History of the Jews, Vol. 6 (of 6) / Containing a Memoir of the Author by Dr. Philip Bloch, a Chronological Table of Jewish History, an Index to the Whole Work

by Heinrich Graetz

HISTORY OF THE JEWS.

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[MEMOIR OF HEINRICH GRAETZ.]

I.
YOUTH.

The disruption and final partition of the Polish kingdom by its three neighboring states occurred in 1795. With its dissolution a new era began in the history of the numerous Jewish communities in that part of the Polish territory which passed under Prussian and Austrian sovereignty. The event that thus ushered them into the world of Western civilization may justly be considered as marking for them the transition from the middle ages to modern times. Prussia allowed no interval to elapse between the act of taking possession of her newly acquired domain and its organization. It was incorporated into the state as the provinces of South Prussia and New East Prussia. But after 1815 the Prussian crown remained in possession only of the Grand Duchy, or the Province, of Posen, the district that had constituted the kernel of Great Poland. This piece of land was of extreme importance to the Jews, being the home of the most numerous, the oldest, and the most respectable congregations. It was situated at only a short distance from the Prussian capital, to which it appeared to have been brought still nearer by the organic connection established with the older parts of the state. It was natural to expect that, in consequence of the political union, the economic relations with Berlin, always close, would become more intimate and more numerous, and would develop new business advantages. On the other hand, the capital was viewed with distrust as the home of the movement radiating from Mendelssohn and his school, which aimed at something beyond the one-sided Talmud study then prevalent, and strove to bring modern methods of education and modern science within reach of the younger generation.

The rigorous system of organization by which the Polish districts were placed upon a Prussian basis induced so radical a transformation of all the relations of life that the Jews experienced great difficulty in adjusting themselves to the new order of things. Opposition to the state authorities and the economic conditions was futile; there was nothing for it but to try to adapt oneself without ado. By way of compensation, the efforts to keep religious practices and traditional customs pure, untouched by alien and suspicious influences, in the grooves worn by ancient habit, were all the more strenuous. Talmudic literature was to continue to be the center and aim of all study and science, and religious forms, or habits regarded as religious forms, were not to lose an iota of their rigidity and predominance. The urgent charge of the Prussian government to provide properly equipped schools to instruct and educate the young in a manner in keeping with the spirit of the times was evaded, now by subterfuges, now by promises. But in the long run the influences of the age could not fail to make themselves felt. Sparks from the hearth of the emancipation movement were carried into the Province, and burst into flame in one of the great congregations, that of the city of Posen, particularly proud and jealous of the Talmudic renown and the hoary piety of its Ghetto.

The position of rabbi in Posen had become vacant, and in 1802 it was proposed to fill it with Samuel ben Moses Pinchas from distant Tarnopol, the brother of the deceased rabbi. He was the author of בית שמואל אחרון {Hebrew: Beyt Shmuel Acharon}, and an arch-Talmudist of the old stamp. Under the shelter of assumed names, a number of the younger men ventured to send the government a protest against the choice of an “uncouth Polack.” It was alleged that the mass of the people favored him on account of

“the Kabbalistic fable which constructs a genealogy for this Podolian that makes it appear that he belongs to the stock from which the Jewish Messiah is to spring, etc.”

The government took the petition into consideration, and so informed the signers. On account of the fictitious names the answer went astray. Instead of reaching the petitioners, it fell into the hands of the directors of the congregation and into those of the deputy rabbis, the B’ne Yeshiba.

“They immediately assembled all so-called scholars and Talmud disciples after the manner of the ancient Synhedrin, and invited the parents, parents-in-law, and relatives of all persons suspected of harboring heterodox ideas. Then they summoned each of us singly, put him into the center of a terrifying circle of rough students, and upbraided him in the following words, accompanied by the most awful curses: ‘Thou devilish soul that hast vowed thyself unto Satan! Thy appearance gives evidence of thy antipathy to our statutes; thy shaved beard, thy apparel (thy Jewish garb is only a sham), everything proves thee, thou impious one, a betrayer of Jewish mysteries to Christians. Thou readest German books. Instead of holy Talmud folios, thou keepest maps, journals, and other heathenish writings concealed in thy attic. Therefore, confess thy sin, that thou art one of the authors of the accursed memorial! Do penance as we shall direct. Deliver up to us thy unclean books immediately. Subscribe without delay to this sacred election of our rabbi; else, etc., etc.’”[1]

The hotly contested election of the rigidly Talmudic yet none the less gentle rabbi was carried, but no effort availed to check the spread of the new spirit. Steadily though slowly modern views gained the upper hand, and in 1816 a Jewish private school of somewhat advanced standing was successfully established in Posen. Now and again men of independent fortune mustered up courage to send their children to the Gymnasium or to the higher Christian schools, of which, to be sure, not a large number existed at the time. In 1824 the state interfered, and ordered the establishment of German elementary schools in all the Jewish communities of the Province giving evidence of vitality. The situation now assumed a peculiar aspect. General culture, acquaintance with the classic literature of Germany, France, and England, came to be esteemed an accomplishment and a personal charm; yet beyond the three R’s the rising generation was not given the opportunity of acquiring a general education. On the contrary, the desire was to limit study to that of rabbinic and Hebrew writings. In the larger communities, like Posen and Lissa, the centers of Talmud study, a conscious effort was made to frighten off young people, especially Talmud disciples, from the acquisition of secular culture. It should be mentioned, however, that in many of the smaller communities the longing for education was encouraged as much as possible. So it came about that the highly endowed, ambitious spirits of that generation in the Province had to struggle most bitterly and painfully to make headway. But their hardships were counterbalanced by the advantages they derived from the conflict. Their intellectual energy and self-reliance came forth from the contest steeled. Impregnated as almost all of them were with the spirit of the Talmud, they had pierced to its essence, and, filled with enthusiasm for the rabbinical heroes, they had breathed in devotion to the ideals of Judaism.

This was the soil upon which Heinrich Graetz grew up, and such were the conditions and agencies moulding the development of a man destined to create an historical work, at once monumental and popular; embracing thousands of years, the most widely separated regions, and the most diversified fields of human activity; retracing with all the resources of learning and ingenuity the magic, faded, illegible characters of the evolution of Judaism, and illuminating them with colors of fairy-like brilliance;--an historical work, which, by reason of the warmth of its narrative style, has come to be a book of edification, in the best sense of the word, unto the author’s brethren-in-faith.

Heinrich Hirsch Graetz was born October 31 (Cheshwan 21), 1817, in Xions (pronounced Kshons), a wretched little village of 775 inhabitants in the eastern part of the Province of Posen. In a family of two brothers and one sister he was the first-born. His father, Jacob Graetz, was a man of tall stature, who, dying in 1876, reached an age of over ninety years. His mother, Vogel, of the family of Hirsch of Wollstein, was of average height and robust physique, with lustrous gray eyes. She died in 1848 only fifty odd years old. To her the son showed most resemblance, both spiritually and physically. A little butcher-shop yielded them an honest but paltry livelihood. In the hope of improving their material condition, the family removed to Zerkow, a few miles off, some years after Heinrich’s birth. At the time the village contained not more than 800 inhabitants, among them a single person able to read, a real estate owner, to whom all letters were carried to be deciphered on the open street in solemn public assembly.[2] But the Jewish congregation consisted of one hundred members, and a remarkable increase in the population of the little town seemed to give fair promise of a prosperous future. It is worthy of mention, besides, that the scenery of Zerkow, wreathed round with hill and stream, forest and meadow, is not so flat and unattractive as that of most parts of the Province.

Here the boy received his first impressions, and here he enjoyed his first instruction in a school distinguishable from a genuine Cheder only inasmuch as it began in a measure to accommodate itself to the modest demands made by the government upon a Jewish primary school. He was taught reading, writing, ciphering, and the translation of the Bible. Great love of study and marked talent became apparent in him; he was therefore introduced to a knowledge of Hebrew and the Talmud. When he was confirmed at thirteen, the age at which the boys of that period were in the habit of deciding definitely on their careers, his parents did not for a moment question the propriety of continuing their son’s intellectual training. It would have been most natural to send him to Posen, where a popular Talmud school was flourishing under the direction of the highly esteemed Chief Rabbi Akiba Eger. But his parents’ means were too slender to suffice for his maintenance, and shyness and pride prevented young Graetz from making his way after the fashion of beggar students. There was but one course, to send him to Wollstein, where his mother had sisters and other relatives. Though by no means possessed of great wealth, they were willing to give him assistance. The Wollstein sojourn proved eminently favorable to his development. The town, situated in the western part of the Province, was not destitute of natural charms, to which the boy’s impressionable mind eagerly responded. The population, chiefly German, numbered 2258 persons, among them 841 Jews,[3] by no means an inconsiderable congregation. Besides, it was in fairly comfortable circumstances. It had always taken pride in maintaining a Talmud school, which, at the time of Graetz’s advent, was distinguished for the liberal, enlightened spirit pervading it and the active encouragement accorded its students in their desire for culture. Rumor had it that the rabbi, Samuel Samwel Munk, who had been called from Bojanowo to Wollstein at the beginning of the century, knew how to read and write German, and was in the habit of reading German books and even journals in the hours that are “neither day nor night.” At all events, he did not put obstacles in their way, when his disciples, spurring each other on in the impetuous rivalry of youth for pre-eminence, sought to slake their thirst for secular knowledge.

Graetz arrived in Wollstein at the end of the summer of 1831, fourteen years old. At that youthful age, the Bachur had ventured to undertake, in a Hebrew far from perfect, it must be confessed, a work on the calendar entitled, “חשבון העתים {Hebrew: Cheshbon Ha’itim}, Jewish and German Chronology.”[4] He was a zealous attendant upon the rabbi’s Talmudic lectures, and derived great profit from them. His teacher conceived a lively and kind interest in him, as well as a high opinion of his ability, though he did not suspect his future eminence. Rabbinic studies did not occupy his mind to the exclusion of other pursuits. Inextinguishable thirst for knowledge had taken possession of him, and all books that fell in his way were read with avidity. Most of the available literature consisted of romances of chivalry, of the kind in vogue at that time. Among them “Raspo of Felseneck,” now completely forgotten, made a particularly deep impression upon him. Reproved by one of his patrons, and provided with more suitable books by him, he read with keen enjoyment Campe’s narrative and moral writings. At the same time historical books began to attract him strongly. Though he had to confess to himself, somewhat crestfallen, that he did not understand the greater part of what he read in them, he studied Bredow’s short compendium of universal history, Becker’s large work on the same subject, and a biography of Napoleon. He soon realized the necessity of acquiring Latin and French. Without teacher, without guidance, without counsel other than that afforded by like-minded companions, he devoted himself to Meidinger’s French grammar and later to Bröder’s Latin grammar, until he had gotten all between their covers by heart. He was overjoyed when he could begin to read the classic writers of foreign countries in their own languages. In his zeal, he permitted himself to be governed by chance. Whatever fortune played into his hands, he grasped at with instantaneous ardor, and pursued with sporadic industry. He picks up a translation of Euclid, for instance. At once he devotes himself to it heart and soul, difficult though he finds it to gain a clear notion of geometric concepts and methods. An itinerant rabbi from Poland, offering his own commentary upon the Book of Job for sale, comes to Wollstein, and meets with appreciation and respect. Reason enough for the enthusiastic and ambitious Talmud disciple to take interest in nothing but Bible exegesis and Hebrew grammar for months thereafter. Keen, discriminating love of nature, to whose attractions he remained susceptible until his last days, develops in him. He spares no effort to acquaint himself with the flora of his native province and with the mysteries of the starry heavens. Success was a foregone conclusion with one whose equipment consisted of miraculously quick comprehension, a retentive memory, and industry oblivious of all but its object; coupled with an iron constitution and indestructible working powers, not in the least impaired by lack of food and sleep.

Despite his modest demands, he constantly had to battle against want and distress. His nature was proud, self-reliant, and, it must be admitted, unpractical. An exaggerated sense of honor forbade his seeking help even when a petition would have been justified. He preferred to conceal his troubles. For example, he ate dry bread on many a Sabbath, a day on which it was considered a privilege to entertain Talmud disciples. Regardless of wind and weather, he would slip off into the country, a book in his pocket, in order not to reveal his helpless condition. Finally, in spite of his secretiveness, some friend or other discovered his plight, and found ways and means of relieving his distress. Of sanguine temperament, he sought and found consolation in books. Graetz managed to read and study an amazing quantity in the four years and a half of his Wollstein sojourn. His most determined efforts were applied to the acquisition of the French language and literature, his favorite studies, at that time ranking high in the scale of accomplishments. The more important works of Fénelon, Voltaire, Rousseau, and others, and the dramas of Racine and Victor Hugo he knew thoroughly. He had read Lessing, Mendelssohn, Schiller, and other classic writers of Germany, and was attracted particularly to Wieland, to whose works he devoted earnest attention. It is curious that the diary which he then kept does not contain a single reference to Goethe, as if by chance or for some reason he had remained in ignorance of the great poet’s works. On the other hand, he became acquainted towards the end of the Wollstein period with the writings of Börne, Heine, and Saphir, which vivified the proneness to irony and satire dormant in him. The Latin authors gave him most trouble. Yet he mastered Cornelius Nepos, Curtius, and several books of Ovid’s Metamorphoses and of Virgil’s Æneid. That he accomplished extensive reading of rabbinic literature at the same time, and did not neglect his Talmudic studies, is attested by the distinction with which Rabbi Munk honored Graetz, much to his surprise. At New Year 5595 (October, 1834), he was invested with the title Chaber, a degree conferred only upon most worthy and most rarely endowed Talmud disciples of his youthful age.

But now fermentation set in, and white flakes began to rise to the surface of the young wine. Wholly self-taught, he had devoted himself to reading without plan or method, following blind chance or humoring his whims. In this way he had laid up a store of knowledge, promiscuous as well as rich. A chaotic mixture of irreconcilable, disparate ideas and opinions surged through his head, and excited tumultuous commotion in his world of thought and feeling. In November, 1835, the following entry was written in his diary:

“By the various contradictory ideas that perplexed my brain--heathen, Jewish, and Christian, Epicurean, Kabbalistic, Maimonidian, and Platonic--my faith was made so insecure that, when a notion concerning God, eternity, time, or the like, assailed me, I wished myself into the abyss of the nether world.”

Although his humor and his opinions were somewhat unsettled, he by no means had drifted from his moorings. The existence of God and the immortality of the soul were the fixed poles of his emotional world to which he clung. Another entry a little further on in his diary says:

“Like furies such thoughts tugged at my heart-strings, when, as often happened, they arose, suggested by my poverty as well as by certain classes of books. Only the clear, star-studded sky, upon which my eyes were wont to rest with delight on Saturday evenings after sundown, renewed the blessed comforting consciousness in me: Yes, there is a God beyond the starry canopy!”

On the other hand, he began to chafe against the daily religious practices of Judaism, which he had always observed with scrupulous conscientiousness, as he had been taught to do. Even then he did not neglect them, but he was offended by the multiplicity of ceremonies and still more by the petty, poor-spirited, unæsthetic manner in which the people among whom he lived observed them. They no longer were religious observances; they were habits. Attributing the responsibility for these conditions to the Talmud, he bore it ill-will. His repugnance grew whenever he contrasted its style and method with those of the great works of literature with which he had recently become conversant. Comparisons of this kind did not serve to enhance the credit of the rabbinic collection with him. There was another cause for irritation. Up to that time he had lived, or rather studied, heedless of practical concerns. Now his parents and relatives were probably beginning to urge upon him the necessity of considering the choice of a vocation or of turning to professional studies. So just a demand he could not disregard, especially in the sensitive state of mind in which he then found himself. Often he brooded over the question, “What next?” and elaborated the most bizarre plans only to reject them. A seemingly slight incident occurred which quelled the commotion in his breast. His craft, helplessly driving among perilous crags, was guided into smooth waters by a little book appearing just then under the title, “אגרת צפון {Hebrew: Igeret Tzafon}, Nineteen Letters on Judaism, published by Ben Usiel.”[5]

The partisans of the reform movement, who proposed to remodel or set aside religious customs and traditional observances of historical Judaism as incompatible with modern life, had up to that time maintained the upper hand in the literary discussion of religious affairs. They were exerting constantly increasing attraction upon the younger generation, and were growing bolder and more impetuous in their propaganda for the obliteration, as far as possible, of religious peculiarities. Bent upon the preservation of old faith and custom unimpaired, their opponents had at first refused to make any concession whatsoever to the modern demands, and had even failed to provide themselves with new weapons of defense. When the movement assumed threatening dimensions, the conservatives faced it unprepared and impotent. Bewildered strangers in the great world, habituated to the social forms of the Ghetto, enmeshed in the web of Talmudic ideas, they were wholly unable to put up an efficient leader or regenerator. Suddenly that which had long been painfully lacking seemed to incorporate itself in a young theologian. In the above-mentioned anonymous work, “Nineteen Letters,” Samson Raphael Hirsch, rabbi at Oldenburg, championed the undiminished value of all religious usages with skill, eloquence, and intrepidity. His manner held out the hope that he would breathe a new spirit into the old forms. The boldness of the work in frankly presenting this point of view with all the consequences springing therefrom produced the effect of a sensational occurrence upon the Jewish public. Into the mind of Graetz, casting about for an anchor for his disturbed feelings, it fell like a flash of lightning, revealing the path to be followed in the search for his ideals. He reports:

“Often I spoke of it [religious doubt] to B. B., the only one to whom I could tell my thoughts on such subjects. Then he would allege the urgent necessity for reforms in view of the gradual decay of religion. But I realized, that reform, that is, the omission of a number of laws organically interwoven with the rest, would abrogate the whole Law. How delighted I therefore was with a new book, ‘אגרת צפון {Hebrew: Igeret Tzafon}, Nineteen Letters on Judaism, anonymous,’ in which a view of Judaism I had never before heard or suspected was defended with convincing arguments. Judaism was represented as the best religion and as indispensable to the salvation of mankind. With avidity I devoured every word. Disloyal though I had been to the Talmud, this book reconciled me with it. I returned to it as to a mistress deemed faithless and proved true, and determined to use my utmost effort to pierce to its depths, acquire a philosophical knowledge thereof, and, as many would have me believe that I might become a so-called ‘rabbi-doctor of theology’ (studirter Rabbiner), publicly demonstrate its truth and utility. I set about my task at once, beginning with the first folio ברכות {Hebrew: Berachot} and the first Book of Moses. I dwelt upon every point with pleasure, treating them not as remnants of antiquity, but as books containing divine help for mankind. My endeavor was materially advanced by the knowledge I had acquired here, among other things of theology, which only now I learned to esteem as a branch of science; of geometry--I had studied nearly the whole of the first three books of Euclid; and of history.”

After that he could not content himself with life in Wollstein; the place had nothing more to offer him. The resolution to quit the town, which had grown into his heart as his second home, was facilitated by the removal of an uncle, depriving him of his strongest support; by the usual disappointment and revulsion of feeling following the usual extravagance of a youthful, fantastic love-affair; and by conflicts with companions and patrons, caused to some extent doubtless by the disharmonious state of his mind and aggravated by tittle-tattle. But whither was he to turn to satisfy the yearnings of his soul? He decided on Prague, the Mecca of the young Jewish theologians of the day, “a city most famous for learning, hospitality, and other virtues.”

II.
THE APPRENTICE.

Graetz left Wollstein in April, 1836, and went to Zerkow to acquaint his parents with his intentions and consult with them. Letters of recommendation to families in Prague were obtained, and his parents and other relatives made up a small purse for him. Graetz secured a passport, packed his modest belongings in a handbag, and set out on his journey in high spirits. Partly afoot, partly by stage when the fare was not forbidding, he made his way to Breslau, and thence through the Silesian mountains to the Austrian boundary, which he reached not far from Reinerz. Here, though he was fortified with a passport, the frontier inspector, like a cherub with a flaming sword, opposed his entrance into Austria. He was unable to produce ten florins ($5) cash, the possession of which had to be demonstrated by the traveler who would gain admission to the land of the double eagle, unless he came as a passenger in the mail-coach. Dismayed our young wanderer resorted to parleying, and appealed to his letters of recommendation. In vain; the official would hear of no compromise. Too proud and inflexible to have recourse to entreaty or trickery, Graetz grimly faced about, and much disheartened journeyed as he had come, over the same road, back to Zerkow. His parents were not a little astonished at his return, and equally rejoiced to have their son with them for some time longer. The adventure may be taken as typical of the curious mishaps that befell him in practical life, particularly at the beginning of his career. They often cut him to the quick, but never shook his belief in his lucky star. His originative and impressionable nature carried with it the power of discerning important points of view and valid aims, but he seems to have been too far-sighted and impetuous to lay due stress upon the means and levers necessary for the attainment of ends.

For the moment he sought to drown remembrance of his abortive journey in study. He became absorbed in Latin works; he read Livy, Cicero’s de natura deorum, which compelled his reverential admiration, Virgil’s Æneid, and the comedies of Terence. Besides, he busied himself with Schrökh’s universal history and with his Wieland, whose “Sympathies,” “Golden Mirror,” and other works “delighted, refreshed, and fascinated” him “inexpressibly.” The Talmud and Hebrew studies claimed no less attention; he was especially zealous about the exegesis of the Earlier Prophets. Downcast by reason of the uncertainty of his future, and his scorn piqued by the pettiness and narrow-mindedness of his provincial surroundings, he found an outlet for his restlessness in all sorts of wanton pranks, such as high-spirited youths are apt to perpetrate in their “storm and stress” period. He ridiculed the rabbi, played tricks on the directors of the congregation, annoyed the burgomaster, always escaping unpunished, and even horrified his parents by accesses of latitudinarianism, such as the following. On the day before the eve of the Atonement Day, it is a well-known custom for men to swing a living rooster and for women to swing a living hen several times about their heads. At the same time a short prayer is recited, pleading that the punishment due for the sins committed by the petitioner be transferred to the devoted fowl. At the approach of the holy season, Graetz announced that he would certainly not comply with the Kapores custom, but his words were taken to be idle boastfulness. The fateful evening came, and the seriocomic celebration was long delayed by the non-appearance of the eldest son. The father’s wrath was kindled, and he threatened to burn all books other than Hebrew found in the possession of his heretic offspring. The mother set out to search everywhere for her erring son. When she finally found him, he went home with her in affectionate obedience, but nothing could induce him to manipulate the rooster in the customary way. Unswung and uncursed the bird had to be carried to the butcher, and only on the following day a touching reconciliation was effected.

After the Fast, a bookdealer at Wollstein, a friend of his, who usually kept him informed about new books on Jewish subjects, sent Graetz the “Nineteen Letters by Ben Usiel,” which he had longed to possess. The book again electrified him, and he conceived the idea of offering himself as a disciple to its author, whose identity had meantime been revealed. Samson Raphael Hirsch appeared to him to be the ideal of a Jewish theologian of the time and of the confidence-inspiring teacher for whom he had yearned, to obtain from him guidance and, if possible, a solution of the manifold problems occupying his mind. Accordingly, Graetz wrote to the District Rabbi (Landesrabbiner) of Oldenburg. He did not conceal his views, but clearly and frankly laid bare the state of his feelings and the course of his intellectual development. He was successful. After a short time, Hirsch addressed the following letter to him:

“My dear young Friend:--With pleasure I am ready to fulfill, as far as in me lies, the wish expressed in your letter to me. You know the sentence of our sages, יותר משעגל רוצה לינק הפרה רוצה להניק {Hebrew: Yoter mishe’egel rotzeh linak, haparah rotzah l’hanik},[6] and if, as I should gladly infer from your letter, the views therein expressed are more than an evanescent mood; if it is your resolute determination to study Torah for its own sake, you are most cordially welcome, and I shall expect to see you after פסח הבע''ל {Hebrew: Pesach haba aleynu l’tovah}.[7] But I have one request to make. In the ardor of your feelings, you have conceived an ideal picture of the author of the ‘Letters’ by far exceeding the real man in size. Reduce the picture by half, by three-fourths, indeed, and ask yourself whether you are still attracted by it. Do not expect to find an accomplished master, but a student occupied with research. If your heart still says yes, then come. I should like to be informed as soon as possible, whether I may expect you after Pessach, as I shall have to modify another relation accordingly. Be kind enough, too, if you have no objection, to let me know how you expect to support yourself here. I trust that you will neither take umbrage at this question nor misconstrue it. It was put only because I wanted to express my willingness to assist you as much as I can during your stay here, if it should be necessary. Therefore, I beg you to be as frank and unreserved in your answer as I ventured to be in my question. With kindest regards, etc.

Oldenburg, December 26, ’36.”

To this letter Graetz replied, that he did say “yes” from the bottom of his heart; that it was his dearest ambition to devote himself to genuine Judaism and its doctrines; that he especially desired to learn the methods of Talmud study, particularly of the Halakha, pursued by a man whom he admired profoundly; that as for his livelihood, the satisfaction of the most elementary needs sufficed for him; and that his parents would give him a small allowance.

In answer thereto, the formal invitation to come to Oldenburg was extended by Hirsch on February I, 1837. He offered Graetz board and lodging in his own house, with the understanding that his parents would provide for other needs, and he expected his disciple after Passover (in May). Wishing to visit relatives on the way and see the sights of Berlin and Leipsic, Graetz set out as early as the beginning of April. In Berlin the museum and the picture-gallery made a deep impression upon him. That he was a remarkably sharp observer is shown in the following accurate characterization of the preacher Solomon Plessner, with whom he became acquainted in Berlin:

“This famous man I also visited, and I found attractive features indicative of acuteness, but a neglected exterior and careless, ungrammatical speech, not guiltless of the Jewish sing-song (mauscheln). This surprises me, for his language in his sermons is pure and choice. He is between forty and fifty years old, wears a beard, and seems to be honestly and genuinely religious. But his manner is excited; he speaks with rapid utterance, all the while running to and fro and arranging his books absent-mindedly.”

In Leipsic he visited his countryman Fürst, concerning whom he reports:

“A little man whose face was familiar to me from my childhood days came towards me. I handed him the letter given me by his mother. He said indifferently: I shall write in a few days. But when I told him the goal and purpose of my journey, and showed him the letters [from Hirsch], his attitude changed, and he talked with me in a very friendly way. Finally, when he recognized that I was not an ignoramus, he confided several matters to me, told me about his scientific adversaries, and boasted that he had taught Gesenius, that he had become reconciled with Ewald, that the greatest scholars corresponded with him, etc.... Our conversation grew more and more confidential, and finally we parted as friends. He invited me to visit him again, if I changed my mind and staid over פסח {Hebrew: Pesach}.... In case I did not remain, I had to promise that I would enter into correspondence with him.... I was particularly pleased to find, that Fürst has no intention of accepting baptism, and that he means to promote the cause of Judaism.... To work for Judaism, he says, is the prime obligation of every Jew that devotes himself to study, by which he means strictly scientific, possibly also philologic study.”

In order not to fritter away all his time while traveling, Graetz began to study Greek, and the Greek conjugations served to beguile dreary hours, banishing remembrance of the mishaps that could not fail to befall one with straitened means on so long a journey, and counteracting the despondency which in consequence often seized upon him. In a miserable village, in which he was forced to spend a whole day on account of the Sabbath, he found a copy of the New Testament, and read it for the first time. He describes the impression made upon him by this first reading in the following words:

“Despite the many absurdities and inconsistencies, the mildness of the character of Jesus attracted me; at the same time I was repelled, so that I was altogether confused.”

On May 8, finally, he arrived in Oldenburg, where a new world opened before him.

In Samson Raphael Hirsch he met a man whose spiritual elevation and noble character compelled his profound reverence, and who fully realized all the expectations that he had harbored concerning him. Hirsch was a man of modern culture, and his manner was distinguished, even aristocratic, although he kept aloof from all social intercourse. He was short of stature, yet those who came in contact with him were strongly impressed by his external appearance, on account of his grave, dignified demeanor, forbidding familiarity. With great intellectual gifts and rare qualities of the heart, he combined varied theological attainments and an excellent classical education. Comprehensive or deep ideas cannot be said to have been at his disposal, but he scintillated with original observations and suggestive sallies, which put his new pupil into a fever of enthusiasm. He was the only teacher from whom Graetz’s self-centered being received scientific stimulation; perhaps the only man to exercise, so far as the stubborn peculiarity of Graetz’s nature permitted it, permanent influence upon his reserved, independent character.

On his arrival in Oldenburg, the new-comer was most kindly received by Hirsch, and was at once installed in his house, of which thenceforth he was an inmate. Instruction was begun on the very next day. The forenoons were devoted to the Talmud, the late afternoons to the Psalms. The disciple was singularly attracted and stimulated, fairly elevated by the brilliant, penetrating method applied to the exegesis of these works. Plan, order, and coherence were now imposed upon his scientific acquirements. Hirsch took true fatherly interest in his protegé; he exerted himself to discipline his mind and fix his moral and religious standards. At the same time, as though even then a suspicion of the unusual force and talent of this youth panting for knowledge and instruction had dawned upon him, he guarded against assuming the airs of a domineering pedagogue. Despite the difference in age between them he treated him as an equal. He was endowed with truly marvelous power to stir his disciple’s soul-life to its depths. Every chord of Graetz’s being was set in vibration, and he solemnly vowed to remain a true son and an honest adherent of Judaism under all circumstances. Added years may have contributed to the result; but at all events it is certain that Graetz developed visibly under this master’s guidance.

The services required of him in the house of his teacher were mainly those of an assistant. He accompanied the District Rabbi on his tours of inspection, the tedium of their journeys being relieved with discussions on Talmudic and Biblical subjects. He revised with Hirsch the last part of the latter’s “Horeb,” helped him read the proof of the last sheets of the book, which delighted and thrilled the young man, and assisted him in various similar ways. How flattering an opinion the punctilious rabbi must have held of his assistant is proved by the fact, that when he had to go to a resort for the restoration of his undermined health, he authorized him to render decisions on questions of religious law (שאלות {Hebrew: Sh’eylot}) during his absence. The assistant fulfilled his duties so conscientiously that the responsibility oppressed him. He confessed that he had imagined the rendering of correct decisions much easier. His enthusiasm burst into flame when he received the following affectionate letter from Hirsch:

“My dear Graetz:--I still owe you cordial thanks for your kind lines. I am delighted to hear that you are industrious, and that you keep to my time-schedule so well. Continue to study, for I, on my part, shall soon have forgotten how to study, and literally shall have to begin to learn all over again. Before my departure, I wanted to call your attention to something, and I do now what I then forgot. I have frequently seen you read the works of Bayle. They are a treasury of learning, and much information can be derived from them, but the man takes peculiar pleasure in laying stress upon דברי ערוה {Hebrew: Divrei ervah};[8] things of that kind are טמא {Hebrew: tamei} and מטמא {Hebrew: M’tamei}[9]. Pass lightly over such passages; they are unprofitable and harmful; read only what is purely scientific. Follow my advice, etc., etc.”

Such friendly and tactful admonitions, permitting the pupil to follow out his own bent, were always employed by Hirsch, and they but served to enkindle Graetz’s enthusiasm anew. In spite of the young man’s critical propensities combined with a sanguine temperament, his devoted attachment to his master by no means waned under the strain of daily intimate intercourse, not even when he could no longer doubt his ideal’s lack of historic depth and scientific, or rather philosophic insight. Graetz’s nature strongly impelled him to form friendships, and his attachments were fervent. He always felt a lively interest in what went on about him, and even at that early time he was fond of taking an active part in shaping the occurrences of the day, whenever he thought, that by assuming the rôle of Providence he might be useful to his friends in the ordering of their affairs--a disposition that redounded later to the benefit of many of his pupils. In January, 1837, for instance, the belated news reached him from his home, with which he kept up a steady correspondence, that the Chief Rabbi Akiba Eger had died in Posen. Without being commissioned to do so, he wrote to the directors of the Posen congregation, and brought Hirsch, whose yearning for a wide sphere of activity he knew, to their notice. When the directors entered into negotiations with Hirsch he broke out into jubilation. In fact, a party favoring the pretensions of the Oldenburg District Rabbi formed in Posen, but nothing more resulted. The procedure was repeated when the Wollstein rabbinate fell vacant in 1840, except that Hirsch, to his disciple’s great disappointment, would not share Graetz’s enthusiasm for Wollstein. From this it appears that Graetz was not a recluse nor a bookworm. In Oldenburg, as everywhere, he sought to meet people and cultivate friendly intercourse with them, and his joyous nature readily yielded to the innocent gayety of social pleasures.

At the same time he neglected neither his duties nor his studies. While with Hirsch he acquired the English language, and finding some Syriac books in the rabbi’s library, he began to devote himself to Syriac. The study of the former language his master seems to have encouraged, but not of the latter. Hirsch met his disciple with uniform kindness, and returned his enthusiastic devotion with fatherly benevolence. Graetz was treated as a member of his family. In the third year of his Oldenburg sojourn, his relations with the mistress of the house were disturbed by slight discords, such as cannot fail to arise in long-continued, familiar intercourse, and tend now to strengthen, now to abridge intimacy. With Graetz’s proud sense of independence they finally sufficed to ruffle the tranquillity of a soul wholly absorbed by the present. Anxiety about his future began to disquiet him. The desire to decide definitely upon a career and the longing to see his parents, who in the meantime had removed from Zerkow to Kosten near Posen, a somewhat larger town, united to make his departure from Oldenburg seem advisable.

III.
THE JOURNEYMAN.

The adieux were said with touching cordiality, and after an absence of more than three years Graetz set his face homeward, and arrived in Kosten in the middle of August, 1840. The younger people everywhere received Hirsch’s disciple with joyous welcome, and induced him to preach at Wollstein, Kosten, and Zerkow. His sermons, to be sure, did not transport his audiences with enthusiasm, but they were ample guarantees of the preacher’s fund of knowledge and originality. All his friends, therefore, agreed, that it would be advisable for Graetz to “study,” in the technical sense of the German word, that is, go through the university and obtain a degree. They adduced the fact that the smaller congregations at least, such as Wreschen, Wollstein, and Kosten, in part had appointed “graduate rabbis” (studirte Rabbiner), in part had resolved to fill their rabbinates with them.

To secure means for a university course, he agreed to accept a position as tutor in Ostrowo, and entered upon his work at the end of 1840. Ostrowo is a little town in the south-eastern part of the Province, the seat of a large Jewish community, which at the time was still completely under the sway of the graceless habits of Ghetto life. Graetz felt thoroughly uncomfortable. His position in the house at which he was engaged to teach did not please him, and in the town he found no one with whom he cared to cultivate friendly intercourse. He had submitted to tutoring, by no means an arduous occupation, in order to lay by money, but he lacked financial talent and the ability to economize. In fact, his devotion to his family connections, his good nature, and his improvidence involved him in pecuniary embarrassments so serious that the monologues in his diary overflow with pessimistic, melancholy reflections. He sought indemnification in frequent excursions to neighboring towns, in composing a Hebrew biography of Mishna teachers under the title תולדות אבות {Hebrew: Toldot Avot},[10] and, it appears, in reading the works of the Fathers of the Church. On one of his little trips, the occasion being the betrothal of a friend of his, he met the sister of the fiancée, a very young girl, who attracted and pleased him, and who was destined to exert decisive and salutary influence upon his life. The meeting acted like a soothing charm upon his ill-humor, though he was far from anticipating the consequences it bore. He remained in his position at Ostrowo for one year and a half, until July, 1842, when a trivial occurrence ruptured the irksome relation in a manner not altogether pleasant.

Now he went straightway to Breslau to the University. As he had not been graduated from a Gymnasium, Graetz had to obtain ministerial permission to attend the University. His petition was granted, and, in October, 1842, he was matriculated. With reverential awe and expectation the self-taught student entered the mysterious lecture halls consecrated to pure science, only to leave them shrugging his shoulders at the wisdom proclaimed, disappointed, his longings unsatisfied. The knowledge of which he was master when he began his University course was richer and more varied than ordinary students are likely to start with, and though it was not systematically ordered nor well-balanced, it formed a unit, and had already begun to crystallize about a center. His apprenticeship years, in short, were over; the maturity of his views and his judgment is unmistakable.

While at the University, he heard lectures on a wide variety of subjects--on history, philosophy, Oriental languages, even physics--but it does not appear that any left deep traces upon his mind. Even Professor Bernstein, an Orientalist of considerable reputation, who drew him into the circle of his close associates, did not understand how to kindle his pupil’s zeal, usually so impetuous, for the thorough study of Syriac and Arabic. Apparently Graetz had relinquished the ambition to gain mastery of them. The only one to have success was Professor Braniss, a philosopher in high esteem in his day, with whom also Graetz cultivated intimate relations. He at all events must have been instrumental in acquainting him with the Hegelian system of philosophy, and in imbuing him with the recognition, that even in the world of liberty, that is, man’s world of mental endeavor, phases of development succeed each other in conformity with absolute laws, chiefly of an ideal, non-mechanical nature; that therefore the spiritual powers that produce the history of mankind by the realization of ever higher ideas not only follow their indwelling laws, but at the same time submit unconditionally to the law of cause and effect; and that the paradox of opposites, the principle of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, is particularly helpful in the consideration of historical phenomena.

Though Graetz was immersed in his studies, he did not fail to give close attention to the occurrences in the Breslau Jewish community. The events happening there in those days were not merely of local interest. They cast their light and their shadow far beyond the Silesian frontier, and were the cause of intense excitement in all Jewish circles of Germany. In Breslau the orthodox and the reform views of Judaism for the first time rushed at each other with full force in the struggle for supremacy. Storm and conflict raged violently between the old and the new. Blind to the conditions of the time, orthodoxy stubbornly opposed a non possumus to every offer looking to an adjustment of difficulties. The representatives of the two parties, the orthodox Solomon Tiktin on the one side and the progressive Abraham Geiger on the other, sought to get the better of each other with remorseless acrimony. Geiger won the upper hand, and even the disruption of the Breslau congregation caused by Tiktin’s defeat did not derogate from the reform champion’s victory.

Dr. Abraham Geiger should be classed among the most prominent rabbis of his time. The modern development of the religious life had been proceeding quietly though steadily, when it was convulsed to its depths by the storm announced by his first appearance upon the rabbinical scene. As a speaker and as a writer he handled a popular style with masterful skill, which manifested itself in felicitous copiousness rather than in the concentration of precise, forcible language. One of the best pulpit orators among Jews, he succeeded in holding attention and stimulating thought by his simple manner and brilliant turns of expression. His published sermons, very limited in number, give not even an approximate idea of the powerful impression produced by his spoken words, totally unaided though they were by charms of person.[11] His scholarly contributions to Jewish science are of pre-eminent and of permanent value. He has rendered particularly valiant service by his researches into the history of literature, a field in which he was master. On the other hand, one sometimes misses thoroughness of scholarly culture in his early productions, especially those of the first part of his Breslau period. Besides, he was fond of obtruding his reform bias. In spite of his scientific attainments, his historical sense lacked profundity, and in spite of his great achievements in the province of modern liturgy, his appreciation of the needs and emotions of the people’s spiritual life was neither sufficiently delicate nor sufficiently intense. At bottom he was a doctrinaire rationalist. His religious program and aims, too, were not clearly and definitely put forth. For example, his attitude towards the radical currents at that time rolling their destructive waves over Judaism amounted to more than benevolent neutrality. The observer cannot ward off the impression, that he was inclined to steer straight for ethical deism, and was restrained only by opportunist reasons. At this above all Graetz took umbrage, and by and by his antipathy to Geiger was complete. A good deal of sham and tinsel had probably slipped into the various tentative organizations which Geiger endeavored to call into existence; perhaps they were unavoidable concomitants of such efforts. It is possible, too, that the unpleasant impression was reinforced by a tendency to officiousness observable in Geiger--at worst a pardonable foible. As Graetz was constituted, he felt so strong a repugnance to humbug and pretense that he exercised neither forbearance nor consideration towards such faults. He visited Geiger only once, possibly twice. Immediately after Graetz had made himself at home in the lecture-rooms of his department, he paid his respects to the two rabbinical party-leaders. The entry in his diary is as follows:

“I have made the acquaintance of Rabbi Tiktin. With what reverence I used to stand and look at the mail-clad names of the Tiktins on the first pages of רי''פים {Hebrew: Rifim}![12] As Charlemagne in his iron armor kept all intruders at a becoming distance, so the dignity of those theologic knights seemed to me to be enhanced by the long beards and the imposing Spanish canes[13] and the Talmudic dust. There was I sitting next to a descendant of those rabbinical נפילים {Hebrew: Nefilim}.[14] Ah! what a falling-off there has been! Tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis. To be sure, there is still the stately stature, still the Spanish cane. But the ensemble, a something not to be defined in words, is missing. Next to the rabbi, nolentes volentes, I place Dr. Geiger, a spare little man. Why he was so very kind to me I do not know. Of Hirsch we have not yet spoken, and probably shall not speak. But to what depths we have sunk! In the presence of fifty Jews, headed by a רב {Hebrew: Rav}, Dr. Freund[15] dares utter words like “rabbinically erratic inferences.” Cicero and Plato, then, are to be read as antidotes to rabbinical perversions. Zounds! And to-day Geiger delivered his first lecture on the Mishna. The Mishna is a collection of religious notions, as they were formed and developed from the Exile to R. Jehuda Hanassi. What insane logic!”

When, in March, 1843, the stiff-necked, tenacious champion of an effete form of Judaism, the lion-warrior Solomon Tiktin, last representative of a race of Talmudic heroes, wounded to the quick by his defeat, was removed from the scene by death, Geiger stood at the zenith of his fame. Since many a day no rabbi’s name had been so well-known as Geiger’s in all the extent of German Jewry, none was so frequently mentioned. In Silesia there was no more popular rabbi, and in Breslau his word was potent, influential, and feared by his adversaries. His scientific eminence was generally acknowledged; his eloquence dominated the pulpit no less than the minds of his hearers. Who dared attack him was badly used, and bore ridicule as well as injury from the fray.

In the course of the year 1844, the first signs of a slowly crystallizing reaction became noticeable. Various germinating forces looking to the formation of a new theologic party on a conservative platform consolidated in that year under the leadership of Zacharias Frankel. From this place and that, single barbed arrows, followed by more and sharper ones, winged by irony and hard to parry, came whizzing through the air, striking Geiger and his followers in the most sensitive spots. A well-known weekly Jewish journal, Der Orient, under the editorship of Dr. Fürst, published reports of the more important occurrences in the Breslau community. The descriptions of the anonymous correspondent were graphic, pungent, and critical. The articles naturally aroused attention. In Breslau, as they continued to appear week after week, they created a veritable sensation. The two parties looked forward to each issue of the “Orient” with equal expectancy, though otherwise with opposite feelings. In the orthodox camp there was exultation. At last an expert writer had appeared, who laid bare all sorts of evils fearlessly and unsparingly, and who seemed to serve the cause of conservatism by his bold opposition to Geiger. But who was the archer that sped his arrow with aim so true and poise so elegant? Guesses were hazarded, a narrow search was instituted, and especially the ranks of the Jewish students of theology at that time gathered in Breslau, mostly about Geiger, were sharply inspected. It was established beyond a doubt, that it was a homo novus, a student from the Province--Graetz, who, proudly independent of every sort of patronage, was earning a scant livelihood by giving lessons. The amazement grew when Graetz, nearly simultaneously with the just mentioned contributions to the “Orient,” published a critical review, valuable even at this late day, of Geiger’s “Textbook of the Mishnic Language.”[16] This critique, auspiciously ushering him into the scientific world,[17] was begun in the literary supplement of the “Orient” at the end of 1844, and continued as a series of articles in the following year. It gave him the opportunity of expounding his own views upon the subject and displaying advantageously a fund of information, mastery of the material, philological tact, scientific instincts, and considerable talent as a stylist. His criticism of the book is often to the point, but rather severe and not entirely free from animosity. It was characteristic of Graetz to express his opinion clearly and directly. Geiger replied to the challenge in “The Israelite of the Nineteenth Century”[18] in still more acrimonious articles, which likewise are not wholly objective. In fact, they contain approaches to personalities, and dwell upon slips and trivial details, thus demonstrating the importance attached to the appearance of his young antagonist in the arena. In any event, Graetz had drawn the attention of a wider circle to himself, and in Breslau he had become at one bound the central topic of interest in Karlsstrasse. The orthodox partisans made advances to him, although he did not for a moment leave them in doubt about his disapproval of their program and his dissent from their religious views. He told them that he was pursuing his own original ideas, and that his guiding principle was unalterable loyalty to positive Judaism. However, he restrained them from many a foolish and fanatic step. In the face of orthodox opposition Geiger had energetically organized a religious school, which was prospering. Graetz therefore advised the adherents of orthodoxy not to permit themselves to lose touch with the younger generation, but to build up a similar institution on conservative lines. The advice seems to have fallen on fruitful soil. It was intimated to the counselor, that the intention was to entrust him with the organization and superintendence of a school of that kind, provided he obtained his University degree before its opening. Besides, his name was beginning to be mentioned in connection with vacant rabbinates. It was therefore necessary to hasten his graduation. After a few weeks of severe application, he finished his thesis, De auctoritate et vi, quam gnosis in Judaismum habuerit, which secured him the doctorate from the University of Jena in April, 1845. Under the title, “Gnosticism and Judaism,”[19] the dissertation was published in that year as the first original product of his pen. The work in every respect bears the peculiar stamp of his scientific character. It is distinguished by familiarity with patristic literature; by his method of explaining Talmud statements, commonly taken to be general, as particular historical cases; by lucidity of arrangement and presentation; and by his happy gift of divining the occult relation between things, which enabled him to shed the first rays of light upon the ספר יצירה {Hebrew: Sefer Yetzirah},[20] the most enigmatic book of rabbinical literature. The thesis was received kindly, and it gave him a place in the Jewish world of scholarship.

Such surprising successes swelled the breast of the literary novice, who had worked his way to the front by arduous toil, with justifiable and happy hopes. The halcyon days of young fame, at the remembrance of which his face lighted up with pleasure even in old age, he planned to spend with his parents. On his way home he passed through Krotoschin. There, in his friend’s house, he met the half-grown girl of other days, now in the flush of young womanhood. Her image, faint though it had become in the background of his memory, had not faded entirely. She was the daughter of Monasch, the proprietor of the well-known Hebrew printing establishment. Each made a deep impression upon the other, and encouraged to believe that his future might be considered assured, Graetz did not conceal his feelings. They were requited, and the young people plighted their troth. Graetz did not suspect that he had won a strong womanly heart that would be his beacon and a prop to which he would cling for support during the dark days soon to break over him.

All sorts of vague, undefined hopes arose before his view, and some of them gradually assumed shape. The prospect of an honorable position, such as he had longed for and aspired to, seemed about to be realized. The rabbinate of Gleiwitz, one of the larger congregations of Upper Silesia, taking rank in wealth and perhaps in size after Breslau, was vacant, and the authorities were looking out for a man equipped with rabbinic lore, standing upon the height of modern culture, and favoring a sober, moderate reform movement. All entitled to a voice in the matter fixed upon Graetz, whose reputation as a writer had spread to them. He seemed the most suitable incumbent. By virtue of his native talent and his attainments, it was thought that he would be able to overrule or to meet the manifold, rather hazy views and demands of the members of the congregation. The leading spirits among them declared themselves in favor of his election. Nothing more was necessary than to attract all the other circles of the community by proving his homiletic ability in several trial sermons, the success of which seemed a foregone conclusion. Before the great Holy Days of 1845 (5606) Graetz received a Hebrew communication from the directors of the Gleiwitz congregation, couched in the most flattering terms, assuring him of the reversion of the rabbinate, and inviting him to preach the sermons in their synagogue on the Day of Atonement.

At the appointed time, on the eve of the sacred day, he ascended the pulpit, and the result was--a thoroughly unexpected fiasco, the more deplorable as it shattered his own confidence in his oratorical powers. He had forgotten his memorandum completely. Losing his presence of mind, he had to leave the pulpit after saying a few words. His friends and followers stood by him loyally, and did their utmost to secure for him the opportunity of repairing the damage. He succeeded in rehabilitating himself only partly; the ground lost could not be recovered. The surprising mishap, it must be confessed now after the lapse of time, was a stroke of good fortune for the ambitious scholar and his life-work, ungentle though the impetus was that forced him into the path for which he was peculiarly equipped and gifted. In those days of universal fermentation, the religious life of Jewish communities was crossed and agitated by opposite, confused, and stormy currents. A man of uncontrollable impulse to be active and to exert independent, direct influence whenever it might seem necessary, and prone to give utterance to his convictions in truthful, incisive, and caustic language--a quality of dubious value--would hardly have succeeded in steering his rabbinical boat among the crags of party strife, usually carried on with fanatic violence. He would either have had to become faithless to his nature and genius, or, if that were not possible, eventually be wrecked. At best, in case he had a high degree of tact and prudence at his disposal, he would have consumed his finest powers in putting more or less salutary measures into effect on a restricted field. Graetz, who knew himself thoroughly, had always feared that he would not be in his proper place in a rabbinical position. From the first he had felt a shrinking at the thought of the duties and responsibilities of a rabbi. A few days before he left for Gleiwitz he wrote in his diary:

“Of all positions I am least adapted for that of rabbi; in every way I lack force of manner, an imposing presence. My knowledge, too, is highly defective, but my will is strong, energetic. If God’s service can be performed by an instrument of such caliber, then here am I ready for it, body and soul. But the preaching!”

In very truth the preacher’s Pegasus serves the noble enthusiasm of the elect willingly and ardently, and as willingly lends his back to mediocrity to execute more or less doubtful tricks before the eyes and ears of the many-headed crowd. Graetz it threw in the critical moment, and the fall affected him deeply and painfully. He who only a short time before, almost without effort, had won literary triumphs, and who as a rule shrank from no difficult undertaking, now despaired of ever being able to wield the living word with the power with which he directed the pen. In fact, he had been denied the external qualifications of an orator. It cannot be said to have been his appearance that stood in the way of success; he was of average height and well-knit frame. But in loud speech his voice lacked modulation, and his manner was ineffectual. Above all, he was incapable of posing; in his character there was not the slightest trace of the actor, who, as Goethe says, “might give points to a preacher.”

IV.
SCHOLAR AND TEACHER.

The above incident put a hopeless end to all the prospects he had entertained. Again care for his daily bread stalked by his side like a specter. The most deplorable aspect of his case was that his strength did not emerge from this severe contest, as from former ones, steeled and braced by cheering hopes for the future. Besides, he reproached himself for having drawn another and a beloved person into his forlorn life. Then the high-mindedness and unselfish devotion of the woman of his choice sustained him, refreshing his weary soul with consolation and encouragement, and calming the tumult of his wounded feelings. His animal spirits rose again under the stimulus of an honorable invitation, extended by Zacharias Frankel, to join a conference of conservative rabbis called by him to meet at Dresden in September,[21] 1846, for the purpose of discussing the religious problems of the day and uniting for concerted action.

At the very beginning of his career in Dresden, Dr. Zacharias Frankel had developed fruitful activity in connection with the removal of the political and civil disabilities, especially with regard to oaths, under which his coreligionists in Saxony were laboring. None the less he was essentially a scholar. Master of comprehensive knowledge of the Talmud, which he had acquired with critical thoroughness, he laid the foundations for the modern analysis of this work of literature. He made it his life-task to promote the scientific study of the Talmud and trace the evolution of the Halakha. The first-fruits of his literary endeavor betrayed the serious, thorough scholar by the accuracy, the scrupulous nicety, and the trustworthiness of his research, and secured for him a high and undisputed position in the scientific world. When the reform agitation within the Jewish community of Germany developed into a rapid stream whose waters grew more and more turbulent; when, on the one side, rabbinical conferences were planned for the purpose of systematizing and sanctioning projected innovations, and, on the other, distrust of the progressive leaders inspired the fear that the resolutions and professions of such assemblies might throw dangerous, inflammable material into the different congregations; Frankel deemed it prudent to give up his reserve and actively influence the religious movement. In 1844, accordingly, he began to publish the quarterly “Journal for the Religious Interests of Judaism.”[22] It was to bear a strictly scientific character, and at the same time discuss the religious topics of the day. A sober, experienced, and tolerant theologian, Frankel held the position, that in matters of faith as in the other concerns of life the exigencies of the times have to be considered, but that concessions to the modern spirit may not remove us from historic ground, and that all modifications must result from a scientific appreciation of the essence and traditions of Judaism.

All this appealed strongly to Graetz, and no sooner had he come into public notice, in the year following the first appearance of the journal, than he sought to establish relations with Frankel. The latter met his advances with cordiality, and invited the young scholar to become a contributor to his quarterly review. Graetz responded with a brilliant and suggestive article, “The Septuagint in the Talmud.”[23] It affords a striking example of his peculiar method of comparing Talmud and Midrash passages with each other and with the statements and quotations of the Fathers of the Church, thus determining the historical elements of the Talmudic account and building theories upon it. In the same year (1845), Frankel had gone to Frankfort-on-the-Main, to the second rabbinical conference, with the hope of infusing a spirit of moderation and conciliation into its proceedings and measures. But he abandoned the hope on the passage of the resolution, that the retention of Hebrew as the language of the synagogue service was only “advisable,” not “essential” (objektiv-nothwendig). He, therefore, withdrew from the conference in a public manner, and justified his action in a formal declaration, equally dignified and firm.

On all sides Frankel’s course met with hearty approval. Its effect was to startle the conservatives of every shade of opinion out of their apathy. Numerous prominent communities sent him flattering addresses, conveying their thanks and their unreserved commendation of his resolute policy. Graetz had written an enthusiastic document, which was circulated in Breslau, and was quickly covered with signatures. In collecting them, he had not been able to resist the malicious prompting to secure the names of notorious adherents of Geiger. The latter had taken deep offense at Frankel’s secession, and had been betrayed into abuse by his declaration. It is impossible to say now, why Frankel did not at once utilize the disposition in his favor to gather a large conservative party about himself. Only in the following year, 1846, he took steps looking to this end. He issued invitations to the conservative theologians of modern bias, summoning them to a convention at Dresden, with the purpose perhaps of devising an effective opposition to the third reform conference of rabbis to meet at Breslau in July of the same year. But even this effort was not made with the energy characteristic of Frankel and necessary to accomplish the desired result. When Graetz arrived in Dresden in September, 1846, he was amazed to find that no one else had put in appearance. Samson Raphael Hirsch, at that time District Rabbi of Emden, had from the first refused co-operation with the movement, inasmuch as he denied the authority, natural or conferred, of the modern rabbi to modify the religious cult. Rapoport of Prague had declined the invitation for reasons not specified. It is well-known that his interests were enlisted only in scientific pursuits. Michael Sachs of Berlin had excused himself on the plea of routine duties. For most of the others the time and place of convention were not convenient. To sue for support was out of the question with Frankel’s aristocratic temperament. It was repugnant to him, or he did not know how, to create sentiment in his own favor by agitation or self-advertisement. He could not attract a party to his leadership by seductive wiles, nor infuse fanatic factionalism into its ranks. Relying solely on the justice of his cause, and appealing exclusively to the convictions of his followers, he scorned petty tricks and artifices. That Graetz was the only one to render unconditional obedience to his summons must naturally have produced a deep impression upon him. The two men, so different in years, disposition, and endowments, but at one in views and aims, were brought close to each other by the personal meeting. By tacit agreement they became companions in arms from that moment unto the end. Graetz, at all events, recognizing that their religious principles approximated each other, was resolved to take his position in theological affairs by Frankel’s side, whenever so doing involved no loss of independence. Frankel in turn evinced a sense of their religious affinity by conferring upon Graetz, at his request, the formal authorization for the exercise of rabbinical functions התרת הוראה ({Hebrew: Hatarat hora’ah}). At the end of 1846, Frankel gave up the publication of his journal to save his strength for a better future. To this third and last annual series, Graetz had contributed, besides several reviews, one of his important treatises, that discussing “The Construction of Jewish History”[24] in several articles. Bright and vivid in style and replete with fine thoughts which even homiletes drew upon in various ways, the essay defines clearly and sharply the considerations and points of view of essential importance in a complete presentation of Jewish history. But the author was still so prejudiced in favor of the technically philosophic terminology and conceptions of his time that he was betrayed into giving undue prominence to the transcendence of God as compared with the monotheistic idea.

Though Graetz had won high respect by his scholarly productions especially in theologic circles, he vainly looked about for a position, no matter how modest, in which to strike root. At last the sky seemed to grow brighter; he was cheered by the prospect of soon being able to establish a home of his own, a prospect that proved a fata morgana. By the end of 1846 the orthodox party in Breslau resumed energetic operations. They had accepted as their rabbi Gedaliah, the son of the deceased Solomon Tiktin, who had inherited from his father only his tall stature, and they were preparing to open a religious school for the propaganda of their principles. Its organization and superintendence were entrusted to Graetz.[25] The Breslau community was no longer a unit, the orthodox members having separated from the congregation. But the seceders had no legally valid right to form a body corporate. Moreover, on July 23, 1847, the law defining the status of the Prussian Jews appeared, and it could not be determined how conditions would be modified by it. Wealthy individuals in their private capacity therefore assumed responsibility in the business contracts of the orthodox party, particularly in the matter of the new school. Then the political storms of 1848 swept over the Prussian provinces. Economic disturbances occurred, and apprehensive of still more serious ones, the wealthy patrons of the orthodox party recalled their pledges. The complete collapse of the religious school followed as the first sacrifice in orthodox circles claimed by the political flood, whose waves carried destructive change to the most remote relations between men. Graetz was again left stranded, without an occupation, without a livelihood.

At that time all eyes were turned towards Vienna, where the popular uprising had assumed vast dimensions and won surprising victories. Democracy stood in battle array, and had gained possession of the Austrian capital. It was fondly hoped that the fortune of war would decide there in favor of the democratic party. A friend of Graetz, Dr. B. Friedmann,[26] later rabbi in Mannheim, was at that time prominent in Breslau as an effective popular speaker, and was a member of the editorial staff of the democratic organ, the Oderzeitung. By his intervention the curious proposition was made to Graetz to go to Vienna as correspondent of the journal just mentioned. In his forlorn state he acquiesced, though not without reluctance. On his journey to Vienna, he felt impelled to leave the direct route and stop off at Nikolsburg to pay a visit to his former teacher, Samson Raphael Hirsch, who had meantime resigned the District Rabbinate of Emden for that of Nikolsburg. Letters had passed between them constantly since the Oldenburg days, and although Graetz was not in sympathy with the rigidly traditional point of view occupied by Hirsch, and no longer viewed the theologic attitude of his old guide with youthful enthusiasm, but rather with critical, sober judgment, their friendly relations of other times had suffered no diminution in cordiality. Graetz’s love and reverence for Hirsch had not in the least evaporated, and Hirsch still felt strongly attracted to the younger man. He was not disposed to sanction his project of going to Vienna, the hot-bed of revolution, and Graetz, who had little love and desire for the calling of a political reporter, was easily persuaded to stay in Nikolsburg and content himself with a subordinate place at the religious school of the town. In the background, to be sure, the reversion of a teacher’s position at a theologic seminary, projected and seriously considered by Hirsch, loomed up before him.

Hirsch had long cherished the idea of founding a Jewish theologic institute. He shared this dear ambition with the other prominent rabbis of his generation, who hoped thus to further their wish to perpetuate each one his own theologic bias. The establishment of a theologic seminary was, in fact, one of the burning questions of the day. Nikolsburg, where a popular Talmud school had flourished from time immemorial, seemed to lend itself to the execution of Hirsch’s plan. It was only necessary to use the existing institution as a foundation, make the proper changes in its management, and infuse the new spirit into it. Graetz was at once induced by his patron to give a course of lectures on Jewish history to the students at Nikolsburg, who were well versed in the Talmud, but whose training had been wholly dialectic. The character of his auditors suggested the subject to the lecturer. He treated the time of the Mishna and the Talmud, a period of which he had previously made a thorough study, and to which he again devoted serious research with a view to his academic purpose. Despite the zeal with which he applied himself to his lectures and studies, his main expectation suffered disappointment. The painfulness of his precarious position became more pronounced as time passed. The fanatics of the Nikolsburg Ghetto found fault even with the scrupulously religious conduct of their District Rabbi; as for his disciple, he went up and down among them a strange, repellant figure. Denunciations led the local authorities to suspect him of democratic leanings, and he was thus branded with the darkest stigma that could be fastened upon any one, but particularly upon a foreigner, in the Austria of that day. All the influence possessed by his friends had to be exerted to ward off ugly complications and immediate expulsion.

It became more and more evident that the rabbinical seminary, upon which Graetz had staked all his hopes, was only a bubble. Whether the circumstances of place and time were unpropitious, or whether Hirsch dropped the plan for other reasons, is doubtful.[27] Moreover, the friendly relations between the two men began to be somewhat strained. Therefore, the proposal to undertake the organization and superintendence of a school, made him by the directors of the Jewish community of Lundenburg, a little town in the Nikolsburg district in the neighborhood of Vienna, was hailed by Graetz as release from an untenable position. Negotiations were quickly concluded, and on September 12, 1850, he was appointed director and superintendent of the Jewish school at Lundenburg.

Before entering upon the duties of his office he hastened home, and in the beginning of October, 1850, solemnized his marriage with the loyal woman whose patience had never failed, who had never been discouraged by hope deferred, and had never lost confidence in his ability. He could not have found a truer, a braver comrade than the wife who shared the fortunes of the rest of his career. By her harmonious, temperate, and loving nature, she not only glorified his home and cheered cloudy days, but also restrained his impetuous disposition, and moderated his proneness to sharp, caustic, aggressive words. She understood the needs of his inmost soul, in the recesses of which a reverberation was sometimes heard as of vague, unfulfilled longings. His personality was made up of many an incommensurable factor that baffled explanation. With all his communicativeness he was reserved; the most intimate emotions of his heart were never revealed. To outsiders he always appeared wholly unruffled and serene, and no one suspected the thoughts and feelings stormily surging through his being under its placid surface. But in order to preserve his equanimity, he stood in need of frank expression to some one or in some way. It was the outlet and the purification of the easily excited and strongly reacting emotions of a nature responding quickly to external pressure. Probably the leaves of his diary served this purpose; most of them were written under the stimulus of tense passion. From the day of his marriage the record becomes more and more attenuated, until it ceases entirely. In his life-companion he had found the responsive being devoted to him in boundless veneration and sympathy, whose sentiments were a perfect echo, clearer usually than the original sound, of his thought and feeling. And as she took part in his soul-life, so she shared in his intellectual plans. She made her husband’s scientific interests her own, and in his scholarly research afforded him the efficient help of a careful assistant.

The new principal began his work in Lundenburg on October 15 with zeal and love for his task--he superintended, classified, taught, and delivered solemn addresses. Apparently success was not lacking, for he met with encouraging applause. In the shelter of his modest but happy home, he resumed his literary plans and work. While preparing his Nikolsburg lectures, he had gathered together an abundance of material on the Talmudic era, which he now meant to put to use.

Before long, however, gray clouds cast a shadow on his idyllic condition. The relation between him and Hirsch almost suffered an open breach. When the newly married couple came to Nikolsburg to pay their respects to him, Hirsch demanded that the young wife, in accordance with a Talmudic custom, cover her beautiful hair with a sort of wig, called Scheitel. She resisted the bidding politely but firmly, with the pride of an offended woman. Graetz upheld his wife energetically, and the two parties separated little pleased with each other. The low-hanging mist apt to develop in the atmosphere of narrow, undisciplined Ghetto life, particularly in a small Austrian community, was more oppressive even and harder to bear. The Lundenburg rabbi, a narrow-minded Talmudist, who feared to have his fame overshadowed by Graetz’s, now and again asserted his official superiority unpleasantly. Small town rivalries were fomented to annoy the notabilities of the congregation by means of attacks upon the measures and the men they favored. Such conditions made Graetz feel by their hidden venom that unmixed joy is the portion of no mortal, least of all of the principal of an Austrian communal school. Denunciations of him were again rife. Those before the district court representing him as a democrat incarnate were particularly troublesome. Happily the charges were dismissed without in the least injuring him.

The year 1851 heightened his happiness; it brought him the joys of fatherhood. A daughter was born to him, the only one in a family of five children. His relation to her was always peculiarly close and affectionate. In the same year Zacharias Frankel re-entered the theologic arena with a monthly journal, which, unlike his earlier venture, the Zeitschrift, was to be devoted first and foremost to scientific interests. Graetz received a most honorable invitation to become a contributor, and he gladly ranged himself under Frankel’s banner. In quick succession he published in the first year of the “Monthly Journal for the History and Science of Judaism”[28] (October, 1851–December, 1852) a series of historical monographs: “Jewish Historical Studies;”[29] a review of Rapoport’s Encyclopedia; “Talmudic Chronology and Topography;”[30] and “The Removable Highpriests of the Second Temple Period”[31]--all of which evinced great erudition, clear grasp of the subject, and mature judgment. They are of the nature of special studies in preparation and as a foundation for a connected account of the events from the downfall of the Jewish state until the completion of the Talmud. He had long cherished the idea of such a work, and he now reduced it to writing with great rapidity.

In the meantime, in the course of the year 1852, the complexion of the district court seems to have changed, or the wind was blowing from another quarter; at all events, Graetz suddenly and with painful surprise became aware that unceasing intrigues and malicious denunciations had at last taken effect upon the district governor. He found himself exposed to serious annoyances and humiliations. No effort to ward them off promising success, he resigned his position at Lundenburg.

He felt impelled to return to his native Prussia, and determined to remove to Berlin with his family. The decision was inspired by the hope of easily finding in the capital a publisher for his history of the Talmudic epoch, which was almost ready for the press. He was furthermore actuated by the consideration, that in the prosecution of the plan of writing a complete history of the Jews, already taking shape in his mind, he could not well do without the libraries to be found only in large cities. In the latter half of September, 1852, he arrived in Berlin, and was kindly received by Dr. Michael Sachs and other friends willing to serve him. Through Dr. Sachs he became acquainted with the excellent Dr. Veit, who undertook the publication of his work. During the winter semester 1852–53 the directors of the Berlin congregation invited him to deliver, for a honorarium, a number of historical lectures before students of Jewish theology, in a course in which the other speakers were Zunz and Sachs. His lectures were received with approval.[32] At the close of one of them, delivered in the middle of February, he was approached by Joseph Lehmann, railway director and editor of a journal in good standing, “Magazine for Foreign Literature,”[33] a man justly enjoying high respect. Acting under the instructions of the Board of Curators of the Fränkel Bequests in Breslau, Lehmann asked Graetz, whether he would be disposed to become a member of the faculty of the rabbinical seminary to be established at Breslau. At the same time he told him, that negotiations with Dr. Frankel, Chief Rabbi of Dresden, were pending with regard to the directorship, and that Frankel, among other conditions of his acceptance, had demanded Graetz’s engagement as teacher. The Board of Curators had assented cheerfully, and now desired Graetz’s answer. Graetz made his consent dependent upon Frankel’s final, favorable decision, which was received soon after. These preliminaries over, the troublesome discussions on the organization of the seminary began. In the first place, no model or scheme whatsoever existed that might serve as a guide in the organization of a rabbinical academy, with regard to such matters as the time-schedule, the curriculum, and the choice of subjects. Its creation was pioneer work, in furtherance of which there was no available experience; yet the arrangements determined upon under such peculiar circumstances were to bear within themselves the guarantee of practical and immediate success. Besides, the will of the founder, Jonas Fränkel, contained certain clauses, the execution of which, in view of the changed times, might become a menace to the new institution.[34] The plan, curriculum, and methods of the future seminary were determined by Zacharias Frankel alone, who recognized the aim to be pursued with clearness and practical insight, and so created the basis for the Jewish theology of the present. His wish to secure a professionally trained man, whose assistance might be freely drawn upon by himself and the Board of Curators, was all the more willingly complied with, as from many considerations an intermediary between the business and the pedagogic heads seemed not superfluous. Frankel had parted from Dresden with a heavy heart, and was inclined to seize the first fairly just pretense to recall his word to the Curators. Thus it came about that Graetz entered the service of the projected seminary on July 1, 1853, with the assurance of being employed, under Frankel’s directorship, as one of the principal teachers,[35] in case the statutes and the plans for the institution met with governmental approval, which seemed not at all doubtful.

V.
THE MASTER HISTORIAN.

At the same time Graetz’s book issued from the press under the title: “History of the Jews from the Downfall of the Jewish State to the Completion of the Talmud.”[36] This was really the sub-title. The chief title-page ran as follows: “History of the Jews from the Earliest Times until the Present Day. Volume IV,”[37] indicating that the author had conceived more than the first sketchy plan of a complete history of the Jews, and that the publication of the fourth volume first was merely an accident in the order of production. Beginning with the account of the Talmudic time turned out a happy hit. If the two literary events admit of comparison, Graetz’s first important work has its only counterpart in the biography of Rashi, with which Zunz, the creator of the science of Judaism, inaugurated his notable activity. The enthusiasm of Zunz’s contemporaries is said to have been kindled when Rashi, the eminent interpreter of Bible and Talmud, familiar to them from their childhood days, and esteemed an indispensable guide and companion in exegesis, appeared to them divested of the vaporous halo of supernatural glory, and translated into the sphere of human reality. Similarly the effect was electrifying when a flood of brilliant light suddenly scattered the mist of the dark epoch in which Mishna and Talmud, the authoritative books of post-Biblical Judaism, were composed, and revealed to sight life-size the rabbi-authors of those works, whose names and maxims were matter of common knowledge. The pen of our historian had charmed them out of the unreality of their existence. They had been habitually looked upon as abstractions, doctrines incarnate. Not much more had been known of them than that they had said, asked, and sometimes wailed. At best, people had been inclined to imagine them a sort of Kabbalists or Polish itinerant rabbis. Now it was seen that hot blood and throbbing life pulsated in their veins. Their clear-cut, mental features with their characteristic excellencies and shortcomings distinguished one from the other. They stood before the reader in checkered array, true knights by the grace of intellect, antique figures, glowing with patriotism, of inflexible will and indestructible faith. With equal vividness the author depicted the spiritual atmosphere of the time with its humors, passions, fermentation, and struggles; the surging and seething of ideas, factions, opinions, and aims in wild disorder and violent opposition to one another; and the final evolution of the impelling forces which determine the course of historical events by the exchange of thrust and counterthrust. Graetz wanted to make the heart-beat of the period perceptible to the senses. Therefore, he was little concerned about the technical correctness of his style and diction. He did not shrink from brusqueness in words, nor from luridness and voluptuousness in coloring. Without regard to sensitive feelings he chose the plainest, the most striking expressions, that he might be understood by all; that no doubt as to his opinion might suggest itself; that personages and events might appear upon the canvas in a clear light and in the proper position, as they were mirrored in his mind.

The book naturally aroused a great sensation upon its appearance. It at once created an audience for itself with which it found a rich measure of favor and applause. On the other hand, most of the author’s scholarly colleagues at first reserved their opinions. They were taken aback by the new data, which--as, for instance, the formation of Christian sects--had been boldly pressed into service to complete the picture, and they could not reconcile themselves to the description of ancient conditions by means of modern catchwords and turns of expression peculiar to the lighter forms of literature. For example, Graetz characterizes Nachum of Gimso, in whose life mishap after mishap redounded to his benefit, as the Candide[38] of the Tanaitic world of legend. He seeks to reconstruct the details of the Bar-Cochba revolt, the chapter on which is one of the most beautiful and touching in his “History,” from single names and widely scattered debris. He goes so far as to speak of two lines of defense, the Esdraelon line and the Tur-Malka line.[39] He charges the eminent teacher Judah ha-Nassi with irritability and sensitiveness.[40] Relying on Talmudic accounts, he refuses to credit the Romans with a civilizing mission in Asia, and describes their influence in Western Asia in particular as destructive of culture and detrimental to morality. Such features of the work confounded the critics and judges. They did not venture to decide whether the boldness of genial originality was asserting itself, or only the uncouthness of fantastic sensationalism, whose tinsel would not stand the test of time. Moreover, the two religious parties looked askance and with dissatisfaction at a book written to serve the truth only and not available for any sort of propaganda. Loud and public quarrel between them had ceased in the face of the world-stirring events of 1848 and their consequences, but they were as sharply divided as ever. The adherents of the reform party reproached the author with having glorified the Talmud and its teachers, and with having omitted to touch in “a single word”[41] upon the sorest spot, “the petrifaction and ossification of Judaism” brought about by the code and its exponents. The rigidly orthodox, on the other hand, were incensed at the criticism, unwarranted in their eyes, to which he subjected the bearers of tradition and at his effort to prove the body of traditional doctrine the product of historical processes.[42]

But no voice dissented from the opinion, that in Graetz Jewish science had gained an eminent promoter with astonishing scholarship at his disposal. His qualifications and achievements were too extraordinary to be belittled on account of the unavoidable errors that had slipped into his history. It could not be denied, that research had received a decided impetus, and that the sum of historical knowledge had been considerably increased by Graetz’s results, which he had obtained by his mastery over the two Talmuds and the Midrash literature; by his close acquaintance with patristic works; by his effective way of bringing these two widely separated literary spheres close to each other, permitting the one to shed light on the other, and thus clearing up critical points; by his happy gift first of discerning, in spite of the rectification they frequently stood in need of, that certain data scattered over various by-paths of literature were complementary, and then of combining them with each other; and by his acuteness in detecting with unerring glance, animating with spirit, and applying to good purpose, long disused geographical names and obsolete terms lying forgotten in some dark corner and buried under debris.[43] In view of the fact that it required rare courage to venture upon the elaboration of one of the obscurest and most difficult portions of Jewish history, thoroughly neglected at that time in the way of special research and monographs, even his opponents could “not help confessing that on the whole he had fulfilled his task satisfactorily.”[44] There was evidence, to be sure, of still higher courage in Graetz’s announcement, made without fear or diffidence, on the title-page and in the preface of his book, designated as the fourth volume, that he intended to publish a complete history of the Jews, written in the same spirit of critical research and in the same style. The promise gave occasion for ironical insinuations. How could a single individual hope to accomplish so great an undertaking? Was Graetz endowed with the creative, plastic power of the genuine historian? Or, perhaps he expected to obtain the laurels of the historian on credit!

On the whole, circumstances shaped themselves in a way favorable to him, and facilitated the execution of his bold undertaking. It should not be imagined that a community, or--still more extravagant idea--a Mæcenas offered to furnish him with the means indispensable for the accomplishment of a task such as he had set himself. Brilliant as his achievement was, how much greater it might have been, if he, with his genius for work, had been put in a position to examine and use at his leisure the manuscript treasures of the various European libraries! Up to the present day such good fortune has not befallen Jewish science. It seems as though the Jewish race, endowed with an understanding heart and an open hand for humane interests in general, has not yet awakened to a full recognition of the debt of honor it owes its own past. Graetz, however, was well content to be relieved of the irksome care for his daily bread by the ratification, on April 10, 1854, on the part of the Prussian government, of the statutes, the plan, and the teaching staff of the Rabbinical Seminary. He returned to Breslau, where his literary star had first risen, and where he had once tried vainly to establish himself permanently. Thenceforth he remained there in the congenial position of a regularly appointed teacher at the first Jewish theologic institution, which was inaugurated, with Z. Frankel as director, on August 10, 1854, under the name of “The Jewish Theological Seminary founded by Fränkel.”[45]

It must be looked upon as providential that the task of first impressing the modern spirit upon the theologic training for the rabbinical office fell to the share of men of such eminent distinction as Frankel, the director of the new institution, and Graetz and Jacob Bernays, its regular teachers. The personality of each of the three was strongly marked. Each one was a homo trium litterarum, in the sense that in subordination to his specialty, he had acquired mastery over the Hebrew-rabbinic, the classical, and the modern literature. By deep and earnest thought each had arrived at a conservative view of Judaism. Of the three, Jacob Bernays,[46] a scholar of far-reaching fame in classical philology, doubtless possessed greatest ability as a teacher, which, however, demanded talented pupils for its effective exercise. Frankel’s forte lay in his tact as an organizer and in his practical gifts; he exerted wholesome authority over his disciples in religious as well as scientific matters. Both desired to impress their scientific bias upon those that came under their influence. Graetz, on the other hand, heeded the individuality of his pupils, and in his activity as teacher had in mind especially their stimulation and encouragement. Frankel was desirous of transferring to the Theological Seminary the rigid discipline and detailed supervision of an elementary school,[47] because his dearest object was to turn out thorough Talmudists and professionally well-equipped rabbis. Bernays aspired to the romantic splendor of a theologic faculty, and wanted to educate scholarly theologians. With correct and healthy instinct, Graetz endeavored to reconcile these opposite aims and identify the Seminary with a middle course. Although Frankel grasped the rudder with a firm hand, he was sensible enough to consider prudent counsel and kindly enough to give scope to the wishes and views of his colleagues. In this way harmony prevailed among the Seminary teachers, which reacted beneficially upon the students. As long as he lived, Frankel justly maintained what officially and morally was the dominant position in the Seminary. The prosperity of the institution he considered the consummation of his life-work, and being childless, he regarded his pupils as his children, and took a truly paternal interest in their fortunes. Next to him Graetz exercised the most generous hospitality towards the students. He was ever ready to serve any one of them that needed help and advice. Especially such as had aroused his interest, or had impressed him favorably with their ability and character enlisted his sympathy, which he manifested with all the ardor of his temperament. Like Frankel, he identified himself completely with the Breslau Seminary. After many thwarted plans and years of anxious uncertainty, he felt that, at last, through his position as teacher at the Seminary, his vessel had floated into deep, navigable waters, that he could venture to ply the oars with full force, unfurl all the sails, and, favored by wind and weather and propelled by the buoyant courage peculiar to his sanguine nature, steer straight for the destination whither impulse drew him. It was the first time that his official duties coincided with his inner vocation. Faithful, zealous performance of the service he was engaged to do promoted the work he had set himself as the goal of his life. In regular, uninterrupted succession, volume after volume of his “History” now began to appear in complete realization of his plan.

In 1856 the third volume was published under the title, “History of the Jews from the Death of Judas Maccabæus to the Downfall of the Jewish State.”[48] It formed the complement and justification of his view of the Talmudic epoch, the one with which he had begun as being the period “least understood in its inner relations.” At the same time the third volume distinctly bounds the spiritual territory in which the Jewish history of the diaspora is rooted. For he intended to dispose of the Jewish history of the diaspora down to the present time before beginning the account of the Biblical and the early post-Biblical periods. Therefore, when he published his fifth volume, “History of the Jews from the Completion of the Talmud (500) to the Beginnings of Jewish-Spanish Culture (1027),”[49] he had, as he said in the preface, “got back on the right track.” Now every doubt was bound to vanish; after many years a genuine historian had arisen unto Judaism.

The historian must not be confounded with the scholar. The chief tasks of the latter are the critical examination of historical records, the determining and grouping of facts, the identifying and differentiating of persons, the demarcation of time and place, and the defining and demonstrating of the causal relation between events, their succession, and their interaction. The minute details to which his research happens to be devoted at any moment are as important in his eyes as great and comprehensive principles. Style, form, and manner, moreover, are minor considerations with the scholar; he aims only at accuracy and lucid presentation adapted to the subject-matter. The demands made upon the historian are more numerous and more exacting. He must constantly carry the whole in mind, he must have the ability to mould the historical material with an artist’s creative power and restore the faded features of the past by the life-bestowing word. First of all, he must be equipped with unlimited mastery over the existing material and with easy and sure grasp of all the phases of the historical process, in order to be able to estimate every phenomenon duly, according to its intrinsic value and its external effect, emphasize characteristic and significant points, and allot to persons and events their proper place in the historical succession. He cannot, of course, dispense with the acumen that intuitively arrives at the inwardness of every detail. For it is needful, not only to determine with critical penetration the trustworthiness of existing traditions and documents, but also to discern and demonstrate, as one traces the course of a stream with its tributaries and branches, the presence of the primal forces at work under the surface of things, giving them impetus and direction, and of the factors that impede, strengthen, or divert the action of these forces. From investigations of this kind the historian should derive the chief points of view, those which grow naturally and logically out of the course of events. The true historian must be endowed to a high degree with a faculty for presaging, amounting almost to divination, that he may, like a “backward-looking prophet,” overcome the inadequacy and incompleteness of the material transmitted to him; restore the defective parts by means of his plastic fancy; and everywhere recognize as well as bring to the recognition of his readers, that historical events in their connection are developments from within outward, the outcome, not of a game of chance, but of the workings of absolute law. For such results of his research and insight the historian must then find adequate expression. His presentation of them must serve as the clear, polished mirror reflecting the play of many-hued, chaotic details in distinct and simply grouped pictures, and permitting the peculiarities and characteristics of single persons and events to be apparent, as the warp and the woof are distinguishable in the finished fabric. Real life as it throbbed in the happenings of the past must stand renewed before our eyes, and its fresh, warm breath as it brushes us must constrain our souls to respond at once to its humors and passions.

These qualities are the distinction of Graetz. By reason of their possession and exercise he is a master historian, and his art manifests itself in each of the twelve comprehensive volumes in which he has thrown light upon the history of the Jewish race from its early beginning to the present, a period of more than three thousand years, with every part of the earth as the scene of its events. But we have not yet come to the end of Graetz’s accomplishments as an historian. The lack of special studies in the province of Jewish history made his attempt to write a history of the Jews appear untimely and the prospect of successful execution slight. His undertaking seemed to be opposed not only by well-nigh insuperable inner and outer obstacles, but also by stubborn prejudices. Graetz heeded nothing of all this. Unaided by any committee or corporation, simply by virtue of his exuberant genius, he executed the apparently impossible work. He created the history of their race for his brethren-in-faith, and awakened in the general public sympathetic interest in the past of Judaism. With bold hand he ventured to brush aside the layer of dust and mould encrusting the darkened portraits of the past, and restore freshness and color to the faded, pale contours and forms.

The most important particulars upon which the value and influence of his work depend deserve analysis.

Above all, Graetz, though he did not create it, was the first to define and occupy the point of view from which the historical development of Judaism must be judged. He cleared the whole historical field, so as to be able to examine the various phases of this development with ease and accuracy. As an historian, Graetz had had but a single predecessor[50] who must be taken into account, Isaac Marcus Jost. In 1820, the latter began to publish a “History of the Israelites from the Time of the Maccabees.”[51] Nine years later nine volumes had appeared, bringing the history down to his own time. Under the title, “Universal History of the Israelitish People,”[52] he published, in 1850, a two-volume epitome with corrections and improvements, covering in addition the period from Abraham to the Maccabees. He did not prove himself a real pioneer in either work. Jost was a scholar, but not an historian; a noble man with admirable qualities, whose varied knowledge gave a considerable impetus to Jewish historical work, but he had not been singled out as the proclaimer of an historical revelation to be spread far and wide in joyful, vigorous utterance. In view of the fact, however, that no monographs on special phases of the subject existed at his time, Jost’s achievement cannot be sufficiently admired. He sought out and arranged the more or less obvious, but widely scattered data, appraising their value and assigning to each its due place. He thus produced a manual for the chaos of confusing details and facts. In respect to manner, his presentation of the subject makes the impression of an herbarium. His work consists of a collection of persons and events, heaped up without reference to their inner relations and classified only according to superficial and accidental marks of resemblance. His speculations are prosy, and do not touch the essence of their subject. His style is dry, diffuse, and monotonous, destitute of fire and force, with nothing to indicate that the author had a lively realization of the past. An admirer of the Roman system and impregnated with Christian ideas, he was unconsciously oppressed by the fear that he was not abreast of the times, and dreaded the charge of partiality if he gave due credit to Judaism and Rabbinism. This accounts for his misrepresentation of the Pharisees and their successors, the Rabbis, and for his false, almost caricature-like treatment of the Talmud and the literature depending upon it. He felt that the consideration of Judaism from the point of view of history at once becomes a glorification thereof, and under no circumstances did he care to incur the imputation of being its apologist.[53]

Graetz entertained no such scruples. In the formation of his opinions fear or timidity had no part; they did not curtail the expression of his judgment regardless of the feelings of friend or foe. He was the first to divest himself wholly of Christian prejudices in the consideration of the Jewish past; the first to try to explain the development of Judaism on inherent principles, as all similar phenomena are explained. He was thus able to distribute light and shade justly, without any attempt to gloss or slur facts. Graetz had been in Berlin but a short time when he met Zunz at the house of Michael Sachs. The two visitors had not yet made each other’s personal acquaintance. The host presented Graetz, adding in praise of him, that he was about to publish a Jewish history. “Another history of the Jews?” Zunz asked pointedly. “Another history,” was Graetz’s retort, “but this time a Jewish history.”[54] And, in truth, Graetz was the first to vindicate the fair claims of Jewish history; he did pioneer work in establishing the validity of the Jewish point of view. Christianity considers the belief in the Messiahship of the Son of God and in the miracles reported in connection with his birth and death the completion and fulfillment of the Law of Moses and of the prophetical promises. Only what springs from this dogma can rise to a proper conception of God, to the heights of true morality, and is capable of promoting the advancement of civilization. Accordingly, having begotten Christianity, Judaism fulfilled its religious mission, and the loss of Jewish national independence occurring almost simultaneously with the rise of Christianity, its spiritual importance was extinguished and its historical progress arrested. Its development since then, it is maintained, bears the marks of decrepitude and degeneration--is nothing more than idolatry of the Torah and religious formalism. To this consciously or unconsciously biased view Graetz wished to oppose a faithful presentation of facts, free from partiality, personal predilections, or specious coloring. He held, that an objective, unprejudiced account sufficed to demonstrate the vitality of Judaism, asserting itself again and again in the midst of distress and persecution; continuing to develop its monotheistic doctrines and its ethical system undisturbed by the loss of a national background, and borne onward only by virtue of its spirituality and ideality; producing thinkers, poets, and even statesmen despite untold suffering; and contributing zealously to the solution of the problems of human civilization, uprooted and dispersed though its adherents were. This point of view Graetz assumed energetically and applied consistently in the elaboration of Jewish history, with the result that we owe to him our conscious acquaintance with the various aspects of Judaism in all their abundance and suggestiveness.

Besides making new sources available, Graetz gained fresh points of view and surprising information from the old ones. He was particularly successful in restoring to Jewish accounts that had become hazy or sounded incredible a freshly colored background and life-like reality, or at least in laying bare their kernel of fact, by the discovery of hardly recognizable parallel passages and proofs in non-Jewish authors. He sought everywhere, and was more or less successful in finding and inserting in their place, connecting links and complementary pieces. When he approached his bold undertaking with the courage inspired by enthusiasm, Jewish history was a vast field of debris, over which volcanic events had poured out their lava, and the centuries had scattered their dust. Here and there a gigantic ruin, some literary production, towered in solitude over the wide stretches of the pathless, dismal waste, the only guide-posts to direct the wanderer through the labyrinth of ruins and underbrush. The great creators of Jewish science, to be sure, Zunz and Rapoport, whose extraordinary deserts are not yet duly appreciated by their brethren-in-faith, had already given the world their excellent works of fundamental importance; yet the great tracts explored and made arable by them seemed no more than smaller or larger islands in a vast sea of rubbish. They did not afford vantage-ground from which the whole could be overlooked. Rarely leaving the domain of literary history, these scholars did not lead up to the positions that dominated the field. In this respect particularly Graetz proved himself a pioneer. Whatever epoch he may be considering, and however much he may seem to be absorbed in details, he never takes his eye from the grand whole. His purpose always is to clear a path through the rank underbrush, or to trace on the exposed surfaces of shattered remains the lines and veins that indicate the essential character and the trend of the historical process. He was endowed with a number of qualities that enabled him to introduce light, order, system, and classification into the chaos of the historical material at his disposal. With rare energy he plunged into the consideration of vast systems of thought, and almost without an effort assimilated and grouped them. In his learned notes he opposes varying accounts, proofs, and hints to one another, and with an adroit hand and a perspicacious mind grasps the main idea firmly and unravels the knotted thread. Finally, fear of error did not deter him from taking a decided stand towards events and persons and giving frank and vigorous expression to his views upon them. Let the reader examine the essays that serve as introductions to certain parts of his work, as, for instance, those in the fourth, fifth, and seventh volumes, and he will appreciate the unerring eye that espies and never loses from sight the motive ideas and the dominating points of view, which not merely are sketched in a general, comprehensive way, but are applied in detail. His “History” affords numerous illustrations of the way in which Graetz promoted and enriched historical research. For example, Saadiah Gaon had been discovered, as it were, by Rapoport, and Geiger had made valuable contributions to our knowledge of him, but the chapter about him in the “History”[55] first fully revealed his epoch-making importance and his rich literary activity. Graetz was the first to recognize and appreciate the notable influence exerted by Chasdaï Crescas[56] upon philosophy and social conditions. The great Disputation of Tortosa, of which we have a trustworthy Jewish account, was nevertheless not understood in its historical bearing and political effect until Graetz ingeniously confronted the Jewish source with Christian reports.[57] The cloud of legend enveloping the enthusiasts David Reubeni and Solomon Molcho,[58] whom students were inclined to regard as no more than hallucinations or phantasmagoria, he resolved into the reality of their fantastic adventures. In short, coupled with rare sagacity in perceiving the true meaning of a mutilated text and emending it accordingly, he had a remarkable instinct for piercing to the reality of facts, no matter how grotesque they might appear.

Such endowments qualified Graetz to translate the Talmudic method of thought and expression into the terms of modern feelings and views, and give a model illustration of the critical examination of the literature of Talmudic times and its use as a valuable historical source. Non-Jewish scholars and sciolists were quick to brand the apparently unintelligible or the curious passages abounding in rabbinic literature as evidences of Talmudic ignorance or rabbinic folly, and the Jews of the emancipation period, if they did not subscribe to this verdict, at least hesitated whether or not to endorse it. Graetz showed plainly that precisely the text of the historical narratives had become wretchedly corrupted and would have to be restored. Besides, he called attention to various features of the historical tradition as told by the rabbis. Either they were treated pragmatically, with their causes and results, or their presentation was intentionally biased, or layers of legend had deposited themselves about the kernel of fact, which awaited release from its envelopes. Over and above all this, he urged that the concrete, figurative expressions of the rabbis, derived from a sphere of thought foreign to us, must be translated into modern concepts. For instance, in an ancient rabbinic chronicle, the Seder olam rabba, it is reported that the war of Vespasian is separated from that of Titus by an interval of twenty-two years. Aside from the consideration that it is neither historical nor justifiable to distinguish between a war of Vespasian and a war of Titus, it is impossible to give a satisfactory explanation of the period of twenty-two years. The same incomprehensible distinction between Vespasian’s and Titus’ war occurs in the Mishna at the end of the tractate Sota. Graetz changed a single letter, ט {Hebrew: tet} into ק {Hebrew: kof}, and instead of טיטוס {Hebrew: Titus} (Titus), he reads קיטוס {Hebrew: Kitus} (Kitus), i. e. Quietus. In this way he discovered a rebellion in Palestine against Lucius Quietus. We know none of its details, but its occurrence is beyond the peradventure of a doubt. The conjecture, as simple as it is ingenious, has been corroborated by a manuscript reading.[59] A narrative in tractate Sabbath 17^a is no less curious: “A sword was thrust into the academy, with the words: Whoever desires may go in, but none may come out,” etc. Graetz explains the enigma thus: in the first year of the rebellion against Nero a terrorist synod was dominated by the Shammaites.[60] In general, he considered the opposition between the schools of Hillel and Shammai not merely theoretic but also political, and he identified the rabid Zealots with extreme Shammaites.

“Graetz is deserving of great praise for having established this fact [the existence of the terrorist synod], until then not sufficiently appreciated. In itself it is an extremely important result, and its value is heightened by reason of the data growing out of it.... At all events, Herr Graetz has won a second distinction of equally great importance by his use of the Megilla Taanith as a historical source and his verification of its statements, even though many remain dubious.”

This is the opinion of the historian[61] Jost, surely a competent judge in such matters.

Where so much light is radiated, there cannot fail to be some shadows. Graetz’s admirable qualities have a reverse side. He often permits subjective views to obtrude themselves too much, and in stating his hypotheses he is apt to clothe them in terms too positive and incisive, not heeding that events dovetail into each other; that men yield to changeful humors and motives, often of a contradictory nature; and that illogical, even irrational turns of language and thought may occasionally occur in the texts. It surely is not astonishing to find inaccuracies, human errors, and misconceptions here and there in a gigantic work of twelve bulky volumes. Faults and shortcomings vanish into forgetfulness by the side of the multiplicity of his results and the grandeur of his achievement. Perspective, life-like characterization, distinct outline, glowing color--these Jewish history owes solely to Graetz’s rich fancy. He opened up new problems, created the historical types, constructed the framework of Jewish history. But his greatest achievement, one that cannot be rated sufficiently high, is that of having procured a hearing with all strata of his coreligionists by means of his charming, easy style. He revived the consciousness of an illustrious past, glorious in spite of persecution and degradation, and the belief in a future of spiritual triumph for Israel. Energetic and ardent as his temperament was, he merged his being in the past of his race, as it were, giving devoted study to the most hidden emotions of the national soul. He associated with the rabbis, philosophers, and poets whose features and forms he draws as with companions and intimate friends. When storms are imminent in the course of the history, he is visibly swayed by hope and fear, and when a catastrophe has overwhelmed his people, he is bowed down with anguish and grief. The reader sees his suffering, and cannot withhold passionate sympathy. For instance, he trembles at the thought of the disgrace and misfortune threatening Israel on account of the aberrations of the pseudo-Messiah Sabbataï Zevi, and consoles himself with the brilliant light of Jewish origin irradiating the world through Spinoza. According to his favorite method of setting men and events over against each other and permitting them to elucidate each other by their very opposition, he sharply contrasts the two figures. He represents both as the product of the Jewish passion for speculation on the infinite, and shows how in the end both sever their connection with Judaism; the one, lured on by the will-o’-the-wisp mysticism, to sink into the abyss of deception and immorality; the other, borne upward by philosophic thought, to soar to the calm but cold heights of an ideal sage.[62] His creative, life-dispensing power wafted the warm, liberating breath of spring over the dull apathy settling like an icy crust on the soul-life of the Jewish brotherhood. He re-awakened general interest in the spirit and the history of Judaism. The most popular writer in the field of Jewish science, he could boast of success phenomenal for a Jewish author; in a comparatively short time, his voluminous work, apparently intended for scholars, attained the distinction of a third, in parts even of a fourth, edition, and in its English, French, Russian, and, last though not least, Hebrew translations,[63] it has become the common possession of all the author’s brethren-in-faith.

The only help extended to Graetz in the prosecution of his comprehensive plan proceeded from the “Institute for the Promotion of Israelitish Literature,”[64] founded in 1855 by Dr. Ludwig Philippson, the most genial and most productive journalist among rabbis. In return for a modest subscription price several books were issued annually, among which a volume of Graetz’s “History” usually formed the chief attraction. Through the “Institute,” a large circulation was secured for the “History” from the first. The Society in turn was so dependent upon Graetz’s work for its popularity that when, on account of a misunderstanding with Philippson, Graetz refused to have the last (eleventh) volume published by the “Institute,” it could not maintain itself long.

On the other hand, there was not lack of hostility, jealousy, and petty annoyances. His work was used everywhere, but not infrequently without an open acknowledgment of its helpfulness. Especially at first the faultfinders and finical critics plied their trade vigorously on his work, as though any Talmudist considered a scholar in his small circle needed but to dip his pen into ink to write a history superior to Graetz’s. Even later, when recognition could not be withheld, praise was given grudgingly, in half-hearted accents. The young theologians of both parties, of the right and of the left wing, were indefatigable in picking flaws of all kinds in his details. They did not realize how effectually they were thus demonstrating his pre-eminence, and failed to understand that so monumental a work cannot by any possible means escape blemishes and malformations.

The “History” completed the breach between Graetz and his sometime teacher, Samson Raphael Hirsch. The latter had left Nikolsburg to act as the rabbi of a wealthy private congregation in Frankfort-on-the-Main. Soon after his removal, he began to issue a monthly journal, Jeshurun. In the second and third volumes of the magazine appeared a passionate, violent review of the two parts of the “History” then published, in which Hirsch sat in judgment on Graetz’s heresies. The soreness of the critic is unmistakable. It is doubtful whether his thrusts were not meant to strike the Jewish Theological Seminary at Breslau rather than the “History.” Personal attacks usually left Graetz unmoved, though he was in the habit of repelling them with caustic brevity. But he never forgave hostility towards the young institution. Thus the last slender ties that had still bound the two men to each other were snapped asunder forever. For the rest, active and joyous as his nature was, he did not trouble himself about his critics, nor did they thwart the success of his work; its triumph was complete. On the other hand, he was frankly proud of the distinction conferred upon him by the Prussian government in making him, in December, 1869, honorary professor of the Breslau University. This governmental recognition went far towards compensating him for the lack of regular professional advancement in his academic career, the sore point in his life, at which spiteful antagonists delighted to aim their shafts.

With the eleventh volume, published in 1870, he brought the history of the Jews since the Maccabean struggle down to the present time (1848); nine volumes had appeared in uninterrupted succession. To complete and crown the work it was necessary to give an account of ancient Jewish history covering the Biblical and three centuries and a half of post-Biblical times. Graetz devoted scrupulous care to this portion of his work. He considered its importance paramount, and regarded the treatment of the early epochs as a most difficult task, requiring for its adequate performance exegetical studies and original text criticism. Graetz thought himself particularly qualified and endowed for such work; it had always been his favorite pursuit. But before attacking the history of Israel and ancient Judæa, he determined to satisfy his longing to behold the Holy Land with his bodily eye, as he had often sought to picture it to his mental eye. With equal force his artistic impulse drew him to Palestine. He hoped to derive local color and inspiration for the description of hoary events from the sight of consecrated places, which had been their scenes and their witnesses. As early as 1865, he had formed the plan of a journey to Palestine, the execution of which became possible only in March, 1872, when two friends joined him. Limited to his private resources and hampered by consideration for his traveling companions, he was not able to make his trip thoroughly satisfactory from a scientific point of view. After all he obtained what he had journeyed abroad to find; he brought back impressions, enthusiasm, inspiration. In quick succession the two, or more accurately, three[65] parts of his work treating of the Biblical and early post-Biblical time appeared between 1874 and 1876, and his historical work was complete according to the plan he had sketched for himself. It was the brilliant fulfillment of the promise “to furnish a history of the Jews from the most ancient times to the present day elaborated from the original sources,” which he had made in 1854, when he began his career as an historian with the publication of the fourth volume of his “History.” Grand in conception, clear and perspicuous in execution, riveting attention by its charming style, the work has not failed to find entrance into the hearts of the author’s brethren-in-faith. It remains unsurpassed in the present, and the future historian will realize that he cannot deviate from the great lines laid down in it. The little blemishes and errors of various kinds that disfigure all human creations do not affect the impression made by the work as a whole. The discovery of hidden sources, now unsuspected, may necessitate additions and changes in details, but the great points of view, the pragmatic conception, the underlying thoughts, as he deduces them from the intricate complexity of Jewish history, will never be superseded. Graetz’s “History of the Jews,” voluminous though it is, will forever remain an integral part of Jewish literature.

VI.
THE EXEGETE.

The first two, or rather three, parts of the “History” form the transition to Graetz’s exegetical studies. In their excellencies as well as in their shortcomings they betray all the characteristics of his work in Bible exposition. Obviously Graetz had only awaited the completion of the history of Judaism from the end of the Maccabean struggle to the present time to enter, with all the vigor of his intellect, upon the second phase of his activity as a writer, that devoted to Bible exegesis and textual criticism. Exegetical studies, no less than historical research, were a distinct life-aim with him. They were begun in 1871, and continued without interruption until unexpected death snatched the pen from his hand. To be accurate, the second phase of his literary activity should be dated from 1869. In that year Zacharias Frankel, wishing to devote all his energy to his work on the so-called Jerusalem Talmud, transferred the Monatsschrift to Graetz. He marked the beginning of his editorial management with an essay on “The Ebionites in the Old Testament,”[66] the first of a series in Old Testament exposition and Hebrew philology. In part, they may be regarded as monographs in preparation for his history of the Biblical times. The series was continued uninterruptedly, year after year, until 1887, when Graetz discontinued the publication of the Monatsschrift.

In view of the narrow compass of Biblical literature, comprising the whole residue of ancient Israelitish writings and therefore the whole treasury of the Hebrew language at our disposal, even those expounders that cling to the word and to tradition with slavish faithfulness are granted wide scope for individual judgments and subjective hypotheses, depending for their acceptance not upon precise proof, but upon the inquirer’s will and disposition. It is natural, then, that Graetz with his strongly developed subjectivity, his delicately attuned ear, and his gift of bold conjecture, should have reached conclusions sharply contrasting with all accepted views and incapable of logical, scientific demonstration. His results and explanations, the outcome of a passionate desire for clearness and consistency, are often of startling originality. All sorts of new questions were set on foot by him, many fruitful suggestions may be traced to him, and he bore many a trophy from the battlefields of textual criticism. The boldness of his exegesis is illustrated by his treatment of the two Hagiographic books, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs, which, published in quick succession in 1871, introduced him to the world as an exegete. He attributes the composition of Koheleth (or the Preacher, translation and critical commentary)[67] to the reign of Herod, and places the author of Shir ha-Shirim (or the Song of Songs, translation and critical commentary)[68] in the Macedonian-Syrian time. Though the hypotheses concerning the time of the composition of the two books and many other propositions are curious, and overwhelm the reader by their pronounced deviation from all opinions hitherto advanced; still it must be confessed, that the conjecture with regard to the origin of Ecclesiastes is engaging in the extreme, and it cannot be denied, that the translations are good and in unexceptionable taste, that the remarks and references are instructive, and that the older versions were used with care and attention. In the commentary on Ecclesiastes, decidedly more valuable than that on the Song of Songs, he offers besides interesting data with regard to the Greek translation. Moreover, Graetz frequently adduced analogies from the Mishna and the Talmud, made exhaustive use of whatever was advantageous for textual criticism in the Talmudic literature, and thus brought to light new material in such a way as to make it available for the “higher criticism.” This, in fact, constitutes his real and permanent distinction as an exegete.

His expositions were guided by two chief assumptions, both rooted in the depths of his character. He held that in every Biblical work an historical background can be discerned with more or less ease; that even generalizations and reflections cannot conceal their connection with special facts, which must be deduced and determined. Again, he was of the opinion, that a contradiction or obscurity in a Biblical passage cannot be resolved by a twisting of words and phrases or by far-fetched analogies in remote though related idioms. They were evidence to him that the text had come to grief, and that the original text could be restored only by a conjecture, which might be disengaged from the context, or patterned on a Talmudic parallel, or deduced from older translations. He did not doubt that catastrophes, the centuries, and perhaps also the incompetence of copyists, had mutilated the original Bible text, and wrenched it out of shape, and he thought that even later, when it had been fixed with scrupulous care, all sorts of errors might have crept in.

According to these principles Graetz treated the Psalms. In 1881 he published a German translation of them, and in 1882–83 followed a “Critical Commentary to the Psalms with Text and Translation. 2 vols.”[69] The commentary is designed on a generous scale, and gives abundant evidences of ripe scholarship. But by the side of its excellent features it contains many hazardous guesses and vague, even though ingenious hypotheses. Justus Olshausen, an Orientalist highly esteemed on account of his learning and his sobriety, who was occupied with the critical examination of the Old Testament text for philological purposes, says the following about the commentary on the Psalms in a letter to the author:[70]

“On account of its boldness your commentary will certainly arouse serious objections with the larger number of exegetes, themselves overbold in exegesis, but weak in criticism. As for me, you know that I am not affrighted by boldness in criticism when coupled with knowledge of the language and the subject-matter, with acumen, and, above all, with sound common sense. Doubtless, I shall not be able to agree with you in every case in which, overconfident perhaps, you may believe that you have hit upon the correct solution of a difficulty. That, however, does not prevent me from recognizing that your book, by reason of its abundance of excellent emendations, is a valuable addition to exegetical literature.”

Graetz undoubtedly hit upon many a happy guess, and applause was not lacking, but in general his results met with opposition so decided that we may surely expect a later generation to review the judgment of our time and separate the chaff from the wheat. Not in the least intimidated by the adverse criticism upon his exegetical methods, he was resolved to remove the difficulties attaching to the Old Testament language by all the means at his command. He thought himself justified in his confidence in himself in matters of textual criticism, upon which chiefly he concentrated his explanations in the course of time. He grew more and more unrestrained in his efforts to restore approximately the original text of the Bible by means of audacious conjectures, which his sympathetic mind was never weary of devising. In other fields he was always careful to keep in connection and in touch with tradition; destructive tendencies were not at all characteristic of him. But in his textual criticism he permitted his zeal to run away with him, until he lost the solid ground of the Bible text and of reality from under his feet. His acumen displayed and dissipated itself chiefly in the blinding pyrotechnics of rocket-like emendations. Of this character are his exegetical studies on the prophet Jeremiah,[71] on the Proverbs of Solomon,[72] and his fine essay on Bible exegesis.[73]

This kind of work was so attractive to him, that in the latter years of his life he set about the execution of a long-cherished and widely comprehensive plan for the critical examination and the emendation of the text of the whole Bible. The realization of this plan was to be the consummation and crown of his life’s labors. But he was not destined to celebrate such unquestioned and brilliant successes in this field as in that of history, where he had earned and received the laurels due a pioneer. Yet, we must be careful not to underrate his exegetical and critical achievements as to their intrinsic value and their influence. His exegetical works and essays are replete with new points of view and interesting suggestions. Many a germ that has since proved fruitful can be traced to them, and they have had a lasting effect upon the development of Bible exegesis. His works of this class, original and important enough to fill a life of scholarly research, would suffice to secure to their author an honorable name and a prominent place in the history of Jewish science.

VII.
LAST YEARS.

From year to year Graetz received an increasing number of proofs of the recognition and veneration paid him by a large circle of readers and admirers and a growing band of friends and aspiring disciples. But the enjoyment of his success was not to be unalloyed. In 1879 the feeling against Jews in Germany, always on the point of breaking out, was set free in the shape of an anti-Semitic movement, to serve as an unfailing instrument for political agitation. Heinrich von Treitschke, an historian characterized by patriotic ardor rather than scrupulous adherence to word and truth, a writer with affecting, oratorical pathos and a brilliant style at his command, soon assumed the rôle of challenger in the fray. He was scandalized by the boasting spirit which, he alleged, was in the ascendant in Jewish circles, and was to be regarded as a menace to the German empire. He illustrated his strictures by references to Graetz, who, he maintained, made use of intemperate language in his polemics against Christianity, and in his “History” had been guilty of applying disrespectful expressions to the German nation.[74] Graetz replied, and Treitschke in turn made him the subject of an article,[75] in which he tried to prove his allegations. He quoted passages from the “History,” tearing them from their context, and resorted to all sorts of sophistry. The leaders of the intelligent portion of Berlin Jewry probably did not realize the gravity of the situation. At all events, they were far from having a clear idea of the means necessary for stemming the rapidly swelling tide. They were disinclined, however, to suffer Treitschke’s attacks to pass unrepulsed, for they had reason to suppose them to be more than the venomous utterances of a professor. Thereupon H. B. Oppenheim, a well-known politician and writer on political economy, and highly esteemed for his disinterested and noble character, adopted the mistaken course of sacrificing Graetz to Treitschke’s aggressive charges without examining them. Confessedly he had not read Graetz’s works, yet he disposed of their author summarily as “a man without tact and fanatically one-sided, whose great learning has been rendered nugatory by the absurdity of his practical deductions.”[76] This peculiar defense of Judaism, to be sure, did not excite distressful feeling in any one, but later events prove it to have been symptomatic of the opinions and the mental constitution of the intellectual notabilities of the Berlin Jewish community.

A Berlin Jew had been put at the head of the “Union of German Israelitish Congregations,”[77] when its headquarters had been moved from Leipsic to Berlin. Active and clever in practical affairs, he invested the “Union” with dignity, and stirred it up to work and enterprise. With his help all sorts of useful undertakings were executed; among them, in 1885, a plan to promote the science of Judaism, hitherto wholly neglected, along definite lines. A commission was to be appointed to make means and sources for research into the history of the Jews of Germany available under the protection of the “Union.” The project was hailed with satisfaction by Jewish scholars. It was hoped that it would eventually furnish the center from which other scientific endeavors might radiate. All hopes of this kind were early doomed to grievous disappointment. The leaders of the “Union” lacked perception of the needs of the situation; they permitted an ambitious young scholar of the Jewish faith, an “extraordinary” professor at the University of Berlin, to become the governing spirit. He was familiar with the mediæval government offices, and did valiant service in the study of documents. But he was destitute of the most elementary knowledge of Hebrew, and therefore could have no conception of the peculiar difficulties the writer of Jewish history has to grapple with. Besides, he had so completely identified himself with his specialty and with the academic world of professors that a realizing sense of the condition and needs of German Judaism was out of the question. Under these circumstances serious mistakes were inevitable. In the first place Graetz was disregarded, completely ignored, when the commission which was to organize and superintend the historical investigations was made up. The arbitrary exclusion of the only or, at all events, the most eminent historian the Jews can boast of must be considered a gross offense against good manners. What is more, the good work was thereby deprived of the best and most valuable guarantee of success. Personal animosity may have contributed to bring about the deplorable action, but that does not alter the fact that Graetz was most familiar with the field of work to be cultivated. None recognized more clearly than he the desiderata[78] that occupied the attention and guided the efforts of the scholars interested in Jewish history at the time. Besides, he was an indefatigable, impulsive worker, and his name was one to conjure with. The slight put upon Graetz called forth decided ill-humor among his numerous friends and disciples, a large portion of whom were the rabbinical heads of respected congregations. Their irritation could not long remain without tangible effect. Moreover, though the commission was composed of highly esteemed scholars, among them Christians who were master historians of the first rank, there was not one member who had attained to more than respectable dilettanteism in his acquaintance with Jewish literature, a thorough knowledge of which was indispensable for the proper realization of the plan, and only one member who had given evidence of his special interest in Jewish history by a work of note. This exception was Professor Stobbe, a humane Christian scholar and eminent jurist, who has described the historico-legal status of the German Jews in “The Jews in Germany during the Middle Ages,”[79] a book that has not yet been superseded. The absence of Jewish scholars, specifically of Jewish historians, awakened distrust in the ability of the commission. In fact, its achievements, as displayed in the “Journal for the History of the Jews in Germany”[80] and in separate publications, are far from realizing the expectations awakened by the boastful, arrogant tone of scientific conceit in which the leaders announced the undertaking, and are out of all proportion to the expenditures incurred. The most ambitious production, “Documents on the History of the Jews, etc.,”[81] is a fragment. Quietly, unnoticed, the experiment died one day in the year 1892.[82]

The inconsiderate treatment accorded him by the Berlin coterie or other circles did not cause Graetz much heart-ache, and whatever soreness it may have produced was completely healed by London, whence he received the flattering invitation to open the Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibition with a lecture. The honorable reception accorded him in the English capital, the persons whose acquaintance he made, and the impressions he carried home with him, all this refreshed him, and put him into a buoyant frame of mind. The visit to England he accounted one of the happiest and most enjoyable events of his life. The experiences gathered there strengthened the hope, to which he had often given expression, that salvation would arise for Judaism out of England and America.

On October 31, 1887, he celebrated the seventieth anniversary of his birth. His disciples and friends made it the occasion for an extraordinary ovation, and from all countries and climes homage was laid at his feet. An overwhelming number of addresses, gifts, congratulatory letters, and poems proved that his achievements were in the mind and his honor in the keeping of the whole body of intelligent Jews. A particularly gratifying surprise came in the shape of a diploma announcing that on October 27, 1888, he, the Jew, who had not dealt leniently with the Spanish nation in his historical writings, had been elected an honorary member of its section in history by the Spanish Academy at Madrid.

Until the very last his body and mind retained remarkable elasticity and vigor; time seemed to pass him by unnoticed. His indestructible working powers and his literary fertility continued to be astonishing.[83] Even after concentrating his efforts on exegetical research, he was a vigilant reader of the monographs in whatever civilized language, bearing, however remotely, on problems of the science of Judaism. He gave the conclusions reached in them a critical examination, and either noted them for the enrichment and correction of a new edition of his “History,” or refuted them in special articles, if they seemed sufficiently important. For, besides his historical and exegetical works, in number and bulk an imposing array, he published numberless essays and Programmschriften on the most various subjects, many of them real gems, models of clear writing and deep scholarship. In some of them daring theories are advanced, as, for instance, the one which he would never abandon, that the Massora originated with the Karaites, from whose literary works the Rabbanites derived it. The conjecture was received with a great display of indignation, but its refutation was not equally emphatic, and it cannot be denied that certain evidences may be interpreted in its favor.

Among his Programmschriften the following deserve to be singled out: “Visigothic Legislation with Regard to the Jews,”[84] in the annual report of the Jewish Theological Seminary for 1858; “Frank and the Frankists,”[85] in that for 1868; and “The Kingdom of Mesene and its Jewish Population,”[86] in that for 1879. In the Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judenthums, of which, as mentioned above, he was the editor from 1869, the greater part of the articles issued from his pen. There is but one way of accounting for his numerous achievements: he understood to perfection the art of utilizing every moment.

Five o’clock in the morning found Graetz at his desk. Until nine he gave uninterrupted attention to his literary work. After that hour he was in the habit of devoting himself to his lectures. He carried on an extensive correspondence, found leisure for all sorts of things, and was fond of the innocent gayeties of social life. He retired late, and in general needed but little sleep. His sound, almost invincible nervous system was supplemented by a constitution calculated to supply his extraordinary capacity for work with a proper physical basis. He was of average height, and habitually bent forward his lean and spare, but sinewy, muscular figure, built upon a strong bony frame. His face was somewhat marred by pock-marks, but his head made a massive, unusual impression. Soft, chestnut-brown, later gray hair, in fair though not clustering abundance, crowned his board-like, square forehead. His sharp, observant eyes, grayish-brown in color, betokened the owner’s enjoyment of life, and a somewhat large, prominent nose with its delicate nostrils, quivering like “feelers,” gave his long, oval, bony face its characteristic searching expression. Sometimes sadness played about his lips, but usually they were curled by mockery, irony, and defiance, as though sarcastic words might dart out at any moment. In point of fact, sharp satire occasionally spiced his conversation, which, as a rule, however, was far from fulfilling the expectations aroused by his writings. In his younger years happy moments found him full of jokes and pranks for the delectation of his domestic circle, and at all times he displayed unquenchable zest for life and cheerful optimism. Love of family was a dominant trait in him. Towards his wife his bearing was always tender and attentive, as though the honeymoon had not passed; towards his daughter it was marked by the perfection of gallantry; towards his sons he exercised forbearance and self-sacrificing devotion, and his aged father he met with the filial respect of Talmudic times. He enjoyed and cultivated intercourse with friends. For a friend, for any person or cause that had enlisted his sympathy, he was ready to pledge himself. Deeply moved by the sad conditions prevalent in Palestine, he had brought thence a plan for the education of Jewish orphans in Jerusalem. He and his traveling companions founded a society, and he exerted himself to secure a fund, small though it might be, for the promotion of its object. For this purpose he took journey after journey, delivered lectures, at first much against his inclination, in many cities, and even accepted an invitation to go to Galicia, where he was received with joyful demonstrations and overwhelmed with flattering homage. Encouraged by such successes, he persisted, until he had put the society upon a modest but secure basis, which enables it to continue its good work to this day.

Robust and vigorous as he felt himself, he undertook in his old age a work in which he meant to sum up his Bible studies of a critical and exegetical character. He counted, not upon the sympathy of his contemporaries, but upon the appreciation of a late posterity. All subordinate occupations were dropped. In 1888 he even discontinued the publication of the Monatsschrift, none of his pupils being able then to assume the editorial management. In order to give a clear, comprehensive review of the results of his Biblical text studies, he proposed to print the Hebrew Bible in its entirety with emendations and short notes justifying them. In 1891 all preparatory work was completed, and the printing was begun. How he cherished this life-work of his is evident from the prospectus. Contrary to his custom, he addresses himself to his friends, and requests them to assist him in his venture.

“At the end of my life,” he says in the prospectus, “I have undertaken the laborious task of summarizing the emendations of the text of the Holy Scriptures, the admissibility and justification of which no less than the necessity for which the accompanying prospectus sets forth.... I beg you to aid my efforts ... in order that the pecuniary risk incurred may not too far transcend my means.”

This prospectus appeared in July, 1891, and it was the last word that issued from the author’s untiring pen for publication.

Although he was escaping the infirmities and ailments of the old, and considered himself perfectly well, and certainly felt vigorous, age had crept upon him insidiously. The action of his heart was so much impaired that his physicians became anxious about his condition. According to his annual custom he went to Carlsbad for the cure of minor indispositions. Thence he had planned to go to Munich on a few days’ visit to his oldest son, who occupied the position of “extraordinary” professor of physics at the University there, and then spend some time resting at Reichenhall with his son’s family. Shortly before the time set for his departure from Carlsbad, where he had not taken care of himself, he had a fainting spell of so serious a nature that the physician urged Mrs. Graetz to return to Breslau without delay. He considered the precaution exaggerated, and when he finally yielded, he refused to forego the trip to Munich. There, at his son’s house, he suffered, in the night between the sixth and the seventh of September, a violent attack of colic. Under the influence of opium administered by a physician the pain passed away, and he dropped to sleep. When his wife arose early in the morning to observe his condition, she found him lying in bed lifeless. His heart had ceased to act, and so a life replete with work and rich in attainment had too soon come to an end. His remains were transported to Breslau, and three days later, in the presence of a numerous gathering of his pupils and friends and amid demonstrations of general sympathy, they were consigned to the grave in the Jewish cemetery.

His wife, whose days are devoted to the memory of her celebrated husband, considered it incumbent upon her to publish his last work, the manuscript of which was all but complete, but of which only a few sheets had issued from the press at the time of Graetz’s death. The editor is Professor W. Bacher of Buda-Pesth, one of Graetz’s disciples, who has won honorable repute by his editions and his studies in the history of Hebrew grammar and exegesis. Besides the editorial work proper, he has been forced to supply from memoranda a considerable piece in the Prophets, which by some mischance had gone astray. On the whole, this critical Bible edition, by which the departed author set great store, has been pursued by peculiar ill-luck. Unlike his other productions it must miss the author’s pruning and correcting hand as it passes through the press. It is doomed to appear as an incomplete because a posthumous work. The title is: Emendationes in plerosque Sacræ Scripturæ Veteris Testamente libros secundum veterum versiones nec non auxiliis criticis cæteris adhibitis. Ex relicto defuncti auctoris manuscripto edidit Guil. Bacher. 3 Pts. Breslau, 1892–1894. The Hebrew text of the Bible is treated boldly and subjectively. But it remains for a later generation to pass final judgment upon the value of Graetz’s contributions to the critical determination of the Bible text. There can be no doubt that Graetz was as much a master in the field of exegesis as in that of history.

The time will come when his contemporaries will be envied for the privilege of having stood face to face with one so great and noble. Those days, to be sure, will not know the grief and sorrow that befell us when unexpectedly and without warning the revered teacher was removed from our sight. Still less will there be a suspicion of the self-reproaches that assail us too late for having frequently had a keen eye for the detection of minute shortcomings and inadequacies, the inherent foibles of the human kind, rather than a willing, attentive ear to listen to the suggestions and solutions so lavishly offered. After all, the most beautiful blossoms put forth by him, the best fruits produced by his mind, are in his writings; he that can read may enjoy them.

* * * * *

Note.--While this Memoir was passing through the press, the commission on the history of the Jews of Germany, spoken of on pp. [78–80], after five years of inactivity again showed signs of life in the form of a valuable publication by a rabbi: Das Martyrologium des Nürnberger Memorbuches by Dr. S. Salfeld. At the same time, the promise of the completion of Die Regesten zur Geschichte der Juden, etc., is held out.

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[TABLES OF JEWISH HISTORY.]