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.