden
puts it that the recalcitrant Archbishop said of the
recusant Jew, " If he will not be a Christian, let him be
the devil's man." The original of Benedict Abbas is
" Si ipse homo Dei esse non vult, sit homo diaboli." Again,
Benedictus Abbas' account ends with, " And so he who
had been a Christian returned to the Jewish law," which
JEWS AND CORONATIONS 231
Hoveden interprets and expands into " The aforesaid
William (the Jew's baptismal name) lapsed into Jewish
wickedness." " He returned like a dog to his vomit."
Roger of Wendover has also a strange variant of one part
of the coronation story. He says : " The courtiers laid
hands on the Jews, although they had come in secret,
and when they had robbed and frightfully scourged them,
they cast them out of the church."
There is no reason to suppose that they came secretly,
and it was assuredly not into the church they went. No
Jew of those times would have entered a church.
There is one peculiarly pleasant remark in Hoveden's
account. He tells us that some of the Jews made their
escape " by the kindness of their Christian friends."
It is clear that amid all the frenzy of the mob, and at no
little dangerto themselves, some of theChristian intimates
of the Jews offered a refuge to the latter in their hour of
need.
Of William of Newburgh an extract of some length
may be read in Mr. J. Jacobs' " The Jews of Angevin
England." William of Newburgh has a slightly different
account of the story of Benedict of York, which Mr.
Jacobs has not included in his extract, and which it may
be interesting to cite. " That Benedict, however, who,
as has been related, received Christian baptism under
compulsion, not believing it truly in his heart but making
only an empty confession with his mouth (inani tantnm
oris confessione aerem verberans), was on the following
day brought before the King and questioned whether he
was a Christian. He replied that he had been compelled
by the Christians to be baptized, but that in his mind he
had always been a Jew, and that as such he wished to
die, since it was not possible for him to live any longer,
232 JEWS AND CORONATIONS
for that with the wounds he had received the previous
day his death was imminent. Cast forth from the
presence of the King, the Jew apostatised from Chris-
tianity, and thus became twice as much a child of
Gehenna as he had been before." William adds that
Benedict died a few days after ; Hoveden locates the
Jew's death at Northampton. Benedictus Abbas seems
to imply that the Jew survived.
Mr. Jacobs points out (p. 100) that the accounts differ
as to the originators of the riot. According to Benedict
Abbas, the Jews bringing gifts were attacked by the curi-
ales, the nobles about the court ; Hoveden speaks of the
crowd (plebs) ; William of Newburgh ascribes the
beginning of the trouble to " a certain Christian " (quidam
Christianus) ; Ralph de Diceto (Ymagines, ed. Stubbs, ii.
69) describes the mischief-makers as foreigners (pax
Judaorum, quam ab antiquis temporibus obtinuerant, ab
aliengenis interrumpitur). The exclusion of women
from the coronation is already mentioned in Benedict
Abbas, but he gives no reason for this exclusion.
Matthew of Paris (on the authority, probably, of Ralph
of Coggeshale) attributes the exclusion of women as well
as of Jews to the fear lest they should exercise a magical
influence on the King at his coronation.
Baldwin, Archbishop of Canterbury, did not long
survive Benedict of York, with whose baptism and relapse
he was associated. Baldwin's character was " at once
wavering and impulsive " (Diet, of National Biography,
iii. 32). On the year before Richard's coronation,
Baldwin took the Cross and in 1190 set out on the Crusade.
He died at Acre on November 19 of that year.
Seven centuries in time, and more than seven centuries
in thought and sentiment, intervene between the corona-
JEWS AND CORONATIONS 233
tion of Richard I and that of Edward VII. Instead of
being cast forth, robbed, and massacred because they
had ventured near the scene of the coronation, many
Jews were present on August 9, 1902, as honoured guests
in Westminster Abbey, Jewish peers, commoners, and
their wives, and others, and, best sign of all, the Chief
Rabbi. Until recent times, I cannot find that Jews
" assisted " in any direct way in coronation ceremonies.
Their connexion with that function seems to have been
of a very remote character indeed. Thus Lord Hervey,
in his " Memoirs of the Reign of George the Second,"
relates " that, in contrast to his father, George II was
very fond of pageantry and splendour, and that his
Queen Caroline wore an immense quantity of gems at her
coronation. Unfortunately, however, George I had
distributed Queen Anne's pearls among his German
favourites : only one pearl necklace was left for his
daughter-in-law, and the deficiency was eked out by a
quantity of magnificent pearls borrowed from Court
ladies, Jews, and jewellers." 1
Board of Deputies, Minute Book, No . I, p. 2. [That]
" Jacob Franco, Benjn. Mendes Da Costa, Jacob
Gonsales, Moses Da Costa, Isaac Salvador, Isaac Jesurun
Alvares, Isaac Fernandes Nunes —
In the Name of the Community of Portuguese Jews, wait on
His Grace the Duke of Devonshire, Lord Chamberlain of His
Majesty's Household, to desire His Grace would favour them in
humbly presenting to His Majesty that His Majesty's most faithful
and loyal Subjects, the Portuguese Jews, being so small a Body,
have not had the Honour to address, but have been permitted
to testify their Duty to the Sovereign on his Accession to the
Throne. They, in the like manner, most humbly beg Leave to
condole with His Majesty on the Demise of the late King, whose
1 Douglas Macleane, The Great Solemnity, p. 149 .
234 JEWS AND CORONATIONS
sacred Memory will ever be revered, and to congratulate His
Majesty on His Majesty's Accession to the throne of these king-
doms, humbly craving the Continuance of His Majesty's Favour
and Protection, which they hope to merit by an unalterable zeal
for His Majesty's most sacred Person and Service, and by pro-
moting to the utmost of their Abilities the Benefit of his Majesty's
Realms.
London, ye 2 is/ Novr, 1760.
To His GRACE THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE,
Lord Chamberlain of His Majesty's Household, etc., etc., etc.
A deputation also waits on Sir Wm. Irby, Bart.,
Chamberlain to H.R.H. the Princess Dowager of Wales
(mother of George III), on November 24, 1760, tor pesent
the following address : —
In Behalf of the Community of Portuguese Jews who, having
been permitted to testify their Duty to His Majesty, humbly
beg Leave to condole with Her Royal Highness the Princess
Dowager of Wales on the Decease of his Late Majesty of Glorious
Memory, and to congratulate Her Royal Highness on the King
Her Royal Son's Accession to the Throne, whose exalted Virtues,
nourished and implanted under Her Royal Highness' Maternal
Care, assure all His Majesty's subjects of a happy and glorious
Reign. That the Almighty may shower down His choicest
Blessings on Her Majesty, Her Royal Highness, and Her Most
Illustrious Progeny, and that they may ever adorn the Throne of
these Kingdoms to the latest Times shall be their most fervent
Prayer.
Sir William receives the deputation very courteously,
and the same day returns the written acknowledgments
of the King's mother. He concludes his letter thus : —
The Princess therefore has given me Her Commands, in
Her Name to return the Community Her most sincere Thanks
on the Occasion. Their fervent Prayers offered up to the
Almighty, joined with their good Wishes in favour of the King
Her Son, of Herself, and of every Branch of Her Royal Family,
cannot fail to afford Her perfect satisfaction.
I may venture to assure your Community it will be the greatest
JEWS AND CORONATIONS 235
Happiness of Her Royal Highness's Life (which may God of His
great mercy long preserve amongst us) to see the King Her Son
promote and maintain the true Interests, Liberties, and the
Prosperity of his loyal People.
These addresses were, it appears, presented by the
Portuguese alone without taking into counsel the German
section of the community, and accordingly we find Mr.
Aron Franks, a distinguished representative of the
German congregation, protesting against this action.
The result was an undertaking on the part of the com-
mittees mutually to consult each other, and to co-operate
" whenever any public affair should offer that may
interest the two nations," and the practical formation
of a joint Committee of Deputies, the first meeting at
which deputies from the two German synagogues in Duke's
Place and in Magpie Alley (Leadenhall Street ?) were
present, being held December 14, 1760
Board of Deputies, Minute Book, No. I, pp. 32, 33.
On February 24, 1820, the Deputies resolve to offer to
George IV condolences on the death of his father, and
congratulations on his own succession. A sub-com-
mittee is formed to prepare an address, consisting of
Messrs. I. M. Da Costa, Jos. Cohen, Jacob Mocatta, I.
Van Oven, Meyer Salomons.
To the King's Most Excellent Majesty.
MOST GRACIOUS SOVEREIGN.
We, your Majesty's dutiful and loyal subjects, the Deputies
appointed by the several congregations of Jews in London, in
behalf of those congregations and in behalf of our Brethren
resident throughout the United Kingdom, most humbly beg leave
to lay at the foot of your Majesty's Throne the expressions of
our heartfelt condolence for the loss of our beloved and ever to be
revered Monarch, your late Royal Father, and to offer to your
Majesty the Assurance of our Fealty and Allegiance.
The Pious and liberal sentiments which ever swayed the Action
236 JEWS AND CORONATIONS
of our departed Sovereign have not failed to leave an indelible
impression of love and respect on the minds of all his subjects ;
and the blessings resulting from the administration of equal laws
and the enjoyment of civil and religious liberty have more
especially endeared his sacred memory to the Members of the
Jewish community.
Whilst we bow with humility and resignation to the decree of
the Almighty, who has called our beloved Sovereign from this
transitory existence to a more blissful state, we derive consolation
from the contemplation of prospective happiness ensured to us by
a continuance of the benignity evinced during your Majesty's
Regency.
We most humbly entreat your Majesty to condescend to accept
our sincere congratulations on your Majesty's accession to the
exalted Throne of your Illustrious ancestors.
We most devoutly thank the Almighty for the re-establish-
ment of your Majesty's health, and beg leave to offer our Con-
gratulations on your Majesty's recovery from the serious and
reiterated Afflictions and sufferings which your Majesty has
endured.
Impressed with the most sincere sentiments of duty and devo-
tion, the Jews of this Kingdom entreat your Majesty to regard
them among your Majesty's most faithful and loyal subjects.
They beg to assure your Majesty that it is their earnest wish and
fervent Prayer that your Majesty may be blessed with uninter-
rupted Health, and that your Majesty's subjects may long enjoy
the blessing of your Mild and Paternal sway.
A deputation of six members of the Board sought an
interview with Lord Sidmouth, access to whom had been
facilitated by a letter of introduction from Mr. N. M.
Rothschild, and his lordship presented the address in
their name to the king at the first subsequent levee.
On the death of George IV and accession of William
IV in 1830, a similar loyal address was prepared. In the
course of it they entreat his Majesty to "believe that theie
are not in your Majesty's widely spread Dominions any
Hearts that beat more true to the touch of National
Feeling than those of the Jews of this Realm. They
anxiously seek every opportunity to evince how strictly
JEWS AND CORONATIONS 237
they identify their Interests with those of the State, so
long the Happy Asylum of their Fathers, their own
beloved country." Expressions of loyal attachment to
Queen Adelaide follow. On the present occasion there
was a very strong desire to present this loyal address in
person to the sovereign, but again, on the advice of Mr.
Rothschild, whose opinion had been asked and whose
judgment was regarded as decisive in all questions of
communal tactics, it was resolved to present the address
through Sir Robert Peel, Secretary of State. Mr. Moses
Mocatta energetically but vainly protested against this
course, and drew the attention of the community to the
encouraging manner in which Quakers and other Dis-
senters had been received by the King and their addresses
had been replied to.
It was not till the accession of her late Majesty that
the address of the Jewish community was received
by the sovereign in person. The details were left in the
hands of Mr. Moses Montefiore, six deputies, and three
gentlemen not members of the Board, being chosen for
the purpose of a deputation. " Their grief " at the death
of his late Majesty " they avowed was assuaged by the
accession of a Princess whose virtues add lustre to her
crown, and who on the moment of ascending the Throne
has given utterance to sentiments that must be responded
to by every British bosom." J
Moses Montefiore, a Sheriff of London, received Queen
Victoria on her first visit to the city after her accession
in 1837. He was knighted on that occasion.
Among all the sermons and prayers preserved in various
collections I have so far not been successful in tracing a
single sermon or special prayer composed by Jews on
1 Minute Book, No. II. p. 119.
238 JEWS AND CORONATIONS
the occasion of a coronation of a sovereign of this
country. Of course I except the coronation of his
Majesty King Edward. There are numerous prayers
and addresses on such occasions as the death of a
sovereign or of distinguished members of the royal family,
or at the birth of a prince or princess, or in times of war
or on the declaration of peace, but neither in the Monte-
fiore nor in the Jews' College library, in the collections
of the Rev. A. L. Green, Alfred Newman, or Asher
Myers, or in the British Museum, is there a single one
of the kind I refer to. Nor is the omission remarkable.
The coronation is essentially associated with the State
Church, and it is questionable whether celebrations,
such as occurred in most places of worship throughout
the British Empire on the coronation of Edward VII,
were ever held before. Even on the present occasion these
services were quite spontaneous, there were no official
directions issued. In the Liturgy of the Church of
England there is no form for use in places of worship
on the actual day of the coronation, but there is a form
for use on the anniversaries of the event.
But in former periods, though no religious services at
the coronation seem to have been held outside West-
minster Abbey, or wherever else (as Winchester) the
coronation was held, the accession and coronation of a
new ruler was signalized by the publication of a number
of verses in which the grief at the death of the pre-
decessor is quaintly entwined with joy at the installation
of the successor. That the Jews bore their part in such
performances may be seen from the poem of Joseph
Abendanon on the death of William III. This elegy
he concludes with a congratulation to Queen Anne.1
1 See Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society, ii. 145.
JEWS AND CORONATIONS 239
Abendanon was following a good English precedent,
that of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. These
learned bodies were in the habit of publishing volumes
containing verses by various hands on public occasions,
and especially on the accession of new sovereigns. I
propose now to limit my remarks to these last-named
collections. An account of these may be found in
Wordsworth's Scholcs Academicce, pp. 164 and 267. My
own notes were made from copies of the works cited in the
British Museum and the University Library, Cambridge.
The verses were in very many languages. The favourite
tongue was Latin, but verses were also written in Greek,
English, Anglo-Saxon, Welsh, French, German, Arabic,
Persian, Turkish, Ethiopic, Syriac.Phcenician, Palmyrene,
Etruscan, and — Hebrew.
Of Hebrew verses there are many sets. As to
the merits of these compositions it is hard to speak.
The printer has usually done his worst with them, and
it is therefore fair to attribute some of the lameness
and grotesqueness of the poems to the same cause.
But I enter rather fully into this matter, because it is thus
possible to name a number of English Christians who
must have had some knowledge of Hebrew before they
could venture at all into verses in that language. Some
of the writers were indeed famous scholars.
The earliest of these collections that I have seen is
Academia Oxoniensis Pietas, addressed by the University
of Oxford to James I on his accession in 1603. In this
there are only a few badly jumbled words of Hebrew, but
W. Thome (Regius Professor of Hebrew) explains that
his Hebrew could not be printed for lack of type (" Inter-
serenda hoc in loco Hebraice pluribus explicata. Sed
enim Typographo deerant characteres "). The Cam-
240 JEWS AND CORONATIONS
bridge volume of the same year, Threno-thrambeuticon,
contains no Hebrew. But it is different with my next
example, which comes from Cambridge. This is entitled
Musarum Cantabrigiensium Lucius et Gratulatio, and is
dated 1658. The " Mourning " is for Oliver, the " Con-
gratulation " for his son Richard. In this volume
there is a Hebrew poem by no less a person than
R. Cudworth, Master of Christ's College, who had been
a member of the Whitehall Conference in 1655. It is
not without a shock that one finds two years later (1660)
the same Dr. Cudworth addressing a " Lament and a
Eulogy " — the former on the death of Charles I, the latter
on the restoration of Charles II. To this same volume
Thomas Smith (Chief Librarian) also contributes some
Hebrew verses in the form of an anagram and acrostic.
In the same year the University of Oxford produced
its tribute in a volume Britannia Rediviva. Edward
Pococke, then Professor of Hebrew and Arabic, limits
himself to Arabic and Latin, but there are Hebrew verses
by three hands : John Wall (Prebendary of Christ
Church), R. Button (Public Orator), and Thomas Cawton
of Merton College.
In 1689 William and Mary were greeted by both
Universities. The Musae Cantabrigienses included
Hebrew odes by the Hebrew Professor (V. Stubbs), and
by Ellis of Christ's. A really fine poem (printed excep-
tionally in pointed Hebrew) by John Bagwell distin-
guished the Vota Oxoniensia of the same year. Thomas
Edwards of Christ Church also has a Hebrew poem in
the same collection.
The accession of Anne, it will be remembered, was the
subject of part of Joseph Abend anon 's poem referred
to above. It may be mentioned in passing that naturally
JEWS AND CORONATIONS 241
on the accession of a new sovereign a change of name was
made in the prayer for the royal family. I have in my
possession a MS. of the formula as changed in the Dublin
Synagogue in the reign of Anne. But the MS. contains
no other points of interest. To return to the Universities.
In 1702 Oxford and Cambridge presented the usual
tributes. In the Pietas et Gratulatio of Oxford, Thomas
Hyde has a Persian song with Hebrew " Epiplonema."
Robert Clavering (of University College) has a Carmen
Hebraicum Composition et Pentametrum. No less than
three others contribute Hebrew verses of a peculiarly
extraordinary grotesqueness. These are J. Wallis
(Magdalen College), B. Marshall (Christ Church), and
" J. T." (e. Coll. Reg. Scholaris de Taberda). Cambridge
in 1702, Parental et Gratulatur, with three Hebrew
poems by S. Townsend (Jesus College), P. Allix (King's),
and Arthur Ashley Sykes (Corpus Christi Coll.).
In 1714, on the accession of George I, Cambridge
slightly modifies its formula to Deflet et Gratulatur. Philip
Bouquet (Professor of Hebrew) has some curious Hebrew
verses, and there are others by J. Imber (Trinity Hall),
L. Imber (ibid.), and A. Clarke (Corpus Christi Coll.).
The Oxford volume (as usual Pietas et Gratulatio) has
some fluent lines by John Gagnier (who, it may be re-
called, gave the reading of the inscription on the Bodleian
Bowl adopted by Tovey). J. Stephens (Christ Church),
and T. Troughear (Ling. Hebr. Prelector) , and W. Wilkin-
son also contributed Hebrew verses. In 1727 the Oxford
volume contains Hebrew poems by Robert Landavensis
(Regius Professor of Hebrew) and John Pettingal (Jesus
College) . In the Cambridge Luctus et Gaudia, the Hebrew
Professor, Philip Bouquet, has some Hebrew verses,
and there is this curiosity. The Arabic Professor
L.A. R
242 JEWS AND CORONATIONS
(L. Chappelow) has a Carmen Arabicum, propter defectum
Typorum, Literis Hebraicis expression. But by the
accession of George III (1760) Cambridge had acquired
Arabic type, as the new Lucius et Gratulationes show.
Here W. Disney (Regius Professor of Hebrew) has a
copy of Hebrew verses, full of misprints. Samuel Hallifax
(Trinity Hall) and J. Steele (ibid.) also contribute Hebrew
poems to the collection. The Oxford Pietas et Gratulatio
was not published till a year later (1761). It contains
five Hebrew poems by Thomas Hunt (Regius Professor
of Hebrew), Benjamin Kennicott, B. Wheeler (Trinity),
J. Sparrow (Lincoln), and J. Stubb. It would appear
that the custom ceased with George III. There do not
seem to have been any later volumes of this kind. Had
Ephraim Luzzatto reached London three years before he
did, he would not doubt have given us a Hebrew poem
on George Ill's accession. He wrote a poem, however,
on the arrival in England of Queen Charlotte. This
was published in 1766.
A well-known Hebrew translation of " God Save the
King " was evidently made by Hyman Hurwitz for the
coronation of William IV. It was first published in
Hurwitz's Hebrew Grammar, 1831.
Here I may make a digression to mention that in the
Pietas Acad. Cantab. (1738), on the death of Queen
Caroline, there is a set of verses of Israel Lyons, " L. S.
informatur." This is the only such copy of verses by a
Jew, and it possesses little merit.
There is extant " A Sermon occasioned by the Demise
of our late Venerable Sovereign, King George the Third,
and on the Accession of our gracious Lord, King George
the Fourth, delivered at the Synagogue, Denmark
Court, Strand, on Wednesday, February 16, A.M. 5580
JEWS AND CORONATIONS 243
( = 1820), by Rabbi Tobias Goodman." As this is
probably one of the first English sermons delivered in a
London Synagogue (Goodman's English sermon of 1817
was also printed), and as, moreover, I have had no other
opportunity in this essay to give such a citation, I will
extract some passages which refer to the new king
(pp. 18 and 19 of the pamphlet).
We are compelled, therefore, necessarily to infer from the
foregoing passages, that not only the soul of our late venerated
and much beloved Monarch, will survive the dissolution of its
earthly tenement, but also that his name will be perpetuated in
the succession of a son (whom God preserve !), King George the
Fourth, worthy to become inheritor of the glories of the House of
Brunswick, and likewise of the transcendent virtues and im-
mortal honours of his illustrious sire ; under whose mild, benignant,
and paternal reign the children of the house of Israel have enjoyed
uninterrupted protection and security, while their dispersed and
afflicted brethren have in former times groaned under the severe
bondage of contumelious slavery, or suffered in the silent agony
of unavailing woe, beneath the galling lash of unrelenting perse-
cutors.
Then let us, O house of Israel ! deeply impressed as we must be,
on this solemn day, and on the awful occasion of our assembling
in this sanctuary, standing as we do in the august presence of the
Most High God, Creator of heaven and earth, propitiate his
exalted Majesty, the King of kings, the Lord of Hosts, to receive
into immortal blessedness, the soul of our late lamented Monarch,
and to shed the rays of his eternal glory on his illustrious suc-
cessor, that he may be enabled to walk in all the ways of his pious
father, in righteousness and truth ; that his reign may be pros-
perous, long, and happy ; and that the people of the realms over
which he is appointed to rule and have dominion, may have cause
every day to return thanks to the Almighty God, for having placed
upon the English throne a Monarch who, conformably to the
words of the holy prophet, " will do justly — and love mercy — and
walk humbly with his God." Then will the Almighty's blessing
be upon the land, declining commerce will again uplift his
drooping head, the earth will bring forth its produce in abund-
ance ; then will the Lord continue to hearken unto the cry of
the needy, and the hungry shall be fed from the lap of plenty ;
;
244 JEWS AND CORONATIONS
the widow and the orphan shall be cheered, and the dejected
spirit shall sing joyful praises to its Creator.
But this sermon was in no sense a " Coronation "
function. For after Rabbi Tobias Goodman's address
(which it will be noted is an eloquent if idealized picture
of the Georges and their ways) the Prayer composed by
Chief Rabbi Hirschell on the death of George III was
recited. A " Coronation " Service, pure and simple,
does not seem to have been held then or later, until the
days of Edward VII.
I come now to the second part of this paper : What
has been the Jewish influence upon the Coronation
Service ? If you take the " Form and Order of Service "
as at first designed for the coronation of their Majesties
King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, you find it
consists of nineteen sections.1 Take away the first
section, " The Preparation," i.e. the arrangements
before the service ; the last, " The Recess," or the order
of departure of their Majesties ; the section devoted to
the coronation of the Queen, and the Litany and the
Communion, which are of course characteristically
Christian ; and it is not too much to say that the rest is
saturated with the Hebraic spirit. Nearly the whole of
the majestic function, including both ceremonies and
prayers, not only in the latest Coronation Services but in a
still more marked degree in the earlier ones, to which we
shall also refer, is an echo of ancient Hebrew law and
custom.
Let us look at it a little closer. The " entrance into
the church " is greeted with an anthem on the i22nd
1 See D. Macleane's The Great Solemnity of the Coronation of the
King and Queen of England, 1902 ; and J. E. C. Bodley's The
Coronation of Edward the Seventh, 1903.
JEWS AND CORONATIONS 245
Psalm. " I was glad when they said unto me, We will go
into the house of the Lord." What is called " the Recog-
nition," where the Archbishop presents the King to the
people, seems to be suggested by the manner in which / ,
Samuel presents Saul to Israel, and the priest Jehoiada
presents the boy king Joash to the men of Judah. I do
not know whether you will think there is anything
indicating Jewish restiveness in the rubric regarding the
sermon, concerning which it is said, " One of the bishops
begins the sermon which must be short and suitable to the
great occasion " — but it is remarkable that nearly all
the coronation sermons were preached from Old Testa-
ment texts, or based upon Old Testament notions. The
present sovereign escaped without any, but the text for
Bishop Blomfield's sermon at Queen Victoria's corona-
tion was from 2 Chron. xxxiv. 31, " And the King stood
in his place (or rather on his platform) and made a
covenant before the Lord, to walk after the Lord, to keep
His commandments, and His testimonies, and His statutes,
with all his heart and all his soul, to perform the words
of the covenant which are written in this book."
Cranmer addressed the child king, Edward VI, dis-
suading him from the idea that his oath was taken to the
Pope. " Your Majesty is God's vicegerent and Christ's
vicar within your own dominions, and to see — with your
predecessor Josiah — God truly worshipped and idolatry
destroyed."
The text chosen by Archbishop Sharp at the corona-
tion of good Queen Anne was, " And queens shall be
thy nursing mothers," which you will admit was a very
appropriate text, full of actuality, considering that Anne
was the mother of seventeen children, though unfor-
tunately only one of them lived to the age of ten years.
246 JEWS AND CORONATIONS
Every one in the least familiar with the Bible knows how
much importance was attached to the king's anointment.
Reference occurs to it already in the Book of Judges,
in the parable of Jotham, where the trees wish to anoint
a king over themselves. It was the type of God's spirit
" honouring God and man." What a part has been
played in every Christian monarchy by that sentence of
David, " I will not stretch forth my hand against the
Lord's anointed." The person of even a foreign king
^> ulike Cyrus became sacrosanct, because he too was regarded
< as the Lord's anointed. Among no people is the reverence
for the person of the sovereign greater, endued by anoint-
ment with some mystic semi-divine sanctity, than among
Jews. The prescribed benediction on beholding a king
is, " Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the
universe, who hast imparted of Thy glory to flesh and
blood " (Ber. 58). Earthly sovereignty is a reflex of the
>\ heavenly. It is the Hebrew spirit that speaks in
Shakespeare's Richard II : —
" Not all the waters in the rough rude sea
Can wash the balm from an anointed king."
The Anthem at the Anointing is from I Kings i. 39, 40 :
" Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anointed Solo-
mon, etc." The Archbishop makes formal reference, too,
to this precedent after performing the act of Anointing.
And so we might continue. After the Anointing
: \ was the presenting of the Spurs and Sword, which
ceremony, though connected with the customs of
mediaeval chivalry, is also reminiscent of Psalm xlv. 4, 5,
" Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O mighty one, with
thy glory and thy majesty. And in thy majesty ride
prosperously because of truth, meekness, and righteous-
JEWS AND CORONATIONS 247
ness." The ring is placed on the fourth finger of the right /'
hand. " Transferring of a ring is as by Pharaoh to
Joseph, Ahasuerus to Haman and Mordecai, implying the
imparting of royal authority. It is also typical of mar-
riage between sovereign and his people. The choice
of the fourth finger of the right hand certain since
Henry VII, and is no doubt older. Macleane, p. 93,
quotes Ecclesia Restaurata, ii. 430, by Heylin, and
Rastel's reply to Jewel, 1565, " Where did you ever
read that the man should put the wedding-ring upon the
fourth finger of the left hand of the woman and not on the
right, as had been many hundred years continued ? "
In Jewish marriages the ring is also placed on the right
hand, but on the first finger.
Two sceptres are used : (a) Sceptre with cross ; (b) rod
with dove. The first signifies kingly power and justice ;
the second, usually called the Rod or Verge or Warder, sig-
nifies equity and mercy . As Macleane points out (p. 96), the
two sceptres are combined in the insignia of the Divine
Shepherd in Psalm xxiii. : " Thy rod and thy staff shall /C
comfort me." I would also suggest Genesis xlix. 10
as a parallel. The armillae or bracelets, which are of solid
gold, opening by means of a hinge for the purpose of
being worn on the wrist, recall a similar ornament worn
by the first King of Israel. You will remember the
messenger who brought to David the news of Saul's
death. " And I took the crown that was upon his head
and the bracelet that was on his arm, and have brought
them hither to my lord " (2 Sam. i. 10).
The oath and the actual crowning need not detain us
long, they are so manifestly Jewish — though not exclu-
sively Jewish ; but the most interesting point about them
is that it was usually a priest who administered the oath ( ^.
248 JEWS AND CORONATIONS
and who placed the crown on the King's head. The
I3th section of the Coronation Service is the presenting
i| of the Holy Bible. It was probably introduced for the
first time at the coronation of William III and Queen
Mary, though it may have been done earlier. Here we find
one of those reversions to Old Testament or Jewish
practice. This section was slightly condensed in the
service as used in August 1902. In the older versions,
the Jewish tone is still more pronounced. The Arch-
bishop having said, " We present you with this Book,
the most valuable thing that this world possesses. Here
is Wisdom ; this is the Royal Law ; these are the lively
Oracles of God," the words followed, " Blessed is he that
readeth and they that hear the words of this Book, that
keep and do the things contained therein, etc." l
Can tyne help thinking of the Deuteronomic law ? We
read (Deui-jc^i.) that " when the King of Israel sitteth
upon the throne of his kingdom, he shall write him a copy
of the law in a book out of that which is before the
priests, the Levites ; and it shall be with him, and he
shall read therein all the days of his life ; that he may
learn to fear the Lord his God, to keep and do all the
words of his law ; that his heart be not lifted up above
his brethren . . . , and that he may prolong his life in
the kingdom." A still more striking parallel is to be
found in the coronation of the boy-king Joash, where it
is said (2 Kings xi. 12) that Jehoiada the priest " put the
crown (or diadem) upon Joash and gave him the
testimony ; and they made him king and anointed him ;
and they clapped their hands and said, God save the
|! king." In the form used before the last three corona-
tions these texts were actually referred to.
1 Maskell, Man. Rit., ii, 128 (Ed. 1882).
JEWS AND CORONATIONS 249
In Section XVI of the Coronation Service reference is
made to the Coronation Medals, thrown among the people
as largess. The oldest Coronation Medal is that of
Edward VI, and this bears a curious Hebrew inscription.
I trust I shall be pardoned for briefly dwelling with a
certain predilection, for which old tastes and labours
must be my excuse, upon the liturgical side of the
Coronation Service.
From the eighth century onwards there have been six
recensions of the English Coronation Service. What
strikes the Jewish reader in the perusal especially of the
earlier ones is the preponderance of Old Testament
phrases and allusions. Take, for instance, the following l
from a service sometimes called the Coronation Order of
Ethelred II, and certainly written before the Conquest,
possibly used at the consecration of Harold and William
the Conqueror. From England the consecratory prayer
spread to the Continent. With certain modifications it
reappears in the Coronation Service of Charles I.
0 Almighty and everlasting God, Creator and Governor of
Heaven and Earth, Maker and Ruler of angels and men, King
of kings and Lord of lords, who didst cause Thy faithful ser-
vant Abraham to triumph over his enemies ; didst give many
victories to Moses and Joshua, the governors of Thy people ;
didst exalt Thy lowly servant David unto the height of a King-
dom, and didst save him from the lion's mouth and from the
hand of the beast and of Goliath ; and didst also deliver him from
the evil javelin of Saul and from all his enemies ; didst enrich
Solomon with the unspeakable gift of wisdom and peace, gra-
ciously give ear to our humble prayers, and multiply Thy blessing
upon Thy servant N., whom in lowly devotion we do elect to
the Kingdom of the Angles and of the Saxons, and ever cover him
with Thy powerful hand, that he, being strengthened with the
faith of Abraham, endued with the mildness of Moses, armed with
1 L. G. Wickham Legg, English Coronation Records (1901), p. 24.
250 JEWS AND CORONATIONS
the fortitude of Joshua, exalted with the humility of David,
beautified with the wisdom of Solomon, may please Thee in all
things, may always walk uprightly in the way of righteousness,
may nourish and teach, defend and instruct, the church of the
whole realm with the people committed to his charge, and like a
mighty king minister unto them the government of Thy power
against all enemies, visible and invisible, that the sceptre depart
not from the royal throne of the Angles and Saxons, but by Thy
help may reform their minds to the concord of true faith and
peace ; that being underpropped by due obedience and honoured
with the condign love of this his people, he may through length
of years stablish and govern by Thy mercy the height of the glory
of his fathers ; and being defended with the helmet of thy pro-
tection, covered with Thy invincible shield, and all clad with
heavenly armour, he may gloriously triumph, and by his power
both terrify infidels and bring joyful peace for those that fight for
Thee ; bestow on him the virtues with which Thou hast adorned
Thy faithful servants, with manifold blessings, and set him on
high in the government of his kingdom and anoint him with the
oil of grace of the Holy Spirit, etc.
In the Liber Regalis — the 4th recension — used probably
at the coronation of Edward II, and the basis of the
Coronation Service of Charles I, there is besides this
prayer a still stronger Judaic tint — " Visit him as Thou
didst visit Moses in the Bush, Joshua in Battle, Gideon
in the Field, Samuel in the Temple ; besprinkle him with
the Dew of Thy wisdom, etc."
In the oldest known service for the coronation of an
English king, taken from a ninth century Pontifical,
after the staff has been given into the King's hand, the
old Pentateuchal blessing is pronounced almost word for
word as it occurs in Gen. xxvii. 28, 29, and xlix. 25, 26.
" Almighty God give thee of the dew of heaven, and the
fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine ; let
people serve thee, and nations bow down to thee : blessed
be he that blesseth thee, and God shall keep thee, and the
Almighty shall bless thee with the blessing of Heaven
JEWS AND CORONATIONS 251
above, on the mountains and on the hills, blessings of the
deep that lieth under, blessings of the breasts, and of
grapes and fruit : blessings of the fathers of old, Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, shall be upon thy head " (Wickham
Legg, p. ii).
The Coronation Order of Charles I uses almost the
same words. When the King has been girt with his
sword he is exhorted to remember (Legg, 260) " of whom
the Psalmist did prophesy, saying, Gird thee with thy
sword upon thy thigh, O thou most mighty, and with
this sword exercise thou the force of equity and mightily
destroy the growth of iniquity, protect the Church of
God and His faithful people, and pursue Heretics no less
than Infidels."
In the Coronation Order of James II (ib. 302), the
pursuit of heretics no less than infidels was for obvious
reasons not demanded of the King.
Again, what could be more Jewish in language and
spirit than this (Wickham Legg, p. 257), which occurs in
the Liber Regalis — the 4th recension used in Latin at the
coronation of Edward II, and (in English) at the corona-
tion of Charles I. " The Archbishop (Vere dignum et
justum est) : It is very meet, right, and our bounden
duty that we should at all times and in all places give
thanks unto Thee, O Lord, holy Father, Almighty and
everlasting God, the strength of the chosen and the
exalter of the humble, who in the beginning by the pour-
ing out of the flood didst chasten the sin of the world,
and by a dove conveying an olive branch didst give a
token of reconcilement unto the earth ; and again didst
consecrate Thy servant Aaron a priest by the anointing
of oil and afterwards by the effusion of oil didst make
kings and prophets to govern Thy people Israel, and by
252 JEWS AND CORONATIONS
the voice of the prophet David didst foretell that the
countenance of the Church should be made cheerful
with oil. We beseech Thee, Almighty Father, that by
the fatness of Thy creature, Thou wilt vouchsafe to bless
and sanctify Thy servant (N.) (Charles), that in the
simplicity of a dove he may minister peace unto his
people, that he may imitate Aaron in the service of
God ; that he may attain the perfection of government,
in council and in judgment, and that by the anointing of
this oil Thou mayest give him a countenance always
cheerful and amiable, to the whole people, etc."
In reading these passages, and many others might be
cited, one can almost imagine them the work of some
deft constructor of a Piyut mosaic. Old Testament
allusions are everywhere predominant. In the latest
recensions the order of service has undergone consider-
able change, as well as compression here and there ; but the
Hebraic character still pervades the ceremony and the
liturgy, though happily no one regards this in the light
of an alien invasion.
And so the last coronation, like the first, draws from
Hebrew sources, and is informed with the Hebrew spirit
of righteousness. But never was there a greater call for
that spirit than now. For our sovereign is crowned
king over the greatest empire on earth. That empire is
made up of many races and creeds. It can only hold
together if, while they mutually tolerate each other, the
sovereign also, himself of one religion, respects, protects,
and honours them all.
" A just ruler of men," said a King of Israel, " one that
ruleth in the fear of God, will be as the light of morning,
when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds " —
i.e. not shining brightly and cheeringly on some, and
JEWS AND CORONATIONS 253
casting a dark shadow upon others, but irradiating all
alike with the impartial beams of his royal solicitude.
That, I believe, is already, and will continue to be the
result to Jews among others of the last coronation.
[NOTE. — In the fifth volume of the Transactions of the Jewish
Historical Society, the Latin documents here cited will be printed.
There will also be appendices on the Hebrew accounts of the
Coronation of Richard I, on the legend of the Coronation Stone,
and on the Coronation Medal of Edward VI.]
SOME CURIOSITIES OF RELIGIOUS
CONTROVERSY
(Presidential Address before the Birmingham Jewish Young
Men's Association, December 16, 1900.)
SOCIETIES like yours are generally governed by the
rule that subjects of a controversial character are to
be avoided. The rule has a certain plausibility, but
I am not sure that it is as admirable as it seems. Many
vital problems are controversial ; things on which
we are all agreed are not always the things which most
need presentation. To avoid the debatable is to blunt
the edge of truth. We must be a little braver. Judaism
at the present moment stands in dire need of courageous
out-spokenness. I cannot say that I acquiesce in the
reluctance of Jewish Societies to permit the discussion
of religious questions. If these Societies are to be a
living force in the community, they must freely, though
reverently, probe living issues. Controversy need not
be identical with dissension or vulgarity.
This preamble need not alarm you. My address
will not be controversial. It will illustrate controversy,
not contribute to it. Examples of religious controversies
and the methods by which they have been conducted —
to this I shall rigidly confine myself.
The subject is, of course, one for which more illustra-
tions could be adduced than I could hope to exhaust
if I had a dozen opportunities of addressing you. Think
CURIOSITIES OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY 255
only how many kinds of controversialists there are !
There are first of all the controversialists who have
conducted their debates on lines of perfect mutual
fairness. To treat of them would, it is true, occupy
us but a short time ; their numbers are not unman-
ageably large. To seek the truth and to follow it
wherever it leads is an ideal possible to few. Precon-
ception in our own favour and against our opponent's
case — this is our usual state of mind. And so, most
controversialists belong to the biassed, the passionate,
the self-satisfied, the self-righteous, or the irritating.
There are the controversialists who always argue and
never reason. There are the microscopic controver-
sialists who inspect the mite but cannot comprehend
the heaven.
And how many methods of controversy there are !
There is the method which takes it for granted that the
other side is endowed with a double dose of original
sin, or is at the least saturated with the quintessence
of hopeless folly. There is the thumb-screw, the faggot
and stake method — a favourite in days gone by — more
forcible than convincing ; there is the social persecution
method, still in vogue and often extremely effective
in its operation ; and there is the latest, the coaxing
method, of which our friends the conversionists have
grown so fond — of all of these we Jews have had ex-
perience, and may this experience teach us to avoid
them ourselves !
The interest about all genuine controversy lies in
this. Say what we will, Man is a fighting animal.
Fights for or about some truth have in them a dignity
and merit assuredly not inferior to fights about territory,
indemnities, open ports, spheres of political and commer-
256 CURIOSITIES OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY
cial influence. Whether Israel should worship God or
Baal was at least as important a debate as whether Czar
or Mikado should hold Port Arthur. But I must pass
over the Biblical controversies, although greatly tempted
to dwell on them, if only because the very first con-
troversy on record is to be found in the early pages
of Genesis, when the serpent started a debate with our
mother Eve — in which, I regret to say, Eve, owing no
doubt to the inexperience of youth, was worsted.
However, in a Society like this it will be pardonable
if I take my first illustrations from the Talmud.
The Talmud is a book, or rather it is a library, usually
regarded as made up of controversial matter. This is
not quite true, but it is near enough to be characteristic.
In itself controversy is the means to arrive at truth.
" The rivalry of the scribes increases wisdom " is a
Talmudic maxim. This maxim shows a profound
knowledge of human nature in general, and of the
character of scholars in particular. When, over and
above a genuine desire to reach the facts, you have also
the ambition to win a personal triumph — and the two
aims are not inconsistent — then your effort has a keen-
ness, there is behind it a driving power, which in most
minds is not provided by impersonal, abstract love of
truth. Yet the controversies of the schools are
not in any sense ignoble, for the Talmud reveals no
trace of a striving after victory for the mere sake of
victory. Besides these technical discussions between
Jew and Jew, the Talmud contains also not a few
examples of controversy between Jews and non-Jews,
in which it must be confessed it is not the Jewish con-
troversialist who comes off second best. It is hardly
consistent with human nature to expect any party to
CURIOSITIES OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY 257
record its o\vn discomfitures. You may remember how in
Candide, after a sanguinary fight, each side retires to
sing its Te Deum. So, turning from fiction to history,
were you to read Nachmanides' account of his great
thirteenth century Disputation and to follow it up by
reading the official Dominican account of the same,
you would certainly think you were perusing nar-
ratives of two entirely different episodes.
The favourite topic of discussion between the doctors
of the Talmud and their cultured contemporaries among
the heathen turned upon the fundamental ideas con-
cerning God which it has been Israel's mission to
disseminate in the world.
Thus R. Gamliel is asked. " You assert that in each
of the man}' places in which ten Israelites assemble for
worship, there is the Shechinah, the Divine Presence.
How man}' divinities then are there ? " — " Come,"
answered the Rabbi, " and watch the sun's rays ; they
can be seen from every part of the earth. How many
suns are there ? Yet the sun is but one of God's servants.
What is possible for the servant is surely possible for
his lord" (Sanhedrin, 39). — A Roman lady argues with
R. Jose. " Whose God is greater ? " She happened
to be one who worshipped an idol under the form of a
serpent. " My God must be greater than yours," she
said. " When Moses was on Sinai, and God appeared
to him, he was able to keep in his place, merely veiling
his eyes ; but, when his rod became a serpent, he
stepped back in fear." — " Nay," replied the Rabbi,
" he could flee from your God ; a few steps would be
enough to put him in safety from a serpent. But how
can a man escape from our God ? Whither could
Moses flee from Him ? to the sea ? to the dry land ? to
L.A. S
258 CURIOSITIES OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY
the heavens ? — from Him who hath said of Himself :
Do I not fill the heavens and the earth ? " (Midrash
Rabba, Exodus ch. iii.).
An interesting subject of debate was the question
why, considering the evil of which false gods are declared
to be the cause, the true God did not put an end to them.
" Why," so began a lively controversy between a
Gentile philosopher and R. Gamliel, " why is not your
God as zealous against the idols as against the idolaters ? "
Replied the Rabbi : "A king had an only son, who
proved a most undutiful child. The prince had a dog
whom he called after his father's name ; whenever he
was excited he would swear by the life of the dog, his
father. Now with whom ought the king to have been
wroth ; with the dog or with his son ? Surely with the
son. So, with whom should God strive, with the idol
or with its worshipper ? " — " But," returned the
other, " there must be something in these idols, for there
was once a fire in our city which consumed the whole
place with the exception of the Temple with its gods,
which alone was saved from the flames." The Rabbi
answered ironically : " When a king goes to war, with
whom does he fight, with the dead or with the living ? "
— " But," said the other, " the chief question is, why
does not your true God put an end to the false gods ? "
— " Perhaps because among other things that are wor-
shipped are sun and moon and stars. Is God to destroy
His whole world to keep fools from their folly ? " —
" Well, let Him destroy the other objects that are wor-
shipped and that are not so important." — " Seest thou
not, that if the minor things were destroyed because
they are worshipped, the major things would be
worshipped because they are not destroyed ? " — The
CURIOSITIES OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY 259
whole argument amounted to this, that it is not by any
change from without, but by the change from within,
that reformation of heart must be effected. How
much futile waste of words and of temper might be
spared if controversialists would only remember that
elementary fact !
Here is an example of a curious debate which, I believe,
will commend itself to my sisters. To Rabban Gamliel's
house there came a certain sceptic. " Your God,"
said the sceptic, " is a thief. Your own Bible reports
that when Adam was asleep, God took a rib from him."
While R. Gamliel was pondering a reply, his daughter
came up to him and whispered, " Leave the caviller
to me." " Sir," she said suddenly ; " lead me to a
judge. I must see a judge." — " Why, what has
happened ? " — " A thief has broken into our house
and has stolen our silver goblet." — " Has he left any
traces ? " — " Yes," she replied, " he has ; he has left
a golden goblet in its place." — " Ah ! " exclaimed the
sceptic, " would that there came thieves like that to
one's house every night." — " You think it a fair
exchange ? Well, then, what must Adam have thought
when, as you say, a rib was stolen from him, and in
place of it he found his beautiful Eve ? " So far the
story as it appears in the Talmud (Sanh. 3Qa). Else-
where (Genesis Rabba, ch. xvii.) there is an addition.
" But," went on the sceptic (in the second version the
speaker is again our old friend the Roman matron),
" why was the exchange made secretly ? " The Rabbi's
daughter had her answer. " So that Eve might for
the first time appear before Adam in all the glory of
her perfect beauty."
Apart from their intensely religious natures, those
260 CURIOSITIES OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY
old Talmudic doctors had a gift of common sense in
matters of controversy for which they are not always given
full credit, and which I do not think is always conspicu-
ously present in their modern representatives. Take
this illustration, brimful of instruction for those who
have a mind thereto (Baba Mezia, 5Qb). It should
be remembered that the story I am about to relate
belongs to the second century. This was a period
when people's notions of what constituted evidence
were not such as would commend themselves to us,
and when miracles, apparitions, and mysterious voices
were frequent in proportion to the eagerness with
which they were expected. Now, Rabbi Eliezer had
been laying down the law in regard to a number of
religious questions with much dexterity and acumen.
Many wise men were present, and despite R. Eliezer's
skill in argument and the display of some vehemence
on his part, the sages were not convinced. Thereupon
R. Eliezer adopted another style of reasoning. " To
prove that I am right," he said, " let this carob tree
decide." Such a tree was growing near the place
where they were gathered, and the tree forthwith moved
one hundred yards from its place. Some say it moved
four hundred yards ; it is not easy, you will observe,
to obtain precise agreement in the reports of such
portents. The sages replied, " Carob trees prove
nothing." Then said Rabbi Eliezer, " If the law is as I
say, let this running stream flow backward." And
the stream flowed backward. But the sages said that
nothing can be proved by movement of a stream.
Wrong is not right even if the water reverses its course.
" To show that I am right, let the walls of this house
of study decide." Hardly had Rabbi Eliezer appealed
CURIOSITIES OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY 261
to the walls, when they began to totter and threatened
to fall. Thereupon, Rabbi Joshua exclaimed to the
walls : "If the sages dispute with one another in
matters of the Torah, how does that concern you, O
walls ? " And the walls fell not, out of regard to R.
Joshua ; nor would they stand quite perpendicular,
out of regard to R. Eliezer. — Once again R. Eliezer
resumed the attack : " Let the heavens decide." Then
was heard a Daughter of the Voice (Bath Kol) from
above, a mysterious echo sounding from afar, saying :
' ' How can ye differ from R. Eliezer, the law being indeed
as he says." But, with firmness as with reverence, up
rose R. Joshua, and thus spake he : " Moses has taught
us that the Law is no longer in heaven. Since it was
given to man on Sinai, the earth is its home. Not
with a Bath Kol rests the decision, but with the majority,
according to the teaching of the Law itself that it is the
majority that decides." And so it must. For though
Goethe said, " Die Mehrheit ist die Dummheit," it is
after all the consensus of reasoned opinion that must
carry the world with it in the end.
Besides the saving common sense of Talmudical
controversy, there is another admirable feature of it :
it is wonderfully good-humoured. Men differed from
one another often in a very lively fashion, but in
differences with men of other or of no religion there
was very little bitterness. Even in controversies with
their own brethren and those of their own religion —
with whom it is notorious that people always quarrel
most fiercely, according to the rule that the nearer
things are to each other the greater the friction and the
intenser the heat evolved — even in what one might
call family disputes, there was no hostile after- feeling.
262 CURIOSITIES OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY
The numerous controversies between the Schools of
Hillel and Shammai (Hillel and Shammai themselves
are said to have differed only on three points) have
left their mark on Jewish opinion and custom. Fierce
enough while they lasted, these controversies left no
bitterness rankling in the heart of either party. Though
they could not both have their own way, such was the
tolerance of olden days, that it came to be said : " These
and those spoke the words of the living God." At
the beginning of one of the ancient Rabbinic books
(the Aboth of Rabbi Nathan) there is recorded a noble
sentiment which is typical of all these disputes and
should be an example to ours. " They who sat and
occupied themselves with the Torah (Scripture) were
zealous against each other in argument ; but when
they parted they were as though they had been life-
long friends."
Then, again, there was rarely any superciliousness
on the part of opponents in the Talmudic discussions.
The Rabbis, truly, had a contempt for the ignoramus.
But you will scarcely find among them the tone of
Epictetus. The latter was a Stoic philosopher who lived
in the first century of the Christian era. In one of his
discourses he refuses point-blank even to discuss questions
with a certain visitor. " Why," asks Epictetus, " should
I try to speak to you ; what can you understand ?
There is an art of hearing as well as an art of speaking ;
you have not learned how to hear." There is deep
truth in this, which is paralleled in the fiery sentence
with which Carlyle closes his History of the French
Revolution : "It stands ill with me if I have spoken
falsely : thine (O Reader) also it was to hear truly."
If it takes two people to differ, it takes two to agree.
CURIOSITIES OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY 263
For a true controversy there must be not merely honesty
but understanding on both sides. Given this preliminary,
controversy would end ; without it, controversy is
waste of time.
The same friendliness which characterized Rabbinic
disputation marks also the earlier controversies between
Jews and Christians. This curiosity of controversy —
for it is unhappily a curiosity when religious polemics
are conducted amicably — is nowhere more fully illustrated
than in a famous discussion of the second century of the
Christian era. I refer to Justin Martyr's, " Dialogue
with Tryphon." Justin, the Church Father, was born
in Palestine about the year 100 ; he was put to death
in Rome some sixty or seventy years later. His birth-
place was Shechem, then called Flavia Neapolis, now
known as Nablus. Justin, though born in the Samaritan
environment, did not belong to the Samaritan sect,
and his first inclinations were towards Platonism,
which he left for Christianity. In one of his morning
walks in the Xystus of Ephesus, Justin, arrayed in
philosopher's garb, was accosted respectfully by Tryphon,
who described himself as a Jew who had escaped from
the Bar Cochba war (135) and was spending his days
in Greece, chiefly at Corinth. They fall into philosophic
talk, which soon merges into an argument as to the
relative truth of Christianity and Judaism. The
manner as well as the matter is obsolete ; the studied
politeness on both sides is as much a thing of the past,
as the questions of Biblical interpretation. Much
of the dispute turns on the Messianic passages in the
Hebrew Bible and their Christological interpretation.
Then there is the perennial difference of opinion as to
life under the law ; to Justin the Jewish Code is a
264 CURIOSITIES OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY
penalty, to Tryphon a glory. Justin holds that the
law and its rites were given to Israel only because of
Israel's sins, and to wean Israel from idolatry. Thus
Justin takes almost the same view of the sacrifices as
Maimonides did later on ; they were not meant to be a
permanent expression of man's devotion, but were
intended educationally. To prevent sacrifices to idols,
sacrifices to God were sanctioned rather than ordained.
Justin does not put the theory quite in the Maimonist
terms, but the two writers are in essential agreement.
Driven to prove the divinity of Jesus from the Hebrew
Scriptures, Justin urges that the Jews had tampered
with the sacred text which originally contained clear
proofs of the Christian case. As Otto, Justin's editor
truly puts it, the passages which Justin misses from
the Hebrew text were not removed by Jews but added by
Christians. At all events, for this charge of tampering
with the Hebrew text, repeated again and again in
controversial literature, there is no foundation whatever.
It is saddening to find that later on Mohammedans
accused Christians of doing the very thing which
Christians laid to the charge of Jews. This is a Nemesis
which often befalls men and nations. The charge of
ritual murder, made so malignantly against Jews by
European Christians in the middle ages, has in recent times
been made in China against Christians. When the Black
Death decimated Europe in the fourteenth century,
the Jews were accused of poisoning the wells ; in India
nowadays, the plague is popularly ascribed to similar
malignity on the part of English Christians ! Libels
like curses come home to roost. And thus was it also
with the less heinous, but not less painful charge of
tampering with the text of Scripture. The Rabbis
CURIOSITIES OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY 265
felt that there were expressions in Scripture which
they could have wished had been otherwise worded ;
see, for instance, the instructive list in the Talmud,
Megillah ga. These expressions are mainly anthropo-
morphic, but the Massoretic Bible shows how scrupulously
the Rabbis avoided introducing any emendation into
the text. As to Justin, he was quite ignorant of Hebrew.
But this did not prevent him from imagining himself
competent to discuss readings and etymologies of a
text he could not read. Justin's exposition of Scripture
is moreover of the " typical " order, in which almost
any phrase may typify almost any thing that you want
typified. Nothing in the whole history of Judaeo-
Christian controversy is more lamentable than its
uselessness for getting to the true meaning of the Bible.
The Jews were sometimes tempted to deny the Messianic
meaning of certain passages because the Christians
applied them to a particular person ; the Christians
were tempted to seize upon phrases, which meant
quite another thing in the true context, and force them
into confirmations of their views. One side might refuse
to read what was there, because the other side insisted
on reading what was not there. It was different with
the Karaite controversy within Judaism. The Karaites,
denying tradition, were driven to the Scriptures ;
the Rabbinite Jews, in answer to the Karaites, were
forced to search the Scriptures likewise. I do not
assert that the controversy was always fair ; it was
not always polite. But it did produce a scientific
exegesis ; it gave us the beginnings of that true exposition
of the Hebrew Bible which culminated in Kimchi. On
the other hand the Judaeo-Christian disputes produced
only bad exegesis and bad temper.
266 CURIOSITIES OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY
But, as we have seen, this was not so at first, at least
as regards the temper. Justin and Tryphon were
models of fairness and good manners. Who Tryphon
was it is impossible to say. Some think that there never
was such a person, but the Dialogue is too circumstantial
to be fictitious. Justin may have adopted the name
of a celebrated Rabbi (Tarphon) who was perhaps still
alive, and who was known to be a cordial opponent
of the new religion. But Justin does not describe his
interlocutor as a famous Rabbi ; it is Eusebius who
makes this assertion. Rabbi Tarphon was born before
the destruction of the Temple (70) ; and, after 135,
when the Dialogue took place, would have been at
least seventy years of age. It is therefore highly
improbable that Tarphon can be meant, though Graetz
assumed, with some plausibility, the identity of Tryphon
with Tarphon. Tarphon, we should have expected,
would have made a more skilful disputant. The work
of the Church Father is not, however, without its
value, for it gives us authentic information on many
points of Jewish opinion with regard to the interpreta-
tion of Isaiah and the Psalms ; it cites ritual customs
as well as homiletical discourses ; sometimes, we
may hope, his report is inaccurate. Thus he asserts
that in this day Jews were allowed to marry four or
five wives, and were on the whole lax in their marital
morals. This statement is not confirmed by other
evidence, and it is at least inconsistent of Justin, in
another part of the Dialogue, to represent the marriages
of Jacob as in part typical of the Church. But it is
pleasant to turn to Justin's kindly feeling towards his
opponent. He tells Tryphon that when he writes out
their discussions he will take pains to present Tryphon's
CURIOSITIES OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY 267
case fairly and faithfully. He is always anxious to
avoid wounding Tryphon's feelings. In one place
Tryphon becomes angry at Justin's use of the Scrip-
tures, and he exclaims with some irritation : " The
utterances of God are holy, but your explanations are
blasphemous." — " And I," continues Justin, " wishing
to get him to listen to me, answered in milder tones,
thus : I admire, Sir, this piety of yours." Such
courtesies are among the most agreeable of the curiosities
of debate. Tryphon is not behindhand with his compli-
ments. In another part of the interview Justin remarks
that he (Justin) is not gifted with oratorical power.
" You must be jesting," retorts Tryphon ; " your
conversation proves you a past master in rhetoric."
But it is the end that is so delightful. Tryphon, and
those of his fellow- Jews who had joined him after the
first day, part from Justin with expressions of respect
and kindliness. Then Tryphon, after a little pause,
said : " You see it was not intentionally that we came
to discuss these points. And I confess that I have
been particularly pleased with the conference, and I
think that these are quite of the same opinion as myself.
For we have found more than we expected — more than
it was possible to expect. And if we could confer more
frequently, we should be much helped in our search
of the Scriptures. But since you are on the eve of
departure, and expect daily to sail, do not hesitate to
remember us as friends after you are gone." — " For my
part," Justin replies, "I would have wished to do the
same daily." Separating with mutual respect, with
the conviction that each side had learned something
from the other, this is assuredly an ideal ending to
a not quite ideal discussion.
268 CURIOSITIES OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY
Such friendly intercourse between Jews and Christians,
with a resultant humaneness in controversial amenities,
did not continue. With the growing power and, it
must be added, energy of the Church, and the per-
sistent " stiffneckedness " and protestantism of the
Jews, there intruded a lamentable bitterness on both
sides. Each side hurt the other ; the one by trying
to convert, the other by refusing to be converted.
Still, Origen in the third century fought dogmas not
their exponents, principles not principals. We are all
inclined to abuse the man, not weigh the cause. With
Eusebius the tone of animosity becomes established,
and Ephraem Syrus (fourth century) terms the Jews
" circumcised vagabonds." Judaism should have died
under its heavy tribulations, but the Church Father in
Edessa was forced to witness the Rabbinic development
in Babylonia which was then giving us the Talmud.
Ephraem wonders that the Jews still hope, just as
Jerome tells them that their miserable condition proves
them aliens from the Divine favour. This is a recurrent
argument, and it seems a little cruel and more than a
little unchivalrous to use the low estate of the Jews as
an instrument for weakening their allegiance to their
ideals. These controversialists displayed a surprising
ignorance of the psychology of human nature. It is the
contrite heart and broken spirit that draw men to the
ideal, and spirits are made contrite and hearts broken
by suffering, not by prosperity. Fidelity to Judaism was
strengthened, not weakened, by the " sufferings of love "
inflicted by the hand of God, and the " sufferings of
wrath " imposed by man could not prevail. Against
the argument alluded to, Jehuda Halevi in his Cuzari,
and Maimon (father of Maimonides) in his Letter of
CURIOSITIES OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY 269
Consolation, protested. The best reply was thai: of
Joseph Kimchi, in the twelfth century. The permanent
worth of Judaism was provable not by the happiness of
the Jews but by their morality. Just so in the eighteenth
century, Lessing in the parable of the three rings (a
parable which has its analogue in the Midrash),
held that the test of a religion is its power to
produce in its devotees ideals of character and
beauties of life. As Richard Baxter put it : " While
we wrangle here in the dark, we are dying and
passing to the world that will decide all our contro-
versies, and the safest passage thither is by peaceable
holiness." To go back to Jerome, a curiosity of his
argumentation is his complaint that Christian students
were charged high fees by their Jewish tutors ! As
early as Jerome (about the year 400), we find Jews
compelled to attend sermons with the avowed object
of inducing them to join the dominant creed — a curiosity
of controversy which persisted till a quite recent date
in Rome. One of the complaints of the early Church
Fathers, a complaint again and again repeated, is
that the Jews would not keep to the point in their
debates. They were always flying off to side issues.
Possibly the Jews tried to evade giving such replies
as would be what must to a Christian appear blasphe-
mous. But the complaint goes deeper. This is a genuine
fault of the Jewish mind. It lacks concentration.
Were I writing a history of Jewish Polemics, it would
be necessary to interpolate here an extended reference
to the struggle within Judaism which arose from the
formation of the Karaite Sect. Sectarian differences have
not been, on the whole, of great moment in Judaism.
The Sadducean opposition to Pharisaism, like the
270 CURIOSITIES OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY
Karaite antagonism to Rabbinism, hardly affected the
general current. In the eighth century, Anan founded
the Karaite Sect which set its face against the traditions
of the Synagogue. At first the Geonim — or leaders
of the traditional Judaism — seem to have thought that
the heresy could be vanquished by ignoring it. This
is often an effective method, but in this instance it
failed. Karaism was in its very essence an aggressive
and controversial movement, and it carried on an
active campaign which was not checked by the Gaonic
silence. It was not till the era of Saadiah (892-
942) that the Rabbinites met attack with defence
and counter-attack. In Moses de Rieti's phrase,
Saadiah opened for himself the gates of Paradise by
his meritorious onslaught upon Anan's tenets. A
disagreeable feature of the controversy was the personal
abuse indulged in by both sides. Anan, in the legend,
is said to have wished that he could include in his own
person all the learned Rabbis, so that by a single stroke
of the sword he could slay them all with himself. This
is the real controversial truculence. Saadiah and his
opponents did not use swords, but they flung abuse at
each other. The Gaon called Sakaweihi " novice,"
" ignoramus " ; and the other side politely retaliated
by alluding to Saadiah as " that fellow." But, as hinted
above, this struggle did produce at least one good
result. It promoted, if it did not create, a true
scientific Hebrew philology and exegesis. I have said
that no such good result emanated from Judaeo-
Christian disputes. I must, however, except Origen's
Hexapla, a famous collation of the Greek versions of
the Scriptures, which collation grew out of Origen's
desire to meet the controversial charge that the Church
CURIOSITIES OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY 271
relied on an inaccurate text. Similarly, the Authorized
Version of the Bible in English was a result of disputes
between Anglicans and Dissenters in the time of James I.
Controversy does occasionally produce these good
fruits, and it is a pleasure to dwell on this aspect of our
subject. And to return to the Karaites, it is refreshing
to find that Maimonides is reputed to have conquered
them by love. We find some touching instances of
mutual forbearance between the two bodies which
cannot fail to call forth our admiration. Thus there
is extant in Cambridge a marriage settlement of the
year 1082 between a Rabbinite bridegroom and a
Karaite bride. In it the husband promises not to
compel his wife to sit in the light of a lamp on Friday
nights — a point on which the Karaites were curiously
sensitive ; nor will he ask her to eat food forbidden by the
Karaite law, nor require her to profane the festivals
as fixed by the Karaite Calendar. On her part, the
wife convenants to observe with her husband the
festivals as fixed by the Rabbinite Calendar (See
Dr. Schechter's article in the Jewish Quarterly Review,
XIII. 218).
Any account of the curiosities of controversy would
be imperfect, that did not dwell, however briefly, upon
the public contests which were forced in the Middle
Ages on our reluctant fathers, were invariably attended
by bitterness, and followed by aggravated suffering
and persecution, without ever advancing by one inch
the interests of true religion.
We have already seen that in the early centuries
of the Christian era, discussions were common between
Christians and Jews. We have seen how the tone of
these discussions deteriorated with the course of time.
272 CURIOSITIES OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY
Church Councils were able to give a practical turn to
hostility by anti-Jewish legislation, and this tended
to embitter controversy still further. But there was
one consideration which kept disputation within bounds.
There was a general feeling that the Jews were too
learned and too skilful in argument to be meddled
with in a light-hearted spirit. Throughout the contro-
versial literature of the earlier period we catch this
tone. It was an act of temerity to argue with Jews.
As late as the thirteenth century, French Rabbis like
Nathan Official and his son Joseph the Zealot, won
wide repute for their skill as debaters. They had
frequent wordy encounters with chiefs of the Church,
including Pope Gregory X, and were allowed the utmost
freedom of speech. On one occasion, failing in his
attempt to persuade Nathan of the Christological meaning
of the " star " of Numbers xxiv. 17, Pope Gregory asked :
" Tell me, then, the explanation you give of the passage.
Tell it me as a friend."
But a different spirit came permanently in, when
the lead in such disputations was taken by baptized
Jews. These men were sometimes possessed of learning,
and they were able to make a fair show in debate.
But they chiefly used their knowledge to wrap a cloak
of plausibility round malicious libels. Having left
Judaism, they were eager to prove the genuineness
of their zeal for their present religion by the fierceness
of their rancour against their former religion. Being
on with the new love, they were very much off with
the old. There have been and there are conspicuous
exceptions. Two Christians who had been Jews —
Cassel and Chwolson — were vigorous defenders of the
Jews against nineteenth century anti-Semitism. More
CURIOSITIES OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY 273
often the seceder has become an accuser than an advo-
cate. Such men have been disappointed that their
example has not proved contagious ; they seem to
have anticipated a wholesale following of their lead.
When this hope failed, they turned on their reluctant
brethren. They collected every phrase in the Jewish
liturgy and ferreted out every expression in the
Agada that was, or could be distorted into, an attack
on Christianity. Every declination in the Jewish law
from perfect tolerance to alien beliefs was seized upon
as a whip for the backs of the Jews. Charges were
formulated which the Jews were challenged publicly
to answer. If they were unwilling to reply, judgment
went by default. But they were not left to choose their
own alternative. Reply they must, though the verdict
preceded the trial. If in the warmth of debate a word
was unwarily uttered against the dominant dogmas, it
was blasphemy, and the guilt of the Jews became deeper
in the very effort to prove themselves innocent. Some-
times the discussion would be cut short by the inter-
vention of a knightly sword, which cleft in twain the
head of the disputant whose reasoning it was found
impossible to vanquish. This was the method of
controversy recommended by St. Louis.
In the first half of the thirteenth century a public
disputation was held in Paris. Nicholas Donin had
been excommunicated by Rabbi Yechiel of Paris with
public formalities, and after ten years of isolation, he
joined the Franciscan Order. In 1238 Gregory IX,
before whom Donin preferred charges of Talmudic
blasphemy, issued instructions to the princes of
the Church and to the kings of France, Spain,
Portugal and England to confiscate all the copies
L.A. T
274 CURIOSITIES OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY
of the Talmud they could lay hands on, and
deliver them over to the Monks, who were to examine
into the contents of the books, and treat them as their
contents deserved. In England, Spain and Portugal no
attention was paid to the order. But France was more
accommodating. A public disputation was arranged,
to be held in Paris in presence of the Queen-Mother.
Yechiel was chosen as the spokesman of the Jews and
was called upon by Donin to defend the Talmud
against charges of blasphemy. Two years later twenty-
four cart-loads of copies of the Talmud were consigned
to the flames. I omit the argument, for it is quite
irrelevant to the issue. Donin had resolved to burn
the Talmud, and burnt it was. More important was
another disputation of this kind held in Barcelona in
1263. Here another Jewish-Christian, Pablo Christiani,
compelled Nachmanides to meet him in public debate.
Again the function was graced by royal auditors. The
interesting feature of Nachmanides' advocacy of the
Jewish cause was his bold refusal to be held to all
the Agadic statements of the Talmud. These, said
Nachmanides, were personal opinions of individuals ;
they were not tenets of Judaism. When Nachmanides
published his outspoken addresses, the King, who
had promised his protection, felt unable to harbour
him. Nachmanides was forced to fly for his life. Yet
more famous was a third disputation, held amid un-
paralleled pomp in Tortosa in 1413. This resulted
in a Papal Bull forbidding the study of the Talmud,
and commanding Christians to abstain from inter-
course with Jews.
One sometimes wonders what it was that men of
sense, such as many of the higher clergy were, expected
CURIOSITIES OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY 275
as the result of such discussions. The subjects debated
were fit for the study not the arena. Grave theologians
might enter with advantage into intricate questions
of Biblical exegesis and recondite problems of religious
history. But how should such matters be satisfactorily
discussed before an ignorant auditory of the masses ?
It is by no means a pleasing thought that Jews them-
selves have at times carried their own internal dissensions
before the tribunal of the crowd. In the Maimunist
controversy as to the lawfulness of studying philosophy ;
in the Eybeschutz imbroglio as to the Altona Rabbi's
alleged heretical amulets ; in some lamentable in-
stances connected with the recent struggles between
Orthodoxy and Reform ; Jews have appealed to outsiders
to settle matters which concerned only themselves.
No comment of mine could add to the condemnation
which the bare record of this fact pronounces. Now
and then the appeal to public opinion is salutary
and useful. In the case of that extraordinary satire
the Epistola Virorum Obscurorum the effect was decisive
for good. Here the friends of the revival of learning
poured such ridicule on the Obscurantists that the latter
were glad to sink into ignominious seclusion. A Reuchlin
was enabled to rescue the literature of Judaism from the
hands of a Pfefferkorn. Then again, Swift's Battle of
the Books was another case in which an intricate philo-
logical dispute was thrown before the inexpert public
with noble results so far as the gaiety of a people was
concerned. But, for the most part, in public disputes, in
which rival champions face each other before an irrever-
ent and jeering crowd, the cause of truth can only be
injured, for both sides are brought into equal contempt.
Yet it is clear that these mediaeval discussions were
276 CURIOSITIES OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY
meant for the masses. The debates were launched not so
much in the expectation of vanquishing the Jews as of
prejudicing them. Or there may have been another
motive. A new Rector was once appointed to a certain
Church. He was young and zealous and had heard
that there were many serious faults among his congre-
gation. He was determined to do his best to remedy
them. He began by preaching against drink. " My
dear Rector," remonstrated a leading layman, " you
must not do that. Do you not know that the foundation
stone of our Church was laid by the great brewer of the
district, the head of the firm of Hopps & Malting ? "
On the next Sunday he spoke against extravagance. The
congregation stood aghast. " Don't you know that
the wife of our junior Churchwarden is the best, or at
least the most extravagantly, dressed woman in the
parish, and that her attendance at our Church is a
great draw ? " Then he denounced betting. " You
have done a nice thing ! Why one of our staunchest
supporters is a great turfite ; he built the steeple for
us out of his winnings when Weathercock won by a
neck." In despair the young Rector demanded :
" Against whom then may I preach ? " The reply was
prompt. " Against the Jews. No one will interfere
or be anything but gratified. Do not hesitate. It
is always safe to preach against the Jews." Perhaps
some such feeling lay at the bottom of the mediaeval dis-
putations. Shakespeare describes for us the King
who went to war to divert his subjects' attention from
misrule at home. Possibly the Monks felt that they
might similarly turn men's minds from the faults of the
Church by directing them to the faults of the Synagogue.
Two classes of controversial converts have been
CURIOSITIES OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY 277
mentioned above. The one class attacks, the other
defends, the old religion. But there is a third class,
which whips old and new religions alike. The class is
monopolized by a single individual — Heinrich Heine.
He did not cease to be a Jew, for he never was one ; he
did not, on his baptism, become a Christian, for he
never ceased to be a Jew. This is part of the paradox
of his character. In one of his poems — " Disputation " —
he has provided one of the most extraordinary of all
curiosities of controversy. It is full of wisdom as of wit,
and of irreverence as of both these qualities put to-
gether. But it does accurately hit the mark of futility.
With immortal effrontery and unequalled penetration
it exposes the absurdity of the mediaeval debates.
It is impossible to do justice to the satire in a mere
summary ; only a Heine can interpret a Heine.
It is at Toledo, and the bells clang to a tourney.
Speeches are the only spears, the heroes are no knightly
Paladins. Rabbi and Monk enter the lists, helmeted
in Sabbath-cap and cowl, armoured in Arbakanfess
and Scapulary. Rabbi Judah is pitted against Friar
Joseph ; and each side, confident of victory, holds
ready its instrument of conversion. An impatient
crowd fills the arena. Under a golden canopy sit King
and Queen, Pedro and Blanca. He is called the " Cruel,"
but looks better than his fame. Blanche de Bourbon
is a beauty. Heine pictures her with her French
retrousse nose, the drollery in her eyes, the charm of
her smiling lips. She is a lovely and fragile flower,
transplanted. The Monk leads off, blustering and
pleading alternately. First he exorcises the Rabbi,
for the Devil is said to furnish the Jews with ready
wit for such encounters. Then he enunciates the
278 CURIOSITIES OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY
Trinity, " a mystery only clear to him who frees himself
from the cramping chains of Reason." But the Monk
soon leaves dogma. He turns a flood of abuse upon
his antagonist : foul carcass filled with legions of the
damned, hyaena and rhinoceros, vampire and raven,
basilisk and gallows-bird — these are but a few speci-
mens of the Monk's epithets. " Yes ! " he shouts,
" our God is Love, and in meekness and kindness we
emulate Him. Therefore are we so calm and so tender
to you." The party of the Monk get the water ready
for the Rabbi's baptism. But the " water-hating
Hebrew " shrugs his shoulders. If it was difficult to re-
produce the insolent sarcasm with which Heine presents
the Christian case, it is still harder to summarize the wit
with which he reports the Jew's reply. Most Heines-
que of all is the Rabbi's description of the Leviathan
feast, prepared for the righteous. " What God cooks
is well cooked," says Rabbi Judah, and he insinuatingly
invites the Monk to come and taste. The Monk replies
in good theological Billingsgate, and the Rabbi rages
too. " Smite this Atheist, O Lord," shouts the Rabbi.
" May God smite thee, thou villain," retorts the Priest.
Taunt and insult go on for twelve weary hours ; the
crowd is restless, the courtiers impatient, the maids of
honour yawn. Then the King turns to the Queen under
the golden awning. He asks for her verdict. Has the
Rabbi or the Monk won ? Passing her white hand
over her whiter brow, the Queen admits that she cannot
tell who is right or who wrong — but this she knows
of both champions that " alle Beide stinken." This is
Heine at his most characteristic. With a coarse jibe he
ends his inimitable satire, and dismisses Rabbi and Monk
with equal contempt. What an insight Heine shows
CURIOSITIES OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY 279
into the psychology of mediaeval controversy ; what
an insight he permits us to gain into his own mind and
heart !
Let me now bring before you a case calculated to
stir our feelings indeed, but not to depress them — a
curiosity of controversy in which the great Jewish philo-
sopher of the eighteenth century, Moses Mendelssohn,
takes part with all the dignity and nobility of character
which one might expect in a modern Socrates. Born
in Dessau in 1729, educated in a Cheder of his native
place, he wandered, a feeble-looking, mis-shapen boy of
thirteen alone to Berlin, sought a living in commerce, a
higher living in the study of languages, science, history,
philosophy, and religion ; produced works that have
done honour not only to Judaism and to German litera-
ture, but to humanity ; and died in 1786, honoured
and lamented by some of the greatest minds of Europe,
from Immanuel Kant downwards.
At his modest lodging in Berlin, Mendelssohn, then
a clerk and book-keeper, was visited by a Christian
theologian, Johann Rasper Lavater. Lessing, a common
friend of the two, introduced them to one another.
Lavater, a highly gifted man, but with a bent towards
mysticism and a profound faith in physiognomy—
(he is the author of a well-known work on the subject) —
was captivated by the charm of Mendelssohn's person-
ality. Lavater wrote of him to a clerical friend in
Zurich : " The Jew Moses, author of the philosophical
Letters on the Emotions, we found in his office, busy
with silk goods. A companionable, brilliant soul,
with piercing eyes, the body of an ^Esop. A man of
keen insight, exquisite taste and wide erudition. He
is a great venerator of all thinking minds, and himself
280 CURIOSITIES OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY
a metaphysician ; an impartial judge of all works of
talent and taste ; frank and open-hearted in inter-
course, more modest in his speech than in his writings,
unaffected by praise, free from the tricks of meaner
spirits who aim only at pushing themselves into notoriety,
generous, ready to serve his friends ; a brother to his
brethren the Jews, affable and respectful to them, and
by them honoured and beloved." A close friendship
sprang up between the two men, when the desire arose
in Lavater to convert his friend to Christianity. A
not unnatural or unworthy vanity played its part in
this ambition. What would not the educated world
say if he made a spiritual conquest of the man, whose
name was becoming familiar in all the cultured circles in
Europe. Lavater fell into a not uncommon mistake ; he
imagined that a tolerant man like Mendelssohn could
have no deep conviction of the truth of his own religion.
He was speedily undeceived ; and, repelled by solid
arguments as well as the philosopher's gentle irony,
Lavater abandoned the attack. But he returned to
it after some years. A Geneva professor, Bonnet, had
written in French a not very striking " Enquiry into the
proofs of the truth of Christianity against unbelievers."
This work Lavater translated into German. He pre-
faced it with a dedication to Mendelssohn, which was of
the nature of what we may colloquially term a " plant."
In it Lavater solemnly adjured Mendelssohn to refute
these arguments as publicly as they were now presented,
if he could ; and, if he could not, " then do what wisdom,
the love of truth and honesty must bid him, what a
Socrates would have done if he had read the book and
found it unanswerable."
In one sense Lavater did Mendelssohn no friendly
CURIOSITIES OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY 281
service ; in another, he did both to the philosopher and
his community a service vaster than he could have
contemplated. For some years past Mendelssohn had
been devoting his great talents to studies in criticism
and to philosophical work. Now and henceforward
his main interest was the cause of Judaism. He hated
and shunned religious controversy : he knew the
dangers he would run in replying. How could he answer
Christian arguments without attacking Christianity ?
And how could he attack Christianity, even indirectly,
without bringing further trouble on his already over-
burdened brethren ? Then, was he not certain to
offend some of his fellow- Jews, he, an enlightened
Hebrew, steeped in the culture of his time, without
an atom of bigotry or superstition in his nature ? It
is, admittedly, a thankless task to champion Judaism ;
Jews are certain to be ungrateful, Christians apt to take
offence. It is sometimes alleged that Jews have two
Judaisms — one to possess, the other to profess ; one for
actual use the other to use for controversy. This
charge is applicable to the apologists for every creed ;
they put the best foot forward for public examination.
But if controversy is to have any merit whatever it
must be sincere. The one side must not extenuate,
the other must set down naught in malice. Certainly
Mendelssohn set a splendid example in this respect.
Nothing more frank, more unreserved, has ever been
penned than his exposition and defence of Judaism. The
man's integrity shines in every line.
He really had no choice but to accept Lavater's
challenge, and Lessing, too, urged him on. Reluctantly
he began his task ; but as he progressed he grew bolder
and more determined, I had wellnigh said more inspired,
282 CURIOSITIES OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY
in the defence of his faith. And he produced a work
which to this day remains probably the noblest and
most dignified Apology for Judaism — using " Apology "
in its old classical sense. The subject is worthy of a
lecture by itself. I must content myself with quoting
a few sentences only from Mendelssohn's reply.
Christianity, he said, remained then as before impossible
for him for the reason already given to Lavater orally,
that the claim was set up for its founder of being divine.
For my part, he went on, Judaism might have been
defeated in every polemical text-book, and might have
been led away in triumph in every scholastic work,
yet I should not have entered the lists of my own accord.
Ridicule might have been cast on it without contra-
diction from me. Why ? Because it was my belief
that the contempt entertained for the Jew is best
answered by virtuous life, and not by controversial
writings. My religion, my philosophy, and my standing
in civil life supply me with the weightiest reasons to
avoid all religious controversies, and in public writings
to speak only of those truths which are of equal im-
portance to all religions. Suppose there were living
among my contemporaries a Confucius or a Solon,
I could, according to the principles of my faith, love
and admire the great man without falling into the ridicu-
lous idea that I must convert a Solon or a Confucius.
I am happy enough to count as friends many excellent
men who are not of my faith. We love each other
sincerely ; never has my heart whispered to me secretly :
What a pity that beautiful soul is lost ! Mendelssohn in
another work more fully develops this idea. He held
fast to the belief that there are many ways to God,
and while Judaism is the best and only way for the
CURIOSITIES OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY 283
Jew, it is riot necessary for all the world to accept
Judaism. In the essay which we are now more par-
ticularly treating, Mendelssohn goes on to give many
reasons for avoiding controversy. Must he not as a
Jew be content with sufferance ? He turns neatly on
Lavater by reminding him that in Lavater's native town,
Zurich, he — Mendelssohn — would not even be allowed
to pay a visit to his Christian friend. Then he proceeds
to criticize the work of Bonnet, shows how weak it is,
points out that much stronger arguments in favour
of Christianity are to be read in English and German
works, and that the whole thing was so feeble that by
the same arguments any religion could be defended,
quite as well or quite as badly. To talk of a Socrates
being converted by such a book is to show what power
prejudice may usurp over reason. He concludes his
reply, which made a profound impression on all parties,
with the words : "I will not deny that I have found
in my religion human accretions and abuses, which
unhappily dim its lustre — as happens with every
religion in the course of time. But of all that is of the
essence of my faith I am so firmly and so immovably con-
vinced, that I testify herewith before the God of truth,
your and my creator and preserver, by whom you have
adjured me in your appeal, that I shall cleave to my
principles so long as my soul does not change its nature."
It would go beyond our present range to examine
Mendelssohn's other controversial writings, his preface
to Menasseh ben Israel's " Vindiciae Judaeorum,"
his famous discussion of the essentials of Judaism
entitled " Jerusalem." As one reads them one realizes
what a champion for truth and light Mendelssohn
was. In the very nature of the weapons he uses one is
284 CURIOSITIES OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY
reminded of that sword of a true and faithful knight,
on which was graven the device, " Never draw me with-
out right ; never sheath me without honour."
Among the curiosities of controversy must be named
the Ink-pot and Scissors method. Go into any library
of older Hebrew books, open the volumes at random,
and you will see passage after passage blotted out.
The censors daubed with ink statements and arguments
which they thought hostile to their own religion. Many
a stately and costly tome has been rendered unsightly
in this way. The censorship either forbade the publica-
tion of books altogether, or authorising them con-
ditionally, proceeded to expunge objectionable matter.
The books were returned to their owners expurgated
and signed by the censors. The owners had to pay the
censors' fees for mutilating their property. Sometimes
the acid in the ink has actually destroyed the texture
of the paper ; in other cases, as with many a palimpsest,
the ink above has in course of time faded and the
original underneath has come to the surface again.
Often when this happens, the brown stain remains,
revealing in instance after instance the folly and ignor-
ance of the censor. The most harmless passages are,
comically enough, sometimes mistaken for attacks
on Christianity. In more recent times, especially in
Russia, printer's ink is being used, and there is little
hope of recovery for passages so treated. Occasionally,
to save himself trouble, the censor would cut out the
whole of the offending page or pages. It need hardly
be said that the expurgators and excisors were often
baptized Jews.
The Greeks had a popular phrase " to dispute on
the shadow of an ass." The saying is said to have
CURIOSITIES OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY 285
originated in an anecdote which Demosthenes related
to the Athenians. He was engaged in the defence of
a man charged with a capital crime, and he noticed
that those to whom he was addressing himself paid
but little attention to his pleadings. He suddenly
broke off in the midst of his argument and commenced
to tell this story. " A traveller was once sent from
Athens to Megara on a hired ass. It happened during
the dog days, and at noon he was much exposed to
the heat of the sun. Not finding as much as a bush
under which to take shelter, he descended from the
ass and seated himself in its shadow. The owner of the
ass, who accompanied him, objected to this, asserting
that when he let the animal, the use of its shadow was
not included in the bargain. The dispute at last grew
so warm that it got to blows, and finally gave rise to
an action at law." After having said so much,
Demosthenes continued the defence of his client ; but
the auditors, whose curiosity he had piqued, were
anxious to learn how the judges had decided in so
singular a cause. Upon this the orator commented
severely. He rebuked their childish injustice in de-
vouring with attention a paltry story about an ass's
shadow, while they turned a deaf ear to a cause in which
the life of a human being was involved.
From that day when a man showed preference for
discussing small and contemptible subjects, rather
than great and important ones, he was said " to dispute
on the shadow of an ass."
It is to be feared that the dispute concerning the
shadow of an ass is a perennial one. If one could take
a comprehensive survey of the controversies that have
inflamed individuals, families, parties, and states, it
286 CURIOSITIES OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY
would in all probability be found that the majority of
them were, in their origin, of a very trivial nature.
So at all events they generally appear to those who
are not themselves involved in, and carried along by,
the actual rush and current of the controversy. Now
I do not say that it is invariably safe or true to test the
importance of a dispute by the opinion formed of it by
outsiders. But mostly the test is a just one. And if
this be so, then the great bulk of party controversy
stands branded as trivial.
This side of my subject has been so often treated
that I need not linger over it now. How many men
were done to death, " martyrs to a diphthong," as
Boileau has it, in the controversy between the homo-
ousians and the homoi-ousians, on which Gibbon waxes
so merry. Then there was the celebrated dispute
between the Jansenists and Jesuits as to sufficient and
efficacious grace. The best results of this last puzzling
dispute were Pascal's satires, sufficient and efficacious
at once. All this class of controversy is exposed in
masterly style by the prince of satirists, Jonathan
Swift. In Lilliput, Gulliver finds a struggle raging
as to the relative advantage of high and low heels on
the shoes of officers of state. Still funnier is the cause
of the obstinate war between Lilliput and Blefusca.
It was the war of the Big-endians and the Little-endians ;
should the egg be broken at the big end or at the little
end ? These are satires on matters of Christian con-
troversy. Are we quite sure that some of our own reli-
gious differences turn upon more important questions ?
Are we not also given to take words for things and to
dispute over them, as if the heavens would fall unless
each side had its own way ?
CURIOSITIES OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY 287
We are all doughty fighters for trifles. Our passions
are roused and our energies wasted in paltry squabbles,
while the real issues of life and death are of indifference
to us. Judah Leon Gordon made this defect of our
character the subject of several of his Hebrew poems.
The " tail of a Yod," published in 1876, is one of his
most effective protests. The omission of the letter yod
in the name Hillel invalidated a decree of divorce,
and the result was life-long misery for the poet's heroine
Bath-Shua. With the poet's licensed exaggeration of the
facts, Gordon tilts again and again at the solemn
trifling which makes of the infinitely little a mountain
under whose weight a life may be crushed. The saving
common sense of the Talmudic Rabbis would have made
an end speedily enough to much of the casuistry of their
present-day representatives.
I have heard the story of a Jewish ritual dispute
which is quite on a level with that which we find so
entertaining in Swift. A small Jewish congregation
was being formed in a certain place, and the members
were partly " Spanish," partly " German " Jews.
They had come to a compromise about the ritual, but
there was one point upon which agreement was found
to be impossible. At the end of the Eighteen Benedic-
tions (Shemoneh Esreh) there is, as you all know, a
prayer for peace. The " Germans " have two for-
mulae— one beginning Sim shalom, the other Shalom rab
ta-sim ; the " Spaniards " use only the one formula,
the first-named. Over the question whether it should
be sim shalom or shalom rab ta-sim, " Grant peace " or
"Peace grant," began the tug-of-war. Authorities
were invoked, the Talmud, Rab Amram, Maimonides
and others were appealed to. Neither side would give
288 CURIOSITIES OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY
way ; the feud waxed hot and hotter ; and the upshot
of it all was that the congregation was broken up into
two irreconcilable factions, on account of the question
whether of an afternoon and evening the congregation
was to pray " Grant peace " or " Peace grant " !
I do not speak thus to raise a laugh. I would ask
you to take the moral seriously to heart. We cannot
hope, nor need we wish, to agree on all things ; such
great controversies as are connected with Zionism and
Biblical Criticism must for some time to come divide
us. But we must not allow great controversies to be
overshadowed by the small, nor must we allow con-
troversies great or small to prevent us coming together
in devout worship and praise of our common God, in
steadfast allegiance to the common cause of Judaism,
in energetic pursuit of the common good of the whole
human race. While we wrangle, said Baxter, as to
whether Jachin or Boaz is the more beautiful column,
the Temple itself is deserted and falls into decay. Let
us Jews try to pull together ; let our union of hearts
be one of the " curiosities of controversy " — the most
notable, the most unexpected, the most difficult, but
the most desirable of all its curiosities if it can be
attained.
ISAAC HIRSCH WEISS
(From the Jewish Chronicle. June 16, 1905.)
Ax the patriarchal age of ninety, Isaac Hirsch Weiss,
Lector of the Beth Hamidrash in Vienna, has been
gathered to his fathers. He was a living link with a
period in which the spirit of the Middle Ages seemed
to linger. Thus in 1815, when Weiss was born, the
law still limited the number of Jewish families that
might be domiciled in the various towns of the Austrian
Empire, and made the permission to marry a matter of
privilege to be purchased from the State at a not incon-
siderable cost. The state of affairs within the Jewish
community reflected in many respects the depressing
conditions without.
But no outward influences, however unfavourable,
can prevail against the innate and indomitable Jewish
passion for learning. The son of a respected merchant
of Mezeritz, a town in Moravia, Isaac Hirsch Weiss was
early initiated in all the Jewish learning within reach.
He was something of an infant prodigy, whose precocious
knowledge of the Talmud, however, called forth from
the sensible Rabbi of Nikolsburg not approval, but
remonstrance. He studied under the most eminent
Rabbis of his time, spending many years successively
at the Yeshiboth (rabbinical colleges) of Trebitsch,
L.A. ** u
290 ISAAC HIRSCH WEISS
Eisenstaat and Nikolsburg. Among his contemporaries,
men who had been students under the same masters as
himself, were Leopold Dukes, the brilliant and versatile
scholar whose twenty years' sojourn in England is still
a cherished memory in Anglo- Jewry, and Leopold Low,
one of the greatest figures in Hungarian Jewry, who
became the leader of progressive Judaism in his country.
To Weiss' pen Jewish scholarship is indebted for,
among other important productions, " Orach Lazadik,"
a compendium of ritual laws ; an erudite edition of the
Sifra ; Beth Talmud, a monthly Hebrew magazine and
review, conducted in conjunction with Lector Fried-
mann ; a monograph on Rashi, and especially his great
work in five volumes, " Dor Dor Vedorshav," in which
he traces the history of Jewish Tradition from its begin-
nings in the scriptures to the time of the expulsion of
the Jews from Spain. An article of his on " The Study
of the Talmud in the Thirteenth Century " appeared
in the first volume of the Jewish Quarterly Review, and
was subsequently embodied in the fifth volume of his
" Jewish Tradition."
His industry throughout his long life was unremitting.
In the morning he sowed his seed, and in the evening
he suffered not his hand to be slack. There is no doubt
that he has left large quantities of unpublished literary
material. In his eighty-first year, at the suggestion of
the late Dr. David Kaufmann, of Buda-Pesth, he wrote
his Reminiscences (Zichronothai), in which he has
many interesting things to tell of Jewish student life in the
days of his youth, and passes in review the characters and
opinions of many of the great ones in Israel of the last
century, S. J. Rapoport, S. D. Luzzatto, Nachman
Krochmal, I. S. Reggio, Zunz, Geiger, and others.
ISAAC HIRSCH WEISS 291
The Hebrew language, in which most of his works
were composed, proved a marvellously flexible and
expressive medium in his hands. His example has
done not a little to foster the modern revival of the love
of Hebrew. How Zunz estimated the achievements
in this field of Weiss and of his colleague Friedmann
may be seen from the following. Zunz had often been
pressed, and had as often refused, to allow his " Gottes-
dienstliche Vortrage " to be translated into Hebrew.
The work required revision, he said, and he was too old
to undertake it. Ultimately, however, he expressed
himself content that a Hebrew translation should
be made, but the condition was that none but Weiss and
Friedmann should have a hand in it.
In 1890 I had the privilege of spending, during a
couple of months, the greater part of every day in his
company. How often had I reason to marvel at his
easy command of the whole field of rabbinical literature
and learning ! His enthusiasm for Jewish history and
science was something to remember ; it would have been
well-nigh impossible for any one associating with him to
escape the noble infection. In his method of teaching
there was a grasp and a lucidity that made learning
from him hour after hour a long-sustained delight.
But, indeed, one was always learning from him, even
during the lightest conversation. Most interesting it was
to hear him speak of life in the old Yeshiboth of Hungary,
Bohemia, and Moravia ; of the efforts made by the new
learning to invade the domains of the old ; of the curious
contrasts presented in the Yeshiboth, as elsewhere, of
pettiness and greatness of soul ; of the hardships and
privations unmurmuringly borne by eager students of
the Torah, and the generous rivalry among the more
292 ISAAC HIRSCH WEISS
fortunate members of the congregation in extending
hospitality to the needy Bachur (as the youthful student
is still lovingly termed).
A hard hitter in controversy when he felt himself
in the right, Weiss never yielded to the temptation,
from which even religious disputants are not free, to dip
his pen in gall, or to cover with ridicule those who honestly
gave utterance to views to which he could not assent.
As he himself expressed it : " How dare I pour ridicule
upon a man whose intent at least it was to benefit
me?"
There was a strange personal fascination about the
man, with his large, dark, piercing eyes, and a face
furrowed with lines dug as much by sorrow as by age.
The hand of fate had lain heavy upon him. He had
suffered much worldly loss through trusting untrust-
worthy friends, and he never quite recovered from the
blow by which he was deprived of two gifted sons in the
prime of their life.
I saw Lector Weiss again when I was in Vienna in
January of this year. The pathos of the scene has
haunted me ever since. Though he had given me
reason to believe that I held some little place in his
conscious thought, he seemed now hardly able to recog-
nize me. Some idea he was struggling after disturbed
and distressed him. His strength had forsaken him ;
his light was dimmed ; he was paying a heavy price
for having lived fourscore years and ten. A son was
giving him filial tendance, yet there was an air of desola-
tion both without and within that made it hard to realize
that this was the last phase in the life of a veteran who
had fought so well and bravely in a seventy years' war
for the Torah. There is a saying in the Talmud that
ISAAC HIRSCH WEISS
293
the fragments of the old and shattered tables of the
Law were not cast away, but that equally with the new
and unbroken ones they were given an honoured resting-
place in the holy Ark. Is that legend meant for a lesson
here, or for a promise hereafter?
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