History of the Jews, Vol. 5 (of 6)

by Heinrich Graetz

Slumbering conscience and a repugnance to crime was aroused only at a later period, and this awakening was due to the people of Israel. Still less did the ancient nations recognize chastity of conduct, for they were sunk in the depths of vice and unchastity. Whilst the nations were still at the pinnacle of their greatness the Jewish Sybilline poets repeatedly uttered warnings that the sinful nations would be given over to death, because of their unnatural vices, their atrocities, and perverted worship, and the abominations which had ensued in consequence.

But they only scoffed at the warning voice, continued to pursue their evil ways, and were destroyed. Their arts and their wisdom could not save them from death. This shows that the Israelite nation alone and solely effected the emancipation of man by proclaiming holiness of life, the equal rights of aliens and home-born, and all that is included in the term humanity. It is not superfluous to point out that the foundation-stone of culture, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," was laid by this people. Who prayed that the poor might be raised from the dust; the suffering, the orphan, and the helpless from the dunghill? The Israelite people. Who declared that everlasting peace was the holy ideal of the future, "when one nation should no longer draw sword against the other, and should no longer learn the art of war"? Israel's prophets. That people has been called a wandering mystery, but it should rather be called a wandering revelation. It has revealed the secret of life, and the art of all arts—how a nation may guard itself against being given up to destruction.

This people cannot be charged with having introduced self-mortification, self-torture, and a gloomy view of life, and as having thus paved the way for that monkish asceticism which covers the brightness of life with the pall of death. Quite the contrary; all the nations of antiquity except the Israelites laid especial importance on death, made immolations at the graves of the departed, and gave themselves up to pious melancholy. These were the mysteries which, like all exaggerations, passed to an opposite extreme, and ended in the excesses of orgies. The gods themselves did not escape contact with death; they had to make a death-journey, and here and there might be seen the grave, or the Calvary, of some god. The Israelite conception, which revered in God "the source of life," places so much value on life, that it seeks to banish from the circle of holiness all that recalls death. So little is thought of what lies within and beyond the grave, that the Israelites have been reproached with having indulged in the enjoyments of life. And this is true.

The prophets knew no higher ideal than that the earth should be filled with the knowledge of God as the sea covers its bed. Life is highly prized, but it must be a pure and holy life. Only after a long and unhappy course of history did a gloomy and ascetic theory of life creep in, and produce a sad and misanthropic order, which stamped out pure gladness as a sin, and regarded the earth as a valley of tears, and to this condition it actually became, to some extent, reduced.

The Israelite people have nothing in common with their kindred, who are called Semites, whether in their self-torturing madness in honor of one god, or in their dissipated excesses in honor of another god. The Israelites were severed from the Semitic tribes by hard discipline, and they weaned themselves from the perversions of their alien kinsmen. It is likewise erroneous to endeavor sophistically to attribute the peculiarities of Israel to the Semitic character, or to consider the relationship of the two nations as that of two descendants from one stock. The Israelites and other Orientals, through divergent causes, are the result of a mixed union, and both have lost many traits of their inherited nature.

The Israelites decidedly have great faults; they have greatly erred, and have been severely punished for their shortcomings. History describes and reveals these errors, their origin, their eventful results, and the consequences which resulted from them. Many of these faults were acquired, and were to some extent the effect of their surroundings; but there were also peculiar and original features in the character of this people. Why should they be more perfect than all other nationalities, not one of which has ever attained to perfection in all directions?

Those who eagerly endeavor to show the failings and shortcomings of the Israelite people as through a magnifying glass unconsciously pay them high honor by making greater demands upon them than upon other nations. It is a decided defect on the part of the Israelites that they left behind neither colossal buildings nor architectural memorials. Possibly the race did not possess any talent for architecture; or perhaps, owing to its ideals of equality, the kings and warriors were not so highly esteemed that it was considered necessary to erect in their memory stupendous palaces, pyramids, or marble monuments. The hovels of the poor ranked higher. The Israelites did not even erect a temple to God (Solomon's Temple being built by the Phœnicians), for the heart was God's temple. The Israelites neither sculptured nor painted gods, for they did not consider the Deity a subject for pleasant pastime, but gave Him pious and earnest devotion. Nor did the Israelites excel in artistic epics, and still less in drama or comedy. This may have been a want in their idiosyncrasy, and is also connected with their strong distaste for mythological births and scandals. They evinced a similar dislike to all dramas, public games, and theatrical displays. However, in compensation, they had poetical conceptions which adequately reflect the ideals of life, as these are described in the Psalms and in the poetically fashioned eloquence of the prophets. Both possess this trait in common, that their fundamental quality is truth and not fiction, whereby poetry instead of being a mere toy and plaything for the imagination, became the instrument for attaining ethical culture.

Their literature, though it does not treat of the drama, is yet full of dramatic vigor; and, if not actually humorous, is nevertheless replete with irony, and from its ideal pedestal proudly contemplates all delusions. The Israelite prophets and psalmists, whilst developing a beautiful poetic form, never sacrificed the truth of the subject for the sake of style. The Israelites also introduced a historical style of their own, which pictured events according to the canons of truth, and without any endeavor to excuse or hide the shortcomings of heroes, kings, or nations. This peculiar Hebrew literature, of which no other nation on earth can show the like (at best only an imitation), through its excellence has achieved many moral conquests. The nations capable of culture could not withstand the warmth and truth which pervade these writings. If Greek literature elevated the dominion of art and its perceptions, Hebrew literature idealized the domain of holiness and morality. The history of a nation which has achieved so much has a decided right to full appreciation.

Judged superficially, the course of history from the entry of the Israelites into Canaan until far into the times of the kings may easily give rise to misconception, for the most striking events seem to bear a political character. Invasions, battles, and conquests, occupy the foreground of history. We behold on the scene leaders of nations, heroes, kings, and generals, treaties are made and broken, whilst the prevailing intellectual activity is hardly perceptible in the background. The hero-judges who first form the subjects of history—Ehud, Gideon, his son Abimelech, and especially Jephthah and Samson—evince so few of the national characteristics that they might equally well pass for Canaanites, Philistines, or Moabites. Of Samson it has been asserted that he is cast in the mould of the Syrian Hercules. Most of the kings, and also their sons and courtiers, acted as arbitrarily as if there had been no code of law to set limits to their despotic will, and as if they had never even heard of the Ten Commandments of Sinai.

For centuries the people wore the bonds of wild idolatry, and differed only in a slight degree from the heathen world which surrounded it. Was the race in its beginnings actually of no importance? Did the people for a considerable time keep pace with its Semitic kinsmen, and only at a given period become stamped with those peculiarities which caused it to contrast so strongly with its neighbors? Did not Sinai illumine its very cradle? or was this fact stated to have been the case only in after-days and by historians? Sceptics have said as much, but the fragments of Israelite poetry, dating from primæval times, give the lie to this assertion. Several centuries before the inception of kingly rule, and in the first days of the hero-judges, in the days of Deborah, "the mother in Israel," a poet sang of the marvels of the revelation; at Sinai he described the people of God as contrasting strikingly with their environment, and ascribed their lapses to the fact that they had followed "false gods," and thereby fallen away from their widely different origin. Even if one were inclined to doubt the veracity of history, yet credence must be given to poetry as a trustworthy eye-witness. It is not to be denied, that the spiritual birth of the Israelite people was simultaneous with their actual birth, and that Sinai was the scene of the one event, as Egypt was of the other; and that the Ark of the Covenant with the sacred Ten Commandments was its faithful attendant from the earliest days.