Modena records that among the Jews “there are many women that are much more devout and pious than the men, and who not only endeavour to bring up their children in all manner of Vertuous Education; but are a means also of restraining their husbands from their Vitious Courses, they would otherwise take, and of inclining them to a more Godly way of Life.” With which handsome and just compliment we will take leave of our author.
PART III
Part III
MENASSEH AND REMBRANDT
On April 25, 1655, six months before starting on his mission to Cromwell, Menasseh ben Israel—visionary about to play the rôle of statesman—completed in Amsterdam the Spanish book which forms the subject of this paper. Duodecimo in size (5¹⁄₄ x 2⁷⁄₈ inches), it consists of 12 + 259 pages, with a list of the author’s works published or projected, and on the last of the unpaginated leaves a Latin version of Psalm 126. In the catalogue of his works appended to the Vindiciæ Judæorum (London, 1656) Menasseh includes “Piedra pretiosa, of Nebuchadnezzar’s image, or the fifth Monarchy.” This was not, however, the real title. The title was, in truth, in Hebrew Eben Yekarah, and in Spanish Piedra Gloriosa, i.e., the “Precious Stone.” The date given above for the completion of the book is fixed by the dedication, which is addressed to Menasseh’s Christian friend, Isaac Vossius.
On a casual glance the book seems a hopeless jumble of incongruities. Nebuchadnezzar’s image, Jacob’s dream, the combat of David and Goliath, the vision of Ezekiel—what have these in common, and what has the title to do with them? The answer to these questions is soon found.
The whole work is Messianic, and in his usual symbolic style, Menasseh seizes on a “Stone” as the central feature for his little treatise. There was the stone, “cut out without hands,” which smote the image seen by the king of Babylon. There was the stone, gathered from the field of Beth-el, on which Jacob laid his weary head to rest when fleeing from his brother. There was the stone, picked smooth from the brook, with which David slew the Philistine. Perhaps the three were one and the same stone, Menasseh seems to imply. Anyhow, he saw in all these incidents a Messianic reference. Nebuchadnezzar’s image, with its feet of clay, typified the Gentiles that were to rise and fall before the great day of the Lord. The ladder of Jacob, with its ascending and descending angels, typified again the rise and fall of nations. David’s victory over Goliath foreshadowed the triumph of the Messiah over the powers of earth. And the whole is rounded off with Ezekiel’s vision of the chariot with its strange beasts and emblems—a chariot which, in the view accepted by Menasseh, typified the Kingdom of the Messiah.
MENASSEH BEN ISRAEL
(From an etching by Rembrandt, in the possession of Mr. Felix Warburg, New York)
Following the dedication to Vossius is an explanatory note to “the Reader.” In this note the author explains that to make his meaning clear he has added four illustrations. He does not name the artist. But we know that he was none other than Menasseh’s neighbor and intimate, Rembrandt. Four etchings, signed by Rembrandt and dated 1654, are possessed by more than one library; probably the fullest sets are to be found in the Fitzwilliam and British Museums. They were originally etched on one plate, which was afterwards cut into four. When all four etchings formed one plate, the arrangement was (as Mr. Middleton explains in his Descriptive Catalogue of the Etched Work of Rembrandt, p. 240):