And it shall come to pass that the Jews which are scattered also shall begin to believe in Christ; and they shall begin to gather in upon the face of the land; and as many as shall believe in Christ shall also become a delightsome people.
There was nothing in the affairs of the Jews in the early decades of the 19th century that would lead any one to suppose that there was to be any marked change in the sentiments of that people towards Jesus of Nazareth; or that the time had come when there would be any disposition on their part to assemble upon the land of their forefathers—which is evidently meant by part of the prophecy just quoted. Yet the prophecy immediately before us makes both these astounding predictions; and, what is more to the point, both are now in progress of fulfillment. First let us consider the change which the Jewish mind is undergoing respecting Jesus of Nazareth.
To show the sentiment quite prevalent among the Jews during the life time of the Prophet Joseph, and to show that he was quite aware of its existence, I quote an entry from his journal under date of May, 1839.
"Tuesday, May 21, 1839.—To show the feeling of that long scattered branch of the House of Israel, the Jews, I here quote a letter written by one of their number, on hearing that his son had embraced Christianity:
RABBI LANDAU'S LETTERS TO HIS SON.
Breslau, May 21st, 1839. My Dear Son—I received the letter of the Berlin Rabbi, and when I read it there ran tears out of my eyes in torrents; my inward parts shook, my heart became as a stone! Now do you not know that the Lord sent me already many hard tribulations? That many sorrows do vex me? But this new harm which you are about to inflict makes me forget all the former, does horribly surpass them; as well respecting its sharpness as its stings! I write you lying on my bed, because my body is embraced not less than my soul, at the report that you were about to do something which I had not expected from you. I fainted; my nerves and feelings sank, and only by the help of a physician, for whom I sent immediately, am I able to write these lines to you with a trembling hand.
Alas! you, my son, whom I have bred, nourished and fostered; whom I have strengthened spiritually as well as bodily, you will commit a crime on me! Do not shed the innocent blood of your parents, for no harm have we inflicted upon you; we are not conscious of any guilt against you, but at all times we thought it our duty to show to you, our first born, all love and goodnesss. I though I should have some cheering account of you, but, alas! how terribly I have been disappointed!
But to be short; your outward circumstances are such that you may finish your study or [suffer] pain. Do you think that the Christians, to whom you will go over by changing your religion, will support you and fill up the place of our fellow believers? Do not imagine that your outward reasons, therefore, if you have any, are nothing. But out of true persuasion, you will, as I think, not change our true and holy doctrine, for that deceitful, untrue and perverse doctrine of Christianity.
What! will you give us a pearl for that which is nothing, which is of no value in itself? But you are light-minded; think of the last judgment; of that day when the books will be opened and hidden things will be made manifest; of that day when death will approach you in a narrow pass; when you cannot go out of the way! Think of your death bed, from which you will not rise any more, but from which you be called before the judgment seat of the Lord!
Do you not know, have you not heard, that there is over you an all-hearing ear and an all-seeing eye? That all your deeds will be written in a book and judged hereafter? Who shall then assist you when the Lord will ask you with a thundering voice, Why hast thou forsaken that holy law which shall have an eternal value; which was given by my servant Moses, and no man shall change it? Why hast thou forsaken that law, and accepted instead of it lying and vanity?
Come, therefore, again to yourself, my son! remove your bad and wicked counselors; follow my advice, and the Lord will be with you! Your tender father must conclude because of weeping.
A. L. LANDAU, Rabbi.
That the sentiments of this letter respecting Jesus and Christianity are not peculiar to Rabbi Landau, but are representative of the sentiments of the Hebrew race at that time, I may quote the words of Dr. Isadore Singer, editor of the "Jewish Encyclopaedia," written in a letter to George Croly, author of "Tarry Thou Till I Come"—a version really of the legend of the "Wandering Jew" published in 1901. The letter here quoted was received from Dr. Singer in reply to one from the author of "Tarry Thou," asking the question, "What is the Jewish thought today of Jesus of Nazareth?" Dr. Singer, answered:
I regard Jesus of Nazareth as a Jew of the Jews, one whom all Jewish people are learning to love. His teaching has been an immense service to the world in bringing Israel's God to the knowledge of hundreds of millions of mankind. The great change in Jewish thought concerning Jesus of Nazareth, I cannot better illustrate than by this fact:
When I was a boy, had my father, who was a very pious man, heard the name of Jesus uttered from the pulpit of our synagogue, he and every other man in the congregation would have left the building, and the rabbi would have been dismissed at once. Now, it is not strange, in many synagogues, to hear sermons preached eulogistic of this Jesus, and nobody thinks of protesting—in fact, we are all glad to claim Jesus as one of our people.
ISADORE SINGER. New York, March 25, 1901.
The question submitted by Mr. Croly to Jewish theologians, historians and orientalists resulted in quite a large collection of Jewish opinions of Christ, all of which are published in the appendix of "Tarry Thou;" and of which the following communications are thoroughly characteristic:
The Jew of today beholds in Jesus an inspiring ideal of matchless beauty. While he lacks the element of stern justice expressed so forcibly in the law and in the Old Testament characters, the firmness of self-assertion so necessary to the full development of manhood, all those social qualities which build up the home and society, industry and worldly progress, he is the unique exponent of the principle of redeeming love. His name as helper of the poor, as sympathizing friend of the fallen, as brother of every fellow sufferer, as lover of man and redeemer of woman, has become the inspiration, the symbol and the watchword for the world's greatest achievements in the field of benevolence. While continuing the work of the synagogue, the Christian church with the larger means at her disposal created those institutions of charity and redeeming love that accomplished wondrous things. The very sign of the cross has lent a new meaning, a holier pathos to suffering, sickness and sin, so as to offer new practical solutions for the great problems of evil which fill the human heart with new joys of self-sacrificing love.
KAUFMAN KOHLER, Ph. D., Rabbi of Temple Beth-El.
If the Jews up to the present time have not publicly rendered homage to the sublime beauty of the figure of Jesus, it is because their tormentors have always persecuted, tortured, assassinated them in his name. The Jews have drawn their conclusions from the disciples as to the Master, which was wrong, a wrong pardonable in the eternal victims of the implacable, cruel hatred of those who called themselves Christians. Every time that a Jew mounted to the sources and contemplated Christ alone, without his pretended faithful, he cried with tenderness and admiration: "Putting aside the Messianic mission, this man is ours. He honors our race and we claim him as we claim the gospels—flowers of Jewish literature and only Jewish."
MAX NORDAU, M. D., Critic and Philosopher. Paris, France.
The Jews of every shade of religious belief do not regard Jesus in the light of Paul's theology. But the gospel of Jesus, the Jesus who teaches so superbly the principles of Jewish ethics, is revered by all the expounders of Judaism. His words are studied; the New Testament forms a part of Jewish literature. Among the great preceptors that have worded the truths of which Judaism is the historical guardian, none, in our estimation and esteem, takes precedence of the rabbi of Nazareth. To impute to us suspicious sentiments concerning him does us gross injustice. We know him to be among our greatest and purest.
EMIL G. HIRSCH, Ph. D., LL. D., L. H. D. Rabbi of Sinai Congregation, Professor of Rabbinical Literature in Chicago University, Chicago, Ill., January 26, 1901.
Later, viz. 1905, Dr. Isadore Singer, himself made such a collection of Jewish opinions on Jesus, which were published by the "New York Sun," and of which the following are typical: