History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion

by Adam Storey Farrar

Note 4. p. [12]. The Controversy Between Christians And Jews.

The history of the controversy of Christianity with Judaism is so connected in the writings of the early apologists with the contemporaneous one directed against Paganism, and in recent times so related in one of its aspects to rationalism, that these reasons seem sufficient, independently of the literary interest, to justify the insertion of a brief notice of it, and of the sources of information with respect to it.

The controversy with the Jew varies in different ages. We can distinguish three separate phases; (1) that which is seen in the early centuries, (2) in the middle ages, and early modern times, (3) the position which is taken up by the educated Jew at the present day. The sources for understanding the contest are, partly the Jewish writings, and partly those of Christians who have written against them.

1. In the early ages the controversy merely turned upon the question whether Jesus was the Christ. The Jews did not deny the fact of the Christian miracles, but explained them away; and the controversy accordingly turned on the interpretation of Jewish prophecy. This phase of the contest is seen in the New Testament, in the Apology of Justin Martyr against Trypho, to which a new kind of objection expressive of prejudice is added in the discourse which Celsus, as preserved in Origen (Contr. Cels. b. i. and ii.), puts into the mouth of the Jew whom he introduces. In reference to it, the commentators on these fathers, and especially Semisch's work on Justin Martyr (translated), and the works on the Jewish Talmudic literature and philosophy, may be consulted. The contest is continued at intervals in treatises by inferior writers; an account of which may be found in the sources of information hereafter given, and in Hagenbach's Dogmengesch. § 144.

2. The second phase of the contest is seen in the middle ages, and in modern times till about 1700 A.D. It is marked by two lines of thought on the part of the Jewish writers; a system of defence of their own tenets by a method of scriptural interpretation; and the attack of calumny or of argument against Christianity. The former existed especially in Moorish Spain about the twelfth century, the golden age of Jewish literature. For a brief account of [pg 385] the theological literature of the Jewish nation at that time, and in the period which had intervened since the early ages, the writer may be permitted to refer to one of his own Sermons, and the references there given (Science in Theology, 1859, Sermon IV.); to which references add Beugnot's Les Juifs d'Occident, 1820, and the new work of De Los Rios on Spanish Literature. The movement included both a philosophical side in Maimonides, and a critical in Jarchi, Aben Ezra, Kimchi, &c.

The other movement, which was hostile to Christianity, was marked by a series of works, written by Jews for their own nation, and carefully hidden from the sight of Christians, probably for fear of persecution and suffering; which were given to the world by the learning of the foreign Hebrew scholars of the seventeenth century. The chief of these works are, the Nizzachon Vetus of the twelfth century, first published in Wagenseil's Tela Ignea Satanæ, 1681. In the thirteenth, the Disputatio Jechielis cum Nicholao, Disputatio Nachmanidis cum fratre Paolo, and the celebrated Toldos Jeschu or Jewish view of Christ's life. About 1399 the Rabbin Lipmann wrote the second book Nizzachon, which was published by Hackspan, 1644; and also the Carmen Memoriale; and about 1580[1057] the Rabbin Isaac wrote the noted Chissuk Emuna, or Munimen Fidei. All these (with the exception of the second Nizzachon) are contained in Wagenseil. During the period one important defence of Christianity against the Jews appeared, the Pugio Fidei by Raymund Martin, in Arragon, about 1278, which has been edited with an introduction by De Voisin 1651, and by Carpzov. Another defence was by Alphonso de Spina. Fortalitium Fidei contra Judæos, Saracenos, 1487. In Eichhorn's Geschichte [pg 386] der Literatur, vol. vi. 26, another treatise is named by a writer called Hieronymus, 1552.

During the period just considered the contest with the Jews was carried on chiefly in Spain, or the few Jewish settlements of Lithuania. Henceforth it is chiefly seen in Germany and Holland, where the learned Dutch and German theologians of the seventeenth century were brought into contact with them, or were attracted to the study of the controversy by an interest in the newly awakened taste for Hebrew learning. This age supplies works of great value in gaining a knowledge of Jewish literature, some of which will be named below, and a few treatises, such as, one by Micrælius (De Messiâ, 1647); a brief notice by Hoornbeek, Summa Controv. 1653 (p. 65); an unfinished treatise by Hulsius, Theologia Judaica, 1653; and one by Cocceius, Jud. Respons. Consid. 1662. The activity of the Jews is seen in the fact that an unfair attack by Bentz, 1614, was answered in the Theriaca Judaica of the Jew Salomo Zebi, Hanover 1615, which again met with a Christian respondent in Wulferus, 1681. Also Limborch had a dispute with a Jew in his Amica Collatio cum Erudito Judæo (Dr. Orobius), 1687. The controversy continued through the eighteenth century, probably outlasting its cause; for defences on the side of the Jews ceased. We meet with two works by Difenbach, Judæus Convertendus, 1696, and Judæus Conversus, 1709; Calvoer's Gloria Christi, 1710; Mornæus' De Verit. Relig. Christianæ, 1707; and, in England, Bp. Kidder's and Dr. Stanhope's Boyle Lectures, the former of which was the basis of the treatise, The Demonstration of the Messias, 1700; and C. Leslie's Short Method with the Jews. Catalogues of the writings, of which the above are the best known, may be found in J. A. Fabricius's Biblioth. Græc. (ed. 1715), vii. 125; and De Verit. Relig. Christianæ, 1725, ch. xxxi; and Blasphemia Judæorum, Id. ch. xxxvii; Walch's Biblioth. Theol. Selecta, vol. i. c. v. sect. 8. (1757); also in Bartollocci's Dictionary of Jewish Authors, 1678, and Imbonati's Dictionary of Christian Writers concerning the Jews, 1694; and especially in Wolff's Biblioth. Hebr., 1715, and De Rossi's Dizionario degli Autori Ebrei, 1802. For information concerning sources of Jewish theology and literature, it is enough to cite Hottinger's Historia Orientalis, Carpzov's Introductio, and Owen's Prelim. Exercitationes.

3. In the third phase of the controversy, viz. that which exists with the modern Jew, the controversy is a little changed. The old prejudices against Christianity are in a great degree made obsolete by the freedom of commercial intercourse, and the enjoyment of protection and civil liberty; and hence the contest takes two forms; either the continuation of the argument concerning the meaning of Jewish prophecy, or a discussion on the function of the Jewish religion in history. Sources for the former are found in the older books of evidence. A digest of the arguments concerning it is given in J. Fabricius (not the celebrated Fabricius), [pg 387] Consideratio Variarum Controversiarum, 1704, p. 41, and in Stapfer's Institut. Theolog. Polemic, vol. iii. 1-288, 1752; or in the modern works, Greville Ewing's Essays addressed to the Jews, and Dr. McCaul's Old Paths, 1837, and his Warburton Lectures, 1846. The condition of Jewish life and thought may he seen in Allen's Modern Judaism. The system of interpretation on which the controversy is conducted is either the ancient Messianic and allegorical of the Targums and Talmud, or the literal and grammatical introduced by the Spanish mediæval commentators.[1058]

The other form of Jewish argument which Christians have to encounter is more novel, and, being confined to educated Jews, its influence is less wide, and does not actuate the stratum of Jewish life with which missionaries generally come into contact. It is based on modern rationalist speculations, and is seen in a work of Dr. Philippsohn, late rabbin at Magdeburg, Development of the Religious Idea in Judaism, Christianity, and Mahometanism, (translated both into English 1855, and also into French,) and in the writings of Salvador. Dr. Philippsohn regards the mission of Judaism to be, from first to last, to teach to the world the lesson of monotheism. He traces the struggle in the Jewish church between priestism and prophetism; and regards Christianity as an abnormal form of the latter, which has led the world away to Tritheism: and, so far from regarding the office of Judaism to be extinct, he considers that its mission is still to restore monotheism to the world. A comparison with the statement of the views of the Tübingen school in Lect. [VII]. or the speculations of Mr. Mackay in Lect. [VIII]. will show how completely this argument is borrowed from the later forms of German historical criticism.