Besides the Spanish and German Jews in Constantinople, there was a small body of Italian Jews who were generally destitute of all religion. Then as there were many Germans in the city, Mr. Schauffler held a stated service for them, in which his labors were blessed to the hopeful conversion of some. The attendance was often composed largely of Israelites. In the closing month of the year 1844, he baptized a Jewish physician.
The Jews are probably more strongly prejudiced against the Gospel, than any other people. Their whole literature is anti-Christian. So are their education and internal religious policy. The great effort of Jewish learning for fifty generations, has been to prevent the Old Testament from suggesting Christian ideas to the Jewish mind. Hence a Jewish mission requires an extraordinary amount of preparatory work, in the first instance; though its main objects and duties afterwards will differ little, if at all, from those of other missions.
Mr. Schauffler was specially adapted to the preliminary work in Jewish missions, growing out of the peculiar state of the national mind. What this was, up to the year 1845, has been sufficiently indicated. In that year, a second edition of the Pentateuch, in Hebrew and Hebrew-Spanish, was printed at Vienna; and a new edition, of five thousand copies of the Old Testament in the same languages, was commenced at Smyrna. The American Bible Society, which bore the expense of these editions, also authorized the printing of a Hebrew and Hebrew-German version of the Old Testament, for the German Jews.
The testimony of Mr. Schauffler is so explicit on a point of great importance in a mission of the Jews, as to justify the following quotation:—
"My own observation from the first, has established this fact, that whenever a Jew is truly converted, the hope of seeing all Israelites settled in Canaan sinks to the level of many other secondary ideas; and Christ and him crucified,—Christ risen, ascended, and reigning in glory, Christ and his kingdom, wherever its centre may be,—becomes the all-absorbing theme. In other words, such Jews I have always observed to be just what true converts among ourselves are; differing from us only in this, that they cherish that desire for the conversion of Israel, which we ought also to cherish, and of which Paul has left so splendid an example. Half-converted men, in whom the carnal pride of the old Pharisee has never been broken down by a divinely wrought sense of the guilt of unbelief in Christ, who, when they were baptized, thought they did Christ and his people an honor; these, of course, never fail to consider themselves as something special in the kingdom of Christ, and they expect to be treated by Him accordingly. These make an exception. There are, also, truly converted men among the proselytes, who cherish that notion. They are those who have been under the influence of missionaries, who make them a 'royal race,' amid the divinely designated 'royal priesthood' (than which nothing can be higher) of Christ's true people. We are all apt to believe what magnifies ourselves. But I have observed no inherent tendency that way among truly converted Jews, and never found it necessary to make efforts to eradicate such carnal hopes."
The particular relations of the Board to the Spanish Jews in Constantinople underwent an unexpected change in the year 1846. Owing to the protracted and unavoidable delay in providing associates for Mr. Schauffler, the brethren from the Free Church of Scotland had so far taken possession of the ground, as to render another mission in that city inexpedient. Whatever cause there may have been for regretting this after the Board had obtained the men, no blame was attached to our more zealous brethren of the Scotch Church. Mr. Schauffler would continue to reside in Constantinople, and would render valuable aid to all the missions to the Jews in those parts.
Attention was now directed to Salonica (the ancient Thessalonica), which had been visited by Messrs. Schauffler and Dwight some years before. The city was visited again by Mr. Schauffler in July, 1847, and he urgently recommended occupying it as a Jewish station. The number of rabbinical Jews residing there was estimated at thirty-five thousand, or about half of the whole population. The number of their synagogues was fifty-six. The Jews were diffused throughout the city, and not confined, as in Constantinople, to certain quarters. There was, therefore, a good degree of intermingling in civil life with other people. The natural consequence was, that a Salonica Jew did not evince the shyness so common elsewhere, in approaching Christians, or in entering their houses. They were thankful for the gift of the Old Testament in a language they could understand. Moreover, the centre of rabbinical learning was at Salonica, and not at Constantinople; which made the assent given by the Salonica rabbis to the correctness of the Hebrew-Spanish version, the more influential.
The Rev. Messrs. Eliphal Maynard and Edward M. Dodd, appointed to this mission, reached Salonica, with their wives, in April, 1849, going by way of Constantinople. Mr. Schauffler was to remain at the metropolis, but accompanied them to Salonica and was with them seven weeks, helping them much towards a successful entrance on their work. Both of the brethren devoted themselves to the Hebrew-Spanish. Mr. Dodd gave, also, some attention to the Turkish, with a view to the Zoharites, or Moslem Jews, numbering about five thousand; all of whom seemed to rejoice that missionaries had come there to reside. He describes them as among the noblest of the inhabitants of the city, and as very ready to talk on religious subjects, with less self-conceit than the rabbinical Jews.
The Prudential Committee, on sending forth these brethren, stated the more important facts, principles, and usages, which should be kept constantly in mind in their mission to the Jews.[1] The relations of that people to Christ's kingdom were believed to be the same with those of all other people; and they were no more shut out from that kingdom by a "judicial blindness," or more really "cast away," than any other perverse and wicked nation. The obstacles to be overcome among them were substantially the same with those in the Oriental Churches. The relations sustained to the spiritual blessings of the Abrahamic covenant being no longer of blood, but of faith, these blessings must be common alike to believing Jews and Gentiles. Never again, in the spiritual kingdom of God, will there be circumcision or uncircumcision, Greek or Jew. Never again will there be a need of bloody rites, a mediating priesthood, and a showy ritual. Never again will there be a theocracy with a sensuous external economy, limited to a single nation. Never again, in the kingdom of God, will he be accounted a Jew, in the evangelical sense, who is one outwardly, nor that be accounted circumcision which is outward in the flesh; but he will be a Jew, who is one inwardly, and is, of course, heir to all the spiritual promises made to the Jews in the Old Testament; and circumcision is of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter. On these broad, fundamental Scripture principles, rested the whole superstructure of our mission to the Jews.
[1] More fully stated in the Missionary Herald for 1849, p. 101.