JEWISH EVIDENCE ON THE TALMUD

The denunciation of the Talmud by the Jew Pfefferkorn in 1509 and the ex-Rabbi Drach in 1844 have been quoted in the course of this book. Graetz however, in his History of the Jews, quotes an earlier incident of this kind.[864] In the thirteenth century a converted Jew and former Talmudist Donin who, on his baptism, assumed the name of Nicholas, presented himself before the Pope, Gregory IX, "and brought charges against the Talmud, saying that it distorted the words of Holy Writ, and in the Agadic portions of it there were to be found disgraceful representations of God," that it contained many gross errors and absurdities, further that "it was filled with abuse against the founder of the Christian religion and the Virgin. Donin demonstrated that it was the Talmud which prevented the Jews from accepting Christianity, and that without it they would certainly have abandoned their state of unbelief." Again "he stated that the Talmudical writings taught it was a meritorious action to kill the best man among the Christians[865] ... that it was lawful to deceive a Christian without any scruple; that it was permitted to Jews to break a promise made on oath." These Graetz describes as lying charges.

The Jews were accordingly ordered by the Pope to hand over all their copies of the Talmud to the Dominicans and Franciscans for examination, and if their judgment should corroborate the charges of Nicholas Donin, they were to burn the volumes of the Talmud (June 9, 1239).

In France Graetz goes on to relate that "the priest-ridden and weak-minded Louis IX"--that is to say, Saint Louis--pursued the same course. "The Talmud was put on its trial. Four distinguished Rabbis of North France were commanded by the King to hold a public disputation with Nicholas, either to refute the imputations levelled against the Talmud, or to make confession of the abuse against Christianity and the blasphemies against God that it contained."

It is impossible to imagine a fairer decision, and the queen-mother, Blanche de Castille, was careful to assure the first witness summoned that if the lives of the Rabbis were in danger she would protect them and that he was only required to answer the questions that would be asked of him. Now, there would have been nothing simpler than for the Rabbis to admit honestly that these offensive passages existed, that they had been written perhaps in moments of passion in a less enlightened age, that they recognized the indelicacy of insulting the religion of the country in which they lived, and that therefore such passages should henceforth be deleted. But instead of adopting this straightforward course, which might have put an end for ever to attacks on the book they held sacred, the Rabbis proceeded to deny the existence of the "alleged blasphemous and immoral expressions" and to declare that "the odious facts related in the Talmud concerning a Jesus, the son of Pantheras, had no reference to Jesus of Nazareth, but to one of a similar name who had lived long before him." Graetz, who admits that this was an error and that the passages in question did relate to the Jesus of the Christians, represents the Rabbis as being merely "misled" on the question. But the King, who was not misled by the Rabbis, ordered all copies of the Talmud to be burnt, and in June 1242 these were committed to the flames.[866]

The Talmud, however, continued to exist, and it was not until 1640 that, as we have already seen, the offending passages against Christ were expunged by the Rabbis as a measure of expediency. Now that they have been replaced, no further attempt is made to deny that they refer to the founder of Christianity. As far as I am aware they are not included in any English translation of the Talmud, but may be found in an English version of Dr. Gustav H. Dalman's book, Jesus Christus im Talmud (1891).

II

THE "PROTOCOLS" OF THE ELDERS OF ZION

Contrary to the assertions of certain writers, I have never affirmed my belief in the authenticity of the Protocols, but have always treated it as an entirely open question.[867] The only opinion to which I have committed myself is that, whether genuine or not, the Protocols do represent the programme of world revolution, and that in view of their prophetic nature and of their extraordinary resemblance to the protocols of certain secret societies in the past, they were either the work of some such society or of someone profoundly versed in the lore of secret societies who was able to reproduce their ideas and phraseology.

The so-called refutation of the Protocols which appeared in the Times of August 1922, tends to confirm this opinion. According to these articles the Protocols were largely copied from the book of Maurice Joly, Dialogues aux Enfers entre Machiavel et Montesquieu, published in 1864. Let it be said at once that the resemblance between the two works could not be accidental, not only are whole paragraphs almost identical, but the various points in the programme follow each other in precisely the same order. But whether Nilus copied from Joly or from the same source whence Joly derived his ideas is another question. It will be noticed that Joly in his preface never claimed to have originated the scheme described in his book; on the contrary he distinctly states that it "personifies in particular a political system which has not varied for a single day in its application since the disastrous and alas! too far-off date of its enthronement." Could this refer only to the government of Napoleon III, established twelve years earlier? Or might it not be taken to signify a Machiavellian system of government of which Napoleon III was suspected by Joly at this moment of being the exponent? We have already seen that this system is said by M. de Mazères, in his book De Machiavel et de l'influence de sa doctrine sur les opinions, les moeurs et la politique de la France pendant la Révolution, published in 1816, to have been inaugurated by the French Revolution, and to have been carried on by Napoleon I against whom he brings precisely the same accusations of Machiavellism that Joly brings against Napoleon III. "The author of The Prince," he writes, "was always his guide," and he goes on to describe the "parrot cries placed in the mouths of the people," the "hired writers, salaried newspapers, mercenary poets and corrupt ministers employed to mislead our vanity methodically"--all this being carried on by "the scholars of Machiavelli under the orders of his cleverest disciple." We have already traced the course of these methods from the Illuminati onwards.