Chapter LVI. The Stranger and the Proselyte
1. Among all the laws of the Mosaic Code, that which has no parallel in any other ancient code is the one enjoining justice, kindness and love toward the stranger. The Book of the Covenant teaches: “And a stranger shall thou not wrong, neither shalt thou oppress him; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt,”[1296] and “A stranger shalt thou not oppress; for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.” The Deuteronomic writer lays special stress on the fact that Israel's God, “who regardeth not persons nor taketh bribes, doth execute justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment.” He then concludes: “Love ye therefore the stranger; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.”[1297] The Priestly Code goes still further, granting the stranger the same legal protection as the native.[1298]
2. We would, however, misunderstand the spirit of all antiquity, including ancient Israel, if we consider this as an expression of universal love for mankind and the recognition of every human being as fellow-man and brother. Throughout antiquity and during the semi-civilized Middle Ages, a stranger was an enemy unless he became a guest. If he sought protection at the family hearth or (in the Orient) under the tent of a Sheik, he thereby entered into a tutelary relation with both the clan or tribe and its deity. After entering into such a [pg 409] relation, temporary or permanent, he became, in the term which the Mosaic law uses in common with the general Semitic custom, a Ger or Toshab, “sojourner” or “settler,” entitled to full protection.[1299] This relation of dependency on the community is occasionally expressed by the term: “thy stranger that is within thy gates.”[1300] Such protection implied, in turn, that the Ger or protegé owed an obligation to the tribe or community which shielded him. He stood under the protection of the tribal god, frequently assumed his name, and thus dared not violate the law of the land or of its deity, lest he forfeit his claim to protection.
3. In accordance with this, the oft-repeated Mosaic command for benevolence toward the stranger, which placed him on the same footing with the needy and helpless, imposed certain religious obligations upon him. He was enjoined, like the Israelite, not to violate the sanctity of the Sabbath by labor, nor to provoke God's anger by idolatrous practices, and, according to the Priestly Code, to avoid the eating of blood and the contracting of incestuous marriages as well as the transgression of the laws for Passover and the Day of Atonement. Naturally, in criminal cases such as blasphemy he was subject to the death-penalty just like the native.[1301] Still, the Ger was not admitted as a citizen, and in the Mosaic system of law he was always a tolerated or protected alien, unless he underwent [pg 410] went the rite of circumcision and thus joined the Israelitish community.[1302]
4. With the transformation of the Israelitish State into the Jewish community—in other words, with the change of the people from a political to a religious status,—this relation to the non-Jew underwent a decided change. As the contrast to the heathen became more marked, the Ger assumed a new position. As he pledged himself to abandon all vestiges of idolatry and to conform to certain principles of the Jewish law, he entered into closer relations with the people. Accordingly, he adopted certain parts of the Mosaic code or the entire law, and thus became either a partial or a complete member of the religious community of Israel. In either case he was regarded as a follower of the God of the Covenant. In spite of the exclusive spirit which was dominant in the period following Ezra, two forces favored the extending of the boundaries of Judaism beyond the confines of the nation. On the one hand, the Babylonian Exile had visualized and partially realized the prophecy of Jeremiah: “Unto Thee shall the nations come from the ends of the earth, and shall say: ‘Our fathers have inherited naught but lies, vanity and things wherein there is no profit.’ ”[1303] For example, Zechariah announced a time when “many peoples and mighty nations shall come to seek the Lord of Hosts in Jerusalem and to entreat the favor of the Lord,” and “Ten men shall take hold, out of all the languages of nations, shall even take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, ‘We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.’ ”[1304] Another prophet said at the time of the overthrow of Babylon: “For the Lord will have compassion on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own [pg 411] land, and the stranger (Ger, or proselyte) shall join himself with them, and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob.”[1305] The Psalmists especially refer to the heathen who shall join Israel,[1306] so that Ger now becomes the regular term for proselyte.[1307]
In addition to this inward religious desire we must consider the social and political impulse. The handful of Judæans who had returned from Babylonia were so surrounded by heathen tribes that, while the Samaritans had attracted the less desirable groups, they were glad to welcome the influx of such as promised to become true worshipers of God. The chief problem was how to provide a legal form for these to “come over,” proselyte being the Greek term for “him who comes over.” By such a form they could enter the community while accepting certain religious obligations. In fact, such obligations had been stated before in the Priestly Code, which admitted into the political community as “sojourners” or “indwellers” those who pledged themselves to abstain from idolatry, blasphemy, incest, the eating of blood or of flesh from living animals, and from all violence against human life and property. They were debarred only from marriage into the religious community, “the congregation of the Lord.” Henceforth Ger and Ger Toshab became juridical terms, the social and legal designation of those proselytes who had abjured heathenism and joined the monotheistic ranks of Judaism as “worshipers of God.”
5. Thus the first great step in the progress of Judaism from a national system of law to a universal religion was made in Judæa. The next step was to recognize the idea of the revelation of God to the “god-fearing men” of the primeval ages, as described in the Mosaic books, and thus to open the gates of [pg 412] the national religion for heathen who had become “God-fearing men” or “worshipers of the Lord.” Thus the Psalms, after enumerating the customary two or three classes, “the house of Israel,” “of Aaron,” and “of Levi,” often add the “God-fearing” proselyte.[1308] The Synagogue was especially attractive to the heathen who sought religious truth because of its elevating devotion and its public instruction in the Scripture, translated into Greek, the language of the cultured world. This sponsored a new system for propagating the Jewish faith. The so-called Propaganda literature of Alexandria laid its chief stress upon the ethical laws of Judaism, not seeking to submit the non-Jew to the observance of the entire Mosaic law or to subject him to the rite of circumcision. The Jewish merchants, coming into contact with non-Jews in their travels on land and sea, endeavored especially to present their religious tenets in terms of a broad, universal religion. As a universal faith forms the background of the entire Wisdom literature, particularly the book of Job, a simple monotheism could be founded upon a divine revelation to mankind in general, corresponding to the one to Noah and his sons after the flood. The laws connected with this covenant, called the Noahitic laws, were general humanitarian precepts. We find these enumerated in the Talmud as six, seven, and occasionally ten. Sometimes we read of thirty such laws to be accepted by the heathen, probably founded upon the nineteenth chapter of Leviticus, at one time central in Jewish ethics.[1309] At any rate, the [pg 413] observance of the so-called Noahitic laws was demanded of all worshipers of the one God of Israel.
Strange to say, however, this extensive propaganda of the Alexandrian Jews during the two or three pre-Christian centuries left few traces in the history and literature of Palestinian Judaism. Two reasons seem at hand; the growth of the Paulinian Church, which absorbed the missionary activity of the Synagogue, and the effort of Talmudic Judaism to obliterate the old missionary tradition. To judge from occasional references in Josephus and the New Testament, as well as many inscriptions all over the lands of the Mediterranean,[1310] the number of heathen converts to the Synagogue was very large and caused attacks on Judaism in both Rome and Alexandria. Josephus tells us that Jews and proselytes in all lands sent sacrificial gifts to Jerusalem in such abundance as to excite the avarice of the Romans.[1311] The Midrash preserves a highly interesting passage which casts light on the earlier significance of the winning of heathen converts, reading as follows: “When it is said in Zephaniah II, 5: ‘Woe to the inhabitants of the sea-coast, the nation of Kerethites’; this means that the inhabitants of the various pagan lands would be doomed to undergo Kareth, ‘perdition,’ save for the one God-fearing proselyte, who is won over to Judaism each year and set up to save the heathen world.”[1312] In other words, the merit of the one proselyte whose conversion awakens the hope for the winning of the entire heathen world to pure monotheism, is an atoning power for all. Such was the teaching of the Pharisees, whom the gospel of Matthew brands as hypocrites because of their zeal in making proselytes.