Not that Judaism is to follow the proselytizing methods of the Church, which aims to capture souls by wholesale conversion without due regard for the attitude or conviction of the individual. But we can no longer afford to shut the gate to those who wish to enter, impelled by conviction or other motives having a religious bearing, even though they do not conform to the Talmudic law.[1367] This attitude guided the leaders of American Reform Judaism at the rabbinical conference under the presidency of Isaac M. Wise, when they considered the admission of proselytes at the present time. In their decision they followed the maxim of the prophet of yore: “Open the gates (of Judaism) that a righteous nation may enter that keepeth the faith.”[1368]
14. It is interesting to observe how Philo of Alexandria contrasts those who join the Jewish faith with those who have [pg 424] become apostates. The former, he says, become at once prudent, temperate, modest, gentle, kind, human, reverential, just, magnanimous, lovers of truth, and superior to the temptations of wealth and pleasure, whereas the latter are intemperate, unchaste, unjust, irreverent, low-minded, quarrelsome, accustomed to falsehood and perjury, and ready to sell their freedom for sensual pleasures of all kinds.[1369] In the times of Hellenic culture apostasy made its appearance among the upper classes of the Jews. As the higher-minded among the heathen world were drawn towards the sublime monotheistic faith of the Jew, so the pleasure-seeking and worldly-minded among the Jews were attracted by the allurements of Greek culture to become faithless to the God of Israel, break away from the law, and violate the covenant. Especially under Syrian rule, apostasy became a real danger to the Jewish community, and many measures had to be decided upon to avert it. The desertion of the ancestral faith was looked upon as rebellion and treason against God and Israel.[1370] With the rise of the Christian Church to power and influence the number of apostates increased, and with it also the danger to the small community of the Jews in the various lands. In the same measure as the Church made a meritorious practice of the conversion of the Jews, whether by persuasive means or by force and persecution, the authorities of Judaism had to provide the Jew with spiritual weapons of self-defense in the shape of polemical and apologetic writings,[1371] and to warn him against too close a contact with the apostate, which was too often fraught with peril for the whole community. As a number of these apostates became actual maligners of the Jews under the Roman empire, a special malediction against sectarians, the so-called Birkat ha-Minim, was inserted in the Eighteen Benedictions [pg 425] under the direction of Gamaliel II.[1372] “Those who have emanated from my own midst hurt me most,” says the Synagogue, referring to herself the words of the Sulamite in the Song of Songs.[1373] While every other offender from among the Jewish people is declared to be “brother,” notwithstanding his sin,[1374] the apostate was declared to be one from whom no free-will offering was to be accepted,[1375] and to whom the gates of repentance and the gates of salvation are forever closed.[1376] The feeling of bitterness against him grew in intensity, as throughout Jewish history he often played the despicable rôle of an accuser of his former coreligionists and betrayer of their faith. The modern Jew also, though he sympathizes with every liberal movement among men and respects every honest opinion, however radically different from his own, cannot but behold in the attitude of him who deserts the small yet heroic band of defenders of his ancient faith and joins the great and powerful majority around him, a disloyalty and weakness of character unworthy of a son of Abraham, the faithful. Since the beginning of the new era in the time of Mendelssohn, apostasy has made great inroads upon the numerical and intellectual strength of Judaism, especially among the upper classes. It is no longer, however, of an aggressive character, but rather a result of the lack of Jewish self-respect and religious sentiment, against which measures tending to a revival of the Jewish spirit are being taken more and more. The Jews are called by the rabbis “the faithful sons of the faithful.” The apostate must be made to feel that he is of a lower type, since he has become a deserter from the army of the battlers for the Lord, the Only One God of Israel.
Chapter LVII. Christianity and Mohammedanism, the Daughter-Religions Of Judaism
1. “It shall come to pass on that day that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the eastern sea and half of them toward the western sea.... And the Lord shall be King over all the earth; in that day shall the Lord be One, and His name one.”[1377] These prophetic words of Zechariah may be applied to the two great world-religions which emanated from Judaism and won fully half of the human race, as it exists at present, for the God of Abraham. Though they have incorporated many non-Jewish elements in their systems, they have spread the fundamental truths of the Jewish faith and Jewish ethics to every part of the earth. Christianity in the West and Islam in the East have aided in leading mankind ever nearer to the pure monotheistic truth. Consciously or unconsciously, both found their guiding motive in the Messianic hope of the prophets of Israel and based their moral systems on the ethics of the Hebrew Scriptures. The leading spirits of Judaism recognized this, declaring both the Christian and Mohammedan religions to be agencies of Divine Providence, intrusted with the historical mission of coöperating in the building up of the Messianic Kingdom, thus preparing for the ultimate triumph of pure monotheism in the hearts and lives of all men and nations of the world. These views, voiced by Jehuda ha Levi, Maimonides, and Nahmanides,[1378] were reiterated by many enlightened rabbis of later [pg 427] times. These point out that both the Christian and Mohammedan nations believe in the same God and His revelation to man, in the unity of the human race, and in the future life; that they have spread the knowledge of God by a sacred literature based upon our Scripture; that they have retained the divine commandments essentially as they are phrased in our Decalogue; and have practically taught men to fulfill the Noahitic laws of humanity.[1379] On account of the last fact the medieval Jewish authorities considered Christians to be half-proselytes,[1380] while the Mohammedans, being pure monotheists, were always still closer to Judaism.
2. In general, however, rabbinic Judaism was not in a position to judge Christianity impartially, as it never learned to know primitive Christianity as presented in the New Testament. We see no indication in either the oldest Talmudic sources or Josephus that the movement made any more impression in Galilee or Jerusalem than the other Messianic agitations of the time. All that we learn concerning Jesus from the rabbis of the second century and later is that magic arts were practiced by him and his disciples who exorcised by his name; and, still worse, that the sect named after him was suspected of moral aberrations like a few Gnostic sects, known by the collective name of Minim, “sectarians.”[1381] As a matter of fact, the early Church was chiefly recruited from the Essenes and distinguished itself little from the rest of the Synagogue. Its members, who are called Judæo-Christians, continued to observe the Jewish law and changed their attitude to it only gradually.[1382] Matters took a different turn [pg 428] under the influence of Paul, the apostle to the heathen, who emphasized the antinomian spirit; the Judæo-Christian sects were then pushed aside, hostility to Judaism became prominent, and the Church strove more and more for a rapprochement with Rome.[1383] Then the rabbis awoke to the serious danger to Judaism from these heretics, Minim, when after the tragic downfall of the Jewish nation they grew to world-power as allies of the Roman Empire. Thus Isaac Nappaha, a Haggadist of the fourth century, declared: “The turning point for the advent of the Messiah, the son of David, will not come until the whole (Roman) Empire has been converted to Christianity (Minuth).”[1384] This is supplemented by the Babylonian Rabbah, who plays with a Biblical phrase, saying: “Not until the whole (Roman) world has turned to the Son (of God).”[1385] Henceforth Christian Rome was termed Edom, like pagan Rome from the days of Herod the Idumean. In fact, her imperial edicts showed the fratricidal hatred of Esau, with hardly a trace of the professed religion of love. No wonder the Haggadists identified Rome with the Biblical “Boar of the forest,” and waited impatiently for the time when she would have to give up her rule as the fourth world-empire to the people of God, ushering in the Messianic era.[1386]
3. Meanwhile the relapse of Christianity from monotheism became more steady and more apparent. The One God of the Jew was pushed into the background by the “Son of Man”; and the Virgin-Mother with her divine child became adored like the Queen of Heaven of pagan times, showing similarity especially to Isis, the Egyptian mother-goddess, with Horus, the young son-god, on her lap. The pagan deities of the various lands were transformed into saints of [pg 429] the Church and worshiped by means of images, in order to win the pagan masses for the Christian faith. The original pure and absolute monotheism and the stern conception of holiness were thus turned into their very opposites by the hierarchy and monasticism of the Church. How, then, could the Jewish people recognize the crucified Christ as one of their own? One whose preaching seemed to bring them only damnation and death instead of salvation and life, even while speaking in the name of Israel's God after the manner of the prophets of yore? How could they see in the strange doctrines of the Church any resemblance to their own system of faith, especially as the very doctrines which repelled them were those most emphasized by Christianity? Maimonides considered the adherents of the Roman Church to be idolaters,[1387] a view which was modified by the Jewish authorities in the West, as they became better acquainted with Christian doctrines.[1388]
4. The world-empire of the Church was subsequently divided between Rome, which the Jewish writers called Edom,[1389] and Byzantium, which they named Yavan, but neither showed any real advance in religious views and ideals. On the contrary, they both persecuted with fire and sword the little people who were faithful to their ancient monotheism, and suppressed what remained of learning and science. As the Church had the great task of disciplining wild and semi-barbarous races, there was little room left for learning or for high ideals. At this time a rigorous avenger of the persecuted spirit of pure monotheism arose among the sons of Ishmael in the desert of Arabia in the person of Mohammed, a camel-driver [pg 430] of Mecca, a man of mighty passions and void of learning, but imbued with the fire of the ancient prophets of Israel. He felt summoned by Allah, the God of Abraham, to wage war against the idolatry of his nation and restore the pure faith of antiquity. He kindled a flame in the hearts of his countrymen which did not cease, until they had proclaimed the unity of God throughout the Orient, had put to flight the trinitarian dogma of the Church in both Asia and Africa, and extended their domain as far as the Spanish peninsula. He offered the Jews inducements to recognize him as the last, “the seal,” of the prophets, by promising to adopt some of their religious practices; but when they refused, he showed himself fanatical and revengeful, a genuine son of the Bedouins, unrelenting in his wrath and ending his career as a cruel, sensuous despot of the true Oriental type. Nevertheless, he created a religion which led to a remarkable advancement of intellectual and spiritual culture, and in which Judaism found a valuable incentive to similar endeavors. Thus Ishmael proved a better heir to Abraham than was Esau, the hostile brother of Jacob.[1390]
5. The important, yet delicate question, which of the three religions is the best, the Mohammedan, Christian or Jewish, was answered most cleverly by Lessing in his Nathan the Wise, by adapting the parable of the three rings, taken from Boccaccio. His conclusion is that the best religion is the one which induces men best to promote the welfare of their fellow men.[1391] But the question itself is much older; it was discussed at the court of the Kaliphs in Bagdad as early as the tenth century, where the adherents of every religion [pg 431] there represented expressed their opinions in all candor. For centuries it was the subject of philosophical and comparative investigations.[1392] Among these, the most thorough and profound is the Cuzari by the Jewish philosopher and poet, Jehuda ha Levi. But the parable of the three rings also has been traced through Jewish and Christian collections of tales dating back to the thirteenth century, and seems to be originally the work of a Jewish author. Standing between the two powerful faiths with their appeal to the temporal arm, the Jew had to resort to his wit as almost his only resource for escape. Two Jewish works have preserved earlier forms of the parable. In Ibn Verga's collection of histories of the fifteenth century, it is related that “Don Pedro the Elder, King of Aragon (1196-1213), asked Ephraim Sancho, a Jewish sage, which of the two religions, the Jewish or Christian, was the better one. After three days' deliberation, the sage told the king a story of two sons who had each received a precious stone from their father, a jeweler, when he went on a journey. The sons then went to a stranger, threatening him with violence, unless he would decide which of the jewels was the more valuable. The king, believing the story to be a fact, protested against the action of the two sons, whereupon the Jew explained: Esau and Jacob are the two sons who have each received a jewel from their heavenly Father. Instead of asking me which jewel is the more precious, ask God, the heavenly Jeweler. He knows the difference, and can tell the two apart.”[1393]