6. This kind of proselytism was encouraged only by Alexandrian or Hellenistic Judaism. In Palestine, however, the social system of the nation was quite unfavorable to the simple “God-worshiper,” who remained merely a tolerated alien, even though protected, and never really entered the national body. Legally he was termed Ger Toshab, “settler,” which meant semi-proselyte. The type of this class was Naaman, the Syrian general who was instructed by Elijah to bathe in the Jordan to cure his leprosy, and then became a worshiper of the God of Israel.[1313] Similarly, whatever the real origin of the proselyte's bath may have been, a baptismal bath was prescribed for the proselyte to wash off the stain of idolatry.[1314] He was regarded as one who had “fled from his former master” (in heaven) to find refuge with the only God;[1315] therefore he was legally entitled to shelter, support, and religious instruction from the authorities.[1316] Certain places were assigned where he was to receive protection and provision for his needs, but he was not allowed to settle in Jerusalem, where only full proselytes were received as citizens.[1317] According to Philo, special hospices were fitted out for the reception of semi-proselytes.[1318]
7. In order to enjoy full citizenship and equal rights, the proselyte had to undergo both the baptismal bath and the rite of circumcision, thus accepting all the laws of the Mosaic Code equally with the Israelite born. Beside this, he had to bring a special proselyte's sacrifice as a testimony to his belief in the God of Israel. In distinction from the Ger Toshab, or semi-proselyte, he was then called Ger ha Zedek or Ger Zedek. This name, usually translated as “proselyte of righteousness,” [pg 415] obviously possesses a deeper historical meaning. The Psalmist voices a pure ethical monotheism in his query: “O Lord, who shall be a guest (Ger, sojourner) in thy tent?” which he answers: “He that walketh uprightly and worketh righteousness and speaketh truth in his heart.”[1319] But the legal view of the priestly authorities was that only the man who offers a “sacrifice of righteousness” and pledges himself to observe all the laws binding upon Israel might become a “guest” in the Temple on Zion, an adopted citizen of Jerusalem, the “city of righteousness.”[1320] In illustration of this view a striking interpretation to a Deuteronomic verse is preserved: “They shall call people unto the mountain, there shall they offer sacrifices of righteousness: that is, the heathen nations with their kings who come to Jerusalem for commerce with the Jewish people shall be so fascinated by its pure monotheistic worship and its simple diet, that they will espouse the Jewish faith and bring sacrifices to the God of Israel as proselytes.”[1321]
The prominence of the full proselyte in the early Synagogue appears in the ancient benediction for the righteous leaders and Hasidim, the Soferim and Synedrion, the ruling authorities of the Jewish nation, where special mention is made of “the Proselytes of (the) Righteousness.”[1322] These full proselytes pushed aside the half-proselytes, so that, while both are mentioned in the earlier classification, only the latter are considered by the later Haggadah.[1323] With the dissolution of the Jewish State no juridical basis remained for the Ger Toshab, the “protected [pg 416] stranger.” R. Simeon ben Eleazar expressed this in the statement: “With the cessation of the Jubilee year there was no longer any place for the Ger Toshab in Judæa.”[1324] We read in Josephus that no proselytes were accepted in his time unless they submitted to the Abrahamitic rite and became full proselytes.[1325]
However, as Josephus tells us, a strong desire to espouse the Jewish faith existed among the pagan women of neighboring countries, especially of Syria.[1326] The same situation existed in Rome according to the rabbinical sources, Josephus, Roman writers, and many tomb inscriptions.[1327] Conspicuous among these proselytes was Queen Helen of Adiabene, who won lasting fame by her generous gifts to the Jewish people in time of famine and to the Temple at Jerusalem; her son Menobaz, at the advice of a Jewish teacher, underwent the rite of circumcision in order to rise from a mere God-worshiper to a full proselyte.[1328] The Midrash[1329] enumerates nine heathen women of the Bible who became God-worshipers: Hagar; Asenath, the wife of Joseph, whose conversion is described in a little known but very instructive Apocryphal book by that name;[1330] Zipporah, the wife of Moses; Shifra and Puah, the Egyptian midwives;[1331] Pharaoh's daughter, the foster-mother of Moses, whom the rabbis identified with Bithia (Bath Yah, “Daughter of the Lord”);[1332] Rahab, whom the Midrash represents as the [pg 417] wife of Joshua and ancestress of many prophets;[1333] Ruth and Jael. Philo adds Tamar, the daughter-in-law of Judah, as a type of a proselyte.[1334]
8. Beside the term Ger, with its derivatives, which gave legal standing to the proselyte, the religious genius of Judaism found another term which illustrated far better the idea of conversion to Judaism. The words of Boaz to Ruth: “Be thy reward complete from the Lord thy God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to take refuge,”[1335] were applied by the Pharisean leaders to all who joined the faith as Ruth did. So it became a technical term for converts to Judaism, “to come, or be brought, under the wings of the divine majesty” (Shekinah).[1336] Philo frequently expresses the idea that the proselyte who renounces heathenism and places himself under the protection of Israel's God, stands in filial relation to Him exactly like the born Israelite.[1337] Therefore Hillel devoted his life to missionary activity, endeavoring “to bring the soul of many a heathen under the wings of the Shekinah.” But in this he was merely following the rabbinic ideal of Abraham,[1338] and of Jethro, of whom the Midrash says: “After having been won to the monotheistic faith by Moses, he returned to his land to bring his countrymen, the Kenites, under the wings of the Shekinah.”[1339] The proselyte's bath in living water was to constitute a rebirth of the former heathen, poetically expressed in the Halakic rule: “A convert is like a newborn creature.”[1340] The Paulinian idea that baptism creates a new Adam in place of the old is but an adaptation of the Pharisaic view. Some ancient teachers therefore declared the proselyte's bath more important than circumcision, since it forms [pg 418] the sole initiatory rite for female proselytes, as it was with the wives of the patriarchs.[1341]
9. The school of Hillel followed in the footsteps of Hellenistic Judaism in accentuating the ethical element in the law;[1342] so naturally it encouraged proselytism as well. The Midrash preserves the following Mishnah, handed down by Simeon ben Gamaliel, but not contained in our Mishnaic Code: “If a Ger desires to espouse the Jewish faith, we extend to him the hand of welcome in order to bring him under the wings of the Shekinah.”[1343] Both the Midrash and the early Church literature reveal traces of a Jewish treatise on proselytes, containing rules for admission into the two grades, which was written in the spirit of the Hellenistic propaganda, but was afterward rewritten and adopted by the Christian Church. The school of Shammai in its rigorous legalism opposed proselytism in general, and its chief representative, Eliezer ben Hyrcanos, distrusted proselytes altogether.[1344] On the other hand, the followers of Hillel were decidedly in favor of converting the heathen and were probably responsible for many Haggadic passages extolling the proselytes. Thus the verse of Deutero-Isaiah: “One shall say, ‘I am the Lord's,’ and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob; and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord, and surname himself by the name of Israel” is peculiarly applied in the Midrash. The first half, we are told, denotes two classes of Israelites, those who are without blemish, and those who have sinned and repented; the second half includes the two classes of proselytes, those who have become full Jews (Gere ha Zedek) and those who are merely worshippers of God (Yir'e Shamayim). A later Haggadic version characteristically omits the last, recognizing only the full converts (Gere Emeth) as proselytes.[1345] The [pg 419] following parable in the spirit of the Essenes illustrates their viewpoint. In commenting upon the verse from the Psalms: “The Lord keepeth the strangers,” the story is told: A king possessed a flock of sheep and goats and noted that a deer joined them, accompanying them to their pasture and returning with them. So he said to the herdsmen: “Take good care of this deer of mine which has left the free and broad desert to go in and out with my flock, and do not let it suffer hunger or thirst.” Likewise God takes special delight in the proselytes who leave their own nation, giving up their fellowship with the great multitude in order to worship Him as the One and Only God, together with the little people of Israel.[1346] Similarly the Biblical verse concerning wisdom: “I love them that love me, and those that seek me earnestly shall find me”[1347] is referred to the proselytes, “who give up their entire past from pure love of God, and place their lives under the sheltering wings of the divine majesty.” All these Midrashic passages and many others are but feeble echoes of the conceptions of the Hellenistic propaganda, which were so ably set forth by Philo and the Book of Asenath. Indeed, Judaism must have exerted a powerful influence upon the cultured world of Hellas and Rome in those days, as is evidenced both in the Hellenistic writings of the Jew and in the Greek and Roman writers themselves. Their very defamation of Judaism unwittingly gives testimony to the danger to which Judaism exposed the pagan conception of life, and to the hold it took upon many of the heathen.[1348]
10. The reaction against this missionary movement took place in Judea. The enforced conversion of the Idumeans to Judaism by John Hyrcanus benefited neither the nation nor the faith of the Jew, and turned the school of Shammai, which belonged to the party of the Zealots, entirely against the whole [pg 420] system of proselytism. On the whole, bitter experience taught the Jews distrust of conversions due to fear, such as those of the Samaritans who feared the lions that killed the inhabitants, or to political and social advantage, like those under David and Solomon, or in the days of Mordecai and Esther, or still later under John Hyrcanus.[1349] Instead, all stress was laid upon religious conviction and loyalty to the law. In fact, Josephus mentions many proselytes who in his time fell away from Judaism,[1350] who may perhaps have been converts to Christianity. The later Halakah, fixed under the influence of the Hadrianic persecution and quoted in the Talmud as Baraitha, prescribes the following mode of admission for the time after the destruction of the Temple, omitting significantly much that was used in the preceding period:[1351] “If a person desires to join Judaism as a proselyte, let him first learn of the sad lot of the Jewish people and their martyrdom, so as to be dissuaded from joining. If, however, he persists in his intention, let him be instructed in a number of laws, both prohibitory and mandatory, easy and hard to observe, and be informed also as to the punishment for their disobedience and the reward for fulfillment. After he has then declared his willingness to accept the belief in God and to adhere to His law, he must submit to the rite of circumcision in the presence of two members of the Pharisean community, take the baptismal bath, and is then fully admitted into the Jewish fold.” It is instructive to compare this Halakic rule with the manual for proselytes preserved by the Church under the name of “The Two Ways,” but in a revised form.[1352] The mode of admission in the Halakah seems modeled superficially after the more elaborate one of the earlier code, where the Shema as the Jewish creed and the Ten Commandments, possibly with the addition [pg 421] of the eighteenth and nineteenth chapters of Leviticus and the twenty-seventh chapter of Deuteronomy, seem to have formed the basis for the instruction and the solemn oath of the proselyte.
11. As long as the Jewish people possessed a flourishing world-wide commerce, unhampered by the power of the Church, they were still joined by numerous proselytes in the various lands and enjoyed general confidence. Indeed, many prominent members of the Roman nobility became zealous adherents of Judaism, such as Aquilas, the translator of the Bible, and Clemens Flavius, the senator of the Imperial house,[1353] and many prominent Jewish masters were said to be descendants of illustrious proselytes.[1354] All this changed as soon as the Christian Church girded herself with “the sword of Esau.” From that time on proselytism became a peril and a source of evil to the Jew. The sages no longer took pride in the prophetic promise that “the stranger will join himself to Israel,” nor did they find in the words “and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob” an allusion to the prediction that some of these proselytes would be added “to the priesthood of the Lord,” as some earlier teachers had interpreted the passage.[1355] R. Helbo of the fourth century, on the contrary, explained that proselytes have become a plague like “leprosy” for the house of Jacob, taking the Hebrew nispehu as an allusion to the word Sappahat, “leprosy.”[1356] Henceforth all attempts at proselytism were deprecated and discouraged, while uncircumcised proselytes,—probably meaning the persecuting Christians—were relegated to Gehinnom.[1357]
12. This view was not shared by all contemporaries, however. R. Abbahu of Cæsarea, who had many an interesting and bitter dispute with his Christian fellow-citizens,[1358] was broad-minded enough to declare the proselytes to be genuine worshipers of God.[1359] Joshua ben Hanania encouraged the proselyte Aquilas and prognosticated great success for proselytes in general as teachers of both the Haggada and Halakah. So other Haggadists urged special love and compassion for the half-proselyte,[1360] and entertained a special hope of the Messianic age that many heathen should turn to God in sincerity of heart.[1361] At all events, it was considered a great sin to reproach a convert with his idolatrous past.[1362] Indeed, the phrase, “they that fear the Lord,” used so often in the Psalms, is referred by the Haggadists to the proselytes; true, the chief stress is laid upon the full proselytes, the Gere Zedek, but a foremost place in the world to come is still reserved for God-worshipers like the Emperor Antoninus.[1363] Thus Psalm CXXVIII, which speaks of the “God-fearing man,” was applied to the proselyte, to whom were therefore promised temporal bliss and eternal salvation, rejoicing in the Law, in deeds of love and bounteous blessing from Zion.[1364] While the Halakah remained antagonistic to proselytism on account of its narrow adherence to the spirit of the Priestly Code, the Haggadah exhibits a broader view. Resonant with the spirit of prophecy, it beckons to all men to come and seek shelter under the wings of the one and only God, in order to disseminate light and love all over the world.
13. Modern Judaism, quickened anew with the spirit of the ancient seers of Israel, cannot remain bound by a later and altogether too rigid Halakah. At the very beginning of [pg 423] the Talmudic period stands Hillel, the liberal sage and master of the law, who, like Abraham of old, extended the hand of fellowship to all who wished to know God and His law; he actually pushed aside the national bounds to make way for a faith of love for God and the fellow man. For this is the significance of his answer to the Roman scoffer who wanted to hear the law expounded while he was standing on one foot: “Whatever is hateful to thee, do not do to thy fellow man! That is the law; all the rest is only commentary.”[1365] Thus the leaders of progressive Judaism also have stepped out of the dark prison walls of the Talmudic Ghetto and reasserted the humanitarian principles of the founders of the Synagogue, who welcomed the proselytes into Israel and introduced special blessings for them into the liturgy. They declare again, with the author of Psalm LXXXVII, that Zion, the “city of God,” should be, not a national center of Israel, but the metropolis of humanity, because Judaism is destined to be a universal religion.[1366]