III.
Matthew Arnold on Righteousness in the Old Testament
Matthew Arnold, in his Literature and Dogma, insists that righteousness is in a special manner the object of Bible religion. The word “righteousness” is a master word in the Old Testament. What would England have been were it not for the importance which Jeshurun, the upright, attached to the thought and practice of righteousness? She might have been eminent in law, in arts and sciences borrowed from the Romans and the Greeks, but she would have been addicted to idolatry and the gratification of the senses, and would have borne the doom of destruction within herself. He draws a vivid imaginary picture of the authorities of one of the English great Universities, the vice-Chancellor, beadles, masters, scholars, and all, nay, their very professor of moral philosophy, going in procession to worship at the shrine of Aphrodite.
“If it had not been for Israel,” he continues, “and the stern check which Israel put upon the glorification and divinization of this natural bend of mankind.... And as long as the world lasts, all who want to make progress in righteousness will come to Israel for inspiration, as to the people who have had the sense for righteousness most glowing and strongest; and in hearing and reading the words Israel has uttered for us, carers for conduct will find a glow and a force they would find nowhere else. As well imagine a man with a sense for sculpture not cultivating it by the help of the remains of Greek art, or a man with a sense for poetry not cultivating it by the help of Homer and Shakespeare, as a man with a sense for conduct not cultivating it by the help of the Bible.”[¹]
[¹] Literature and Dogma ... By Matthew Arnold ... London ... 1873 ... pp. 26, 36–37 and 56.
IV.
“Esperança de Israel,” by Manasseh Ben-Israel
מקוה ישראל | Esto es, | Esperança | De Israel. |
Obra con suma curiosidad conpuesta | por | Menasseh Ben Israel | Theologo, y Philosopho Hebreo. |