This is the key to their history. This is the explanation of their persistent isolation, their resolute endurance, their unconquerable self-reliance. Descendants of the special favourites of Heaven, fully persuaded that its favour has not been forfeited, but only temporarily withdrawn, this high-spirited and gifted race has ever felt that, supported by this conviction, it could, like ‘the charity’ of St. Paul, hope and endure all things. Races that had not sprung into existence when theirs had reached the highest point of civilization and glory, might pretend to despise them: but, to use the language which Sir Walter Scott puts into the mouth of the bard, Cadwallon, they knew that the blood which flowed in the veins of their persecutors, when compared with their own, ‘was but as the puddle of the highway to the silver fountain.’[7]
Their history is sad and humiliating to read; and no less sad and humiliating to them, than to those whose ancestors trampled upon and persecuted them. It brings out into strong relief, not only the good, but also the bad points of their national character. The stubborn unbelief of generation after generation; the way in which business ability, under the pressure of injustice, developed into craft, into the power of heaping up wealth by usury, and relentless exaction of the uttermost farthing; the slow processes by which the most manifest characteristic of a Jew became that of the harsh and merciless creditor;—these are the dark shadows upon a great national character, and a national story of the deepest interest.
On the other hand, their history shows, as no other can, the folly and wickedness of that most deadly, though sometimes most fair-seeming, of all Satanic influences, religious persecution. Our fathers were wont in those evil times to enlarge with horror on the sin of the Jew in obstinately rejecting Christ. In the day when account will be required of all, may it not be found that the deadliest of their own sins was, that by their hideous travesty of the Christian faith they shut out from the Jew the knowledge of the reality?
For centuries the bitterest persecutions came from those who, while robbing and ill-treating the Jews, because they charged them with heaping ridicule upon Christianity and eagerly aiding its enemies, were themselves ignorant of the first principles of the Gospel, and devoted adherents of the Church of those times. As the Reformation of the Church developed, and as the power of evangelical principles has increased, the persecution of the Jew has ceased. More and more has the Church everywhere realized the truth, that Christ died for the Jew no less than for the Gentile, and that He can be better served in this respect by the proclamation of His own loving message of forgiveness, than by any attempts to usurp His function as Judge, or to compel an outward submission, in which the heart has no part.
Israel has, indeed, a heavy account against the Anglo-Saxon race, though, it may be, not so heavy as against the Goth, the Teuton, and the Slav. There is some comfort in reflecting that we in this century have done somewhat to reduce the balance that stands against us. May our children learn the lesson of mercy and toleration in all its fulness, and so make such reparation as is possible for the mistakes and sins of our fathers!
FOOTNOTES:
[1] A Jew would doubtless deny this. I do not pursue the question further, as this is not a work of controversial theology; and, besides, the point has been made so clear by Christian divines that there can be no need of any advocacy of mine. Let the reader who may have any doubt on the subject consider Isa. xl. 10; xlv. 24; xlviii. 17; Jer. xxiii. 6; Hosea i. 7; Zech. ii. 10, 11; Malachi iii. 1, where not the title Elohim only, but that of Jehovah, is given to the Messiah.
[2] No question has been more disputed than whether the Sanhedrim, during the rule of the Roman Procurators, possessed the power of putting to death persons convicted of capital crimes. The statement made, St. John xviii. 31, and the action of Albinus, who, A.D. 63, deposed the High Priest Ananus, because the Sanhedrim had put St. James to death without his sanction, seem conclusive that they could not capitally punish persons convicted of blasphemy, unless under the Procurator’s order. The case of St. Stephen, Acts viii., does not disprove this; for that was evidently a tumultuary procedure, no sentence having been pronounced. But the Sanhedrim certainly had the power of capitally punishing some offenders, as, for instance, any Gentile passing beyond the barrier between the Temple Courts (see Jos. B.J. vi. 2, 4), an offence closely resembling blasphemy. Possibly they could inflict death for certain specified crimes, but only for these. It would be quite consistent with the principle of Roman government to allow the High Priests to punish capitally persons convicted of grave moral offences, but not such as were only guilty in matters relating ‘to their own superstitions,’ as they would phrase it.
[3] Acts iii. 17.
[4] St. Luke xxiii. 34.