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CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
ARTISAN LIFE.

———>—_.

JESUS AND HILLEL.
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE

IN THE

TINE. OF OUR. Oui:

TO WHICH IS APPENDED

A CRITICAL COMPARISON BETWEEN

JESUS AND HILLEL.

Translated from the Gerinan of

DR. FRANZ DELITZSCH:

BY

Mrs. PHILIP MONKHOUSE.

6

Multz terricolis linguze, ccelestibus una.

LONDON:
SAMUEL BAGSTER AND SONS,
15, PATERNOSTER ROW.

187.
CONTENTS:

PREFACE
ARTISAN LIFE :—
I. The Herodian Government and the Second
Temple
II. Contemporary views of Labour and Handicraft
in general
III. The comparative Rank held by different Trades
in Public estimation
IV. A June day in ancient Jerusalem during the
last Decade before Christ
V. On the combination of Letters and Handicraft
JESUS AND HILLEL :—
PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

Lecture I.

I.
Il,

PAGE

26

45

71

10!
PREFACE,

  

Be HE acknowledged success which has
attended the publication of the works
of Dr. Delitzsch in his own country, and the
great appreciation they have met with in this,
so far as they are known, has encouraged the
Translator in supposing that the following
papers will not prove uninteresting to English
readers.
In an age when, on the one hand, science
and research have made all more or less
critical, every contribution towards the more

accurate realisation of circumstantial details,

must commend itself to the Biblical student ;
ii PREFACE.

whilst on the other, in an age when science
and research have made many educated men
more or less sceptical, any contribution which
places in clear and sharp contrast, the wide
gulf which separates the highest human in-
telligence from that of Him who spake as
never man spake, must commend itself to

all who recognise in Jesus the Son of God.

THE COLLEGE,

BIRKENHEAD.

May, 1877.
 

JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE AT THE
TIME OF JESUS:'

L

The Herodian Government and the second Temple, considered
tn their relation to Handicraft.

HEN Jesus, on a certain Sabbath day,
=| stood up in the synagogue of Nazareth,
and the men and women of the little country
town, in which he had grown up, beheld the
wonder-working prophet of Galilee in their
midst, the enigma of His presence seemed to

 

them to grow only more enigmatical; and,
confused in understanding rather than touched
at heart, they looked one upon another and

* Fudisches Handwerkerleben xur Zeit Fesu. Fiinf Vortrégeim Leipziger
Finglingsverein gehalten im Winter 1867-8. Von FRANZ DELITZSCH.
ZWEITE REVIDIRTE AuFLAGE. Erlangen, 1875.

2
2 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

asked, “Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is
not this the carpenter ?”’

In this question of the Nazarenes lies the
justification of the task which I propose to
myself. Handicraft is historically interwoven
with the person of Jesus. For the moment
we will not argue whether He might with
equal reason have been called ‘the car-
penter,” as the carpenter’s son, but the
artisan class may well feel itself honoured
in the highest degree through the simple
fact that He was the legitimate, though not
actual son of a carpenter, and was Himself
so called. What, in comparison to this fact,
are all imperial and royal charters which
guilds and corporations have to show? No
higher honour can ever belong to the position
of a working man, than that Jesus sprang from
a mechanic’s family; and that, if not Himself
a mechanic, He had no doubt taken part in
their employments. Through this, all labour
is hallowed; or, which is the same thing,
ennobled in a more than earthly sense.

I address a circle of young mechanics,’ and

* These papers were originally read before the Young Men’s Association,
in Leipsic.
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 3

I may well assume that amongst them there
is not one who does not daily bow his knee in
the name of Jesus. For this very reason I
might have apprehended that the choice of my
subject might not only flatter a groundless
pride of class, but also wound your Christian
susceptibility. But this I do not fear. You
know that the Jesus whom we worship is the
Exalted One. In that glory, which is the
reward of His humiliation, He is exalted in-
finitely above all the earthly relationships
which He entered, and through which He
passed. If, therefore, we consider the con-
dition of His self-abasement, apart from that
of His glory, it could be but a false awe, an
unseemly sensibility, which would prevent us
from making the question of the Nazarenes
both our starting point and our goal, in our
attempt to contemplate the life of Jesus in
relation to handicraft, and in connection with
the history of His times.

Are we thus of opinion that by this means
the nature of the person and work of Jesus
will become more comprehensible to us?
Shall we add a contribution to that romantic

treatment of His life which is now in fashion?
o*
4. JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

No; for three decades I have busied myself
with the history and literature of the people
from amongst whom Christ sprang, and ever
more and more am I convinced that the con-
nection of His times with the circumstances of
His life will never explain that which He was,
and that which He has become to the world.
We may bring before us the condition of His
times, the situation of his country, as clearly
as we will, but He ever moves a mysterious
figure through these finite surroundings, and
His form ever towers in incomparable majesty
above the scene of His presence.

None the less desirable is it, however, to
represent to ourselves those scenes where once
wandered that heavenly Son of man to whom
we all, old and young, learned or unlettered,
owe the salvation of our souls.

But can we really perform the task which
we have imposed upon ourselves? I know of
no handicraftsmen mentioned in the New
Testament excepting Joseph the carpenter,
Simon the tanner, and Paul, Aquila, and
Priscilla, the apostolic family of tent-makers.
But stay! you would remind me of Alexander
the coppersmith at Ephesus, who, under
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 5

colour of Christianity, strongly opposed the
Apostle Paul; and of Demetrius the silver-
smith of the same place, who, by making
small models of the world-famous temple of
Diana, earned great gains, which he feared to
lose through the preaching of the Apostle.
Perhaps you would remind me of Lydia the
seller of purple at Philippi, who may also
have sold gay embroideries, especially in
crimson, for true purple was beyond the
reach of the middle classes; but Alexander,
Demetrius, and Lydia do not here concern
us, inasmuch as we would consider handicraft
only as it was carried on at the time and in
the neighbourhood of Jesus. Did we possess
the New Testament writings only, we must
have despaired of accomplishing our task, for
though in these the subject of handicraft is
touched upon, it is never brought vividly be-
fore us. We have, however, other sources of
information: firstly, the historian Josephus, a
contemporary of Jesus, and who describes not
only the war with the Romans, in which he
took part, down to the destruction of the
Jewish state, but also the antiquities of his
people. We have too the Talmud, that
6 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

huge, patch-work collection of the laws which
governed Jewish life; and the Midraschim, a
comprehensive and numerous miscellany of
sayings, in the form of a commentary on the
several books of the Old Testament. These
reach as far back as the earliest centuries of
the Christian era. Both the Talmud and
Midrasch contain many historical passages,
but in both works are hidden materials suited
to our present undertaking, though introduced
incidentally and without order. We will seek
to gather these scattered sayings and stories
of artisan life into one harmonious whole, and,
keeping in view the stability of Eastern habits,
shall feel justified, while so doing, in going
here and there somewhat further back than
the exact century in which our Lord was
‘manifested.

We will begin to-day by bringing before
our minds the condition of Palestine under
the government of the Herodian family, viewed
in its relation to handicraft. The dauntless
patriotism of the priestly family of Maccabeus
had rescued the Jewish people from the tyranny
of the Syrian Seleucid, who had striven to
force on the Jews the worship of the heathen
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 7

king of gods, Jupiter Olympus, instead of that
of the God of Israel. None had a better right
to the throne, for which no heir of the lineage
of David presented himself, than this priestly
family, from which arose a new royal dynasty
which governed Israel one hundred years, and
raised it once more to the rank of a free, rich,
and respected nation. Power, prosperity, and
honour, however, tend far more to corrupt
than to ennoble mankind. This glorious royal
house lost but too soon the nobility of mind
in which its nobility of station had been
founded. Its piety was lost in lust of power,
and caprice, cruelty and family feuds brought
at length an Idumean family to the head of
affairs.

This family had been drawn into the politi-
cal administration of the Jewish nation by
King Alexander Janneus and his wife Alex-
andra, who governed nine years after his
death, and who appointed the Edomite Anti-
pater as governor of the conquered province
of Idumea. After the death of Alexandra a
sanguinary struggle broke out between her
two sons, Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, in which
Antipater took the side of the former, the
8 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

elder of the two brothers. But he merely
sought his own advantage. With Hyrcanus’
gold he bought the favour of the Romans,
and his son Herod, whom at the age of
twenty-five he had made Governor of Galilee,
soon threw Hyrcanus into the shade by his
vigorous activity. The Maccabzan prince
heeded nothing, and would take no warning.
He was too generous, too weak, and too
short-sighted to perceive that Herod, whose’
power and daring were ever increasing, had
indeed been nourished as a viper in his
bosom. The end was that the Roman Senate
named Herod king of the Jews in the year
39 B.c., on a proposition made by Antony.

The Maccabean prince, Antigonus, was
next executed by Antony, whom Herod had
bribed for this purpose, and Herod proceeded
to strengthen himself in the dignity, so boldly
and so artfully obtained, by ridding himself
successively of all the other branches of the
royal race of the Maccabees, contriving, whilst
so doing, to retain by lies and flattery the
favour of the Roman conquerors.

Herod’s reign of thirty-seven years’ dura-
tion was within six years of its close, when
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 9

that son of David was born in Bethlehem,
whose heavenly kingdom was to oppose the
glittering misery of the tyrant’s government.
Herod’s suspicion was ever rising; his deeds
of blood cried to heaven, and became so
numerous in his latter years, that we need
not be astonished to find the comparatively
insignificant massacre of the infants of Beth-
lehem only referred to in the course of the
Gospel narrative. But these scenes of horror
do not concern us. We must not forget that
it is only the artisan life of this period which
we have to describe.

Many conditions for the prosperity of the
working classes were wanting under Herod.
Politically the times were unsettled; Herod
had triumphed in his contests with the neigh-
bouring nations, but whether he would be able
to maintain his authority against the Romans,
was occasionally doubtful; whilst he believed
that only by heaping murders on murders
could he secure his life and crown against the
attempts of his nearest relatives.

To the Romans Herod exhibited boundless
gratitude, to many foreign cities inexhaustible
generosity; and in satisfying his ambition he
Io JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

wasted enormous sums, which he principally
extorted from his subjects. He did not dis-
guise his preference for the Greeks above the
Jews, and provided foreign countries with the
means of erecting splendid buildings far more
liberally than his own. Still, in his own
dominions, he raised edifices which vied even
with those of the neighbouring land of the
pyramids; Czesarea with its harbour, and the
temple at Jerusalem, were marvels of archi-
tectural science. When preparing to rebuild
the temple the people feared that Herod
might destroy, without reconstructing it. He
therefore provided everything requisite for the
work before he commenced it. He had in
readiness a thousand waggons for carting
stone; he chose ten thousand skilled work-
men, and caused a thousand priests to be
instructed in masonry and carpentry, having
previously secured their good-will by present-
ing them with new vestments. But not here
alone; in many places throughout the country,
axe and chisel were called into play to
embellish the Old, as well as to create
the New. Sometimes this was done in
isolated districts (as in the case of the city
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. II

of Phasaelis, so called after Herod’s brother),
which thus received a potent stimulus to in-
dustry. Those of the nation which held firmly
to the law of their fathers, saw with sorrow
this heathenishly-splendid transformation of
their country; but many citizens sided with
the king, since he not only gave them employ-
ment, but also flattered their secular national
pride. During the famine, which occurred in
the thirtieth year of his reign, Herod found an
opportunity to win, though not to retain, the
affection of his subjects. He caused all the
gold and silver in his palace to be melted
down to buy corn in Egypt; established
bakeries for those who could not bake their
allotted share of meal themselves; and in
every way came to the assistance of the
sufferers. Yet even when showing himself
benevolent, or when mitigating the heavy
taxes with which the people were burdened,
he ever betrayed but too plainly his own
selfish ends. He certainly was not actuated
by real love of his people, for the benefits
he conferred on them were soon far out-
weighed by still larger sums squandered on
foreigners; as, for example, on the revival
12 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

of the Olympic games. One can hardly con-
ceive how it could be possible for him, so soon
after he appeared a bankrupt, to seem on a
sudden so inexhaustibly wealthy. But Pales-
tine had at that time an incredibly numerous
tax-paying population. Of Galilee, the northern
province, Josephus thus speaks:* ‘‘No part
of it lies waste; moreover it is thickly set with
cities, and even the population of the villages
is SO numerous, in consequence of the abun-
dance of provisions, that even the meanest
village has more than 15,000 inhabitants.” In
another place he counts no fewer than 204
Galilean towns and villages.* ‘‘ The land of
Israel,” says the Talmud, ‘‘is not called the
‘Gazelle-beauty’ without reason, for, when
inhabited, it stretches itself out like the skin
of the gazelle, when uninhabited, it shrinks
together.” * Indeed the boundaries of the
Holy Land must have been as elastic as the
skin of the gazelle, which, thin though it be,
is most difficult to tear.

On finding his end drawing near, Herod

* Fewish War, iii., 3, 2. * Life of F. Fosephus, c. 45.
Scaz yur. Ferusalem Talmud, Treatise Taanitn, fol. 69, col. i. Baby-
lonian Talmud, Treatise Gittin, fol. 57, col.i.; Katu uBOTH, fol. 112, col. i.
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 13

ordered the principal men of the Jewish
nation to be shut up in the Hippodrome, and
commanded that immediately he had drawn
his last breath they should be shot down with
arrows; so that his death might be followed
by lamentations and tears, even though these
should not be for himself. When his son
Archelaus, subject to the imperial sanction,
ascended the throne, he was saluted with
clamours for the reduction of taxes, the release
of prisoners, and the abolition of the heavy
excise duty with which his father had hampered
trade. Against his will, he was speedily in-
volved in sanguinary contests with the people,
whose long-repressed fury now broke loose,
and the whole kith and kin of the Herods
proceeded to Rome, where, in the temple of
Apollo, the Emperor Augustus divided the
country (Palestine) between Archelaus, Philip,
and Herod Antipas, the three sons of his
faithful deceased vassal. Archelaus was he,
during whose reign over Judea the Holy
Family, after their return from Egypt, hesi-
tated to take up their sojourn at Bethlehem.
Herod Antipas was he who gave the head of
John the Baptist to that bewitching dancer, his
14 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE,

daughter-in-law Salome. Philip was he, from
whom the town of Czsarea Philippi, at the
sources of the Jordan, took its name; he also
raised the hamlet of Bethsaida, on the left bank
of the Jordan, to the rank of a town, endowing it
at the same time with municipal property and
inducing a large population to settle there.
Archelaus also acquired fame by building
Archelais near the Jordan, and by embellish-
ing Jericho, which lies some miles farther
south. He there restored the royal palace,
which had been burnt down, and made a
plantation of palm trees, which was watered
by means of an aqueduct. Antipas took no
less pleasure in architecture. Under him Sep-
phoris arose from its ruins as one of the
strongest and noblest of mountain fortresses ; ~
whilst Beth-Haram, on the right bank of the
Jordan, opposite Jericho, was rebuilt in Roman
style, and its name altered to Livia Julia, in
honour of the consort of the Emperor Augus-
tus. The most remarkable of his works was,
however, the building of Tiberias on the shores
of Gennesaret, the ‘‘Lake of the Prince’s
Garden’s.”” This town was named after the
Emperor Tiberius. Mention is thrice made
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE, 15

of it in St. John’s Gospel, and to it we chiefly
owe the faithful transmission of the text of
the Old Testament. Tiberias was partly built
on a cemetery, which kept away the stricter
Jews; but the tetrarch contrived to people it
nevertheless, partly by force and partly by
offering the inducements of high privileges.
Not very different was the case of the royal
residence of Czsarea on Hermon, built by the
tetrarch Philip, Paneas, asthe spot had been be-
fore called, having been infamous, from having
been abandoned to idolatry. Philip also raised
Bethsaida, on the left bank of the Jordan,
from a village to the rank of a town, to which
he gave the name of Julia, and where he built
for himself a family vault. He was the best
of the three Herods, a plain, straightfor-
ward, peace-loving man, to whom it was
granted to end his days in peace, after a reign
of thirty-seven years. He left no son. His
daughter was that Salome, whose mother,
Herodias, had fled from him in Rome, to
throw herself into the arms of his more power-
ful brother, Herod Antipas. This Herodias,
unsatisfied with her rank as wife of a tetrarch,
and resolved on being a queen, at length
16 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

brought matters to such a pass through her
vanity, that she and her husband were both
driven into banishment to Lyons, in Gaul.
After an exile of thirty years, Archelaus also
expired at Vienne in Gaul, to which place he
had been banished by the emperor, in conse-
quence of complaints made against him. The
provinces, once ruled by the three brothers,
now remained for some time under the Roman
government; one of the procurators of Judea,
after the deposition of Archelaus, being Pon-
tius Pilate. Yet once more, however, as in
the days of Herod the Great, the whole of
Palestine was united into one kingdom under
his grandson Herod Agrippa, who received
the tetrarchies of Philip and Antipas from the
Emperor Caligula, and later the rest of the
country from the Emperor Claudius. At the
time of Agrippa’s sudden death at Cesarea,
A.D. 44, his son was a minor, and the country
was again governed by procurators: when,
through the favour of the Emperor Claudius
and his successor, Agrippa the Second was
made king over a great part of the country,
and his authority was gradually greatly ex-
tended in the northerly and easterly directions.
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 17

During the national struggle for independence,
Agrippa adhered to the Roman side with
servile devotion, and died a.p. 100, leaving no
son to inherit his kingdom. With these two
Agrippas ended the dominion of the Herodian
family, and that in a manner which in some
degree recompensed their subjects for the
many miseries endured at their hands.

For fifty years Agrippa the First led a wild,
loose, and extravagant life; but, during the
three years of his reign he became pharisai-
cally pious, and took pride in conforming to
the Mosaic law as strictly as any other
Israelite. He, however, never lost the here-
ditary heathenish trait peculiar to the Herods.
He squandered millions in splendidly de-
corating the town of Berytos with theatre,
amphitheatre, colonnades, baths, statues, and
paintings. But although at the yearly shows
held there he distributed corn and oil amongst
the populace, his subjects felt aggrieved by
this excessive preference shown to a Gentile
city. On the other hand, he dedicated to the
Temple of Jerusalem the golden chain with
which he had been presented by the Emperor

Caligula, to replace the iron fetters he had
8
18 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

worn in his Roman prison. It was hung up
in the treasure chamber, and Josephus relates
that he never allowed a day to pass without
offering a sacrifice. The Talmud cites him
as the ideal of an Israelitish king. In its
pages he often comes before us negotiating
with the chief Pharisees. It is related that
he would himself carry his basket of first fruits
up the Temple ascent; and once, when in the
first year after a jubilee he stood on a stage
erected in the Temple, and, in accordance with
an old custom, read aloud the section ‘“ Of
the King,” in the fifth book of Moses, his
tears ran down when he came to the words,
‘“Thou shalt not set a stranger to be king
over thee.” Touched by his emotion, the
bystanders encouraged him with the cry, ‘‘ Be
of good cheer, Agrippa! Thou art our bro-
ther.”’ It was this Herod who beheaded
James, the son of Zebedee, and, seeing that
this pleased the Jews, threw Peter also into
prison. He died suddenly in an assembly, in

* Compare Tosephoth Pesachim, 107. b. YW Jon. It is certainly pos-
sible that the Talmudical reference relates, as Braun and Hitzig take it,
not to the first, but to the second Agrippa. The latter, however, showed

himself so utterly unpatriotic, in times of revolution and war, that it is
unlikely it refers to him.
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE, 19

which he had appeared in a robe of state
worked entirely in silver, and had accepted
divine honours from his flatterers. Handi-
craft flourished in his days, and he could enter
into the feelings of traders and artisans, since,
before his star was in the ascendant, he had
fulfilled the duties of ‘‘ Controller of the Mar-
kets” * in Tiberias, an office which had been
procured for him by the intercession of his
sister Herodias, who used her influence on his
behalf with her husband. His son, Agrippa
the Second, was the pale reflection of his
father. He also professed great piety, but
with less fanaticism. It was before him and
his sister Berenice (with whom he was united
in far other than sisterly bonds) that the
Apostle Paul was brought to gratify their
curiosity. Owing to the outbreak of the war
with Rome it was found impossible to use
the great stock of building materials, which
Agrippa had procured from Lebanon for the
enlargement of the Temple; but that he did
not like to see the workpeople idle and im-
poverished had been already shown, when, on
the completion of the Temple, thousands

! The native word for this officer is pro 29 in inscriptions.
*
3
20 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

having been thrown out of work, he had given
them further employment in paving the streets
of Jerusalem with white marble.

The most prosperous mechanics under the
Herods were those employed on the Temple-
buildings from a.p. 20 to about ten years
before the fall of Jerusalem. More than
18,000 workpeople were employed, and the
work was given out according to the ell
measure, and, on its completion, measured
by an ell of somewhat greater length, so as
to avoid both the appearance and the possi-
bility of unfaithfulness in holy things. By
this arrangement the workmen were, however,
no losers, their wages being very high. They
were paid not only weekly but daily, and he
who only wrought one hour in the day, re-
ceived immediate payment. It must not be
supposed that merely architects, sculptors,
masons, and carpenters were employed. The
walls, which enclosed the two fore-courts of
the Temple, were forty ells high, and were
pierced by nine lofty portals, of which eight
were provided with folding doors, overlaid
with gold and silver. One, the eastern gate,
had folding doors constructed wholly of Corin-
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 21

thian brass, but all the more richly decorated.
This was called the Nicanor, or Beautiful
Gate.‘ Internally, the Temple was richly
adorned, not only by the overlaying with gold
and silver, but with massive works wrought in
these precious metals. The whole Temple
was aglow with dazzling light, reflected partly
from the plates of gold and silver with which
the walls were inlaid on all sides, and partly,
where there was no gilding, from the lustre of
the purest white marble. The roof bristled
with golden spikes, which we should have
supposed lightning conductors, but which were
really designed to prevent birds from alighting
on it. No iron was used within the Temple:
even the altar of burnt sacrifice was erected
without the use of any iron tool, since ‘‘ That
which shortens life should not be lifted up on
that which lengthens it.” In decorating the
Temple, no scope was found for the painter’s
pencil, but it appears that on the eastern gate
the sculptor had chiselled at least one bas-
relief, representing, it is said, the Persian

¥ Acts iii. 2.
2 Middoth, v. 6. [The supposed design a rabbinical guess.—Edit.
H. C. W. and P. I]
22 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

metropolis, Susa.* All the more busily were
other artisans employed, not only artificers in
gold, silver, and copper, but also weavers,
knitters, and robe makers, whose business it
was to make the curtains which separated the
holy places of the Temple, and the vestries of
the priests.

According to the description of Simon, the
deputy highpriest, who had seen what he
described, the curtain, or veil of the Holy of
Holies, was woven out of seventy-two laces.’
Each lace contained twenty-four threads, six
blue, six crimson, six scarlet, and six byssus-
white. These were the four sacred symbolic
colours. At the time when Jesus uttered those
words of mysterious meaning, ‘‘ Destroy this
Temple and I will raise it again in three
days,’ the Temple of Jerusalem had been
already forty years in building. It was a
magnificent monument of the unsurpassable
love of art peculiar to the workmen of Pales-
tine. Several trades were indeed carried on
permanently within the Temple. The sym-
bolic sacrifices of animals, whose abolition we
owe to the offering of Himself by Jesus Christ,

* Middoth, iii. 4. ® Shekalim, viii. 5.
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 23

gave great exercise to the butcher’s calling.
The priests who had drawn this lot in the
division of the daily services, fulfilled the duty
of slaying, disembowelling,' and cutting up
the sacrifices, of which the minutest details
were regulated by the law. On the north side
of the altar stood the so-called slaughter-
house; here were eight dwarf columns on
which lay square blocks of cedar-wood. Each
block had three rows of hooks, for hanging up
large and small cattle, and between these
columns stood marble tables on which the
animals were flayed.* The Temple had also
its bakeries. There was one cell, in which
every morning the highpriest’s meat offering
was prepared, and another set apart for
making the shew-bread. The preparation of
the shew-bread was hereditary in the family
of Garmu, that of the incense in the family
of the Abtinas; these were each unequalled in
their callings. Alexandrians, who attempted
it, failed to produce so fine and straight a
column‘ of smoke, and in every respect the

* Yoma, 71, B. Wherever no J. (Jeru salem Talmud) stands before the
quotation, the Babylonish Talmud is referred to.

2 Tamid, iii. 5. 3 Yoma, 83 a.
24 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

Alexandrians, who had been attracted to Jeru-
salem, failed to fulfil the expectations formed
of them. When Alexandrian workmen at-
tempted to repair the brazen cymbals of the
Temple, the repairs had to be undone in
order to restore to the instruments their
former musical tone. When they tried to
mend the brazen mortar in which the spices
for incense were pounded, their work had
again to be undone, it is said, to procure as
aromatic a perfume’ as had formerly been
obtained. Jewish workmanship therefore car-
ried off the prize. One of its masterpieces
was an organ with one hundred different
tones, not a water organ (hydraulis), but a
wind organ with pipes, whose powerful swell
could, we are told, have been heard as far as
Jericho.* A special surveyor had charge of
the waterworks, and there was in the Temple
not only a physician, especially devoted to
maladies incident to the lower parts of the
body, whose practice was by no means small,
since the priests were obliged always to go
barefoot on the stone pavements, but also a
master of the fountains, a master of the vestry,

™ Erachin, x. 6. ? Tt was termed npr.
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 25

a lamp trimmer, and an overseer of the cur-
tains, or rather of the skilled weavers whose
duty it was to keep these draperies in repair,
and who were assisted in their labours by
women." In short, here worked masters and
journeymen of the most opposite callings, and
all were paid out of the Temple funds. This
Temple was, as it is called in Hebrews ix. 1,
‘A worldly sanctuary.” It was a world in
miniature, a great slaughterhouse, a great
bakery, a great kitchen. The world-enlighten-
ing declaration of our Lord, that God could
only be acceptably worshipped in ‘spirit and
in truth,” had but to be spoken to render the
restoration of this ritual, when once fallen,
impossible to all eternity.

t Kethuloth, 106 a.

 
26

 

II.
Contemporary views of Labour and Handicraft tn general.

4 EFORE proceeding further, let us make
uws8) ourselves acquainted with the opinions
relative to trade and handicraft generally cur-
rent at the time of our Lord. The New
Testament writings here afford us our prin-
cipal sources of information. Let us begin
by considering the extraordinary movement
which has been going on in the religious
world in England since the end of 1867. A
learned Jew, Mr. Emmanuel Deutsch, of the
British Museum, published in the Quarterly
Review an article, in which he endeavoured to
show that between Christianity and Judaism
no such wide distinction exists as is generally
supposed, inasmuch as most of the pithy
sayings and parables of the New Testament
may be found in the Talmud, and cannot,

 
 
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 27

therefore, be regarded as the original property
of Christianity. The impression made by this
brilliant composition was all the deeper that
it appeared to emanate from a Christian
author. For even as Judas betrayed his
Master to His enemies, whilst drawing near
to Him, he said, ‘‘ Hail, Master!” and kissed
Him, so does the writer of this paper, in
alluding to Jesus as ‘Our Saviour.” He
hides behind the mask of Christianity. It
were easy to demonstrate that the essence
of Christianity does not consist in virtuous
maxims, but in the work of redemption;
above all, that in Jesus was manifested that
Servant of God, whom, by the mouth of the
Old Testament prophets, God had promised
to send asa ‘‘ Covenant of the people,” ’ and
a “Light to the Gentiles;” that is, as the
Mediator of a New Covenant, which, proceed-
ing forth from Israel should embrace all
nations. But since, in these pages, we pro-
fess to occupy ourselves only with artisan life
at the time of Jesus, Mr. Deutsch might well
say to us, ‘Cobbler, stick to thy last,” espe-
cially should we prove inconvenient to him.

Isa. xlii. 6; xlix. 8.
28 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

Therefore, on our own ground of handicraft,
let us show what dust he has thrown in the
eyes of his English readers.

‘“« Sawest thou ever in thy life,” asks in the
Talmud’ a certain Rabbi Simeon, the son of
Eleazer, ‘‘a beast or a fowl pursue any call-
ing? Yet they suffer no lack, they, the only
purpose of whose creation is to serve me. I,
however, was formed to serve my Creator;
and if those who were only created for my
service ‘support themselves without difficulty,
should not I, since I am formed for the service
of my Creator, be also able to maintain myself
with ease? Certainly; only by evil conduct
can I deprive myself of the means of subsist-
ence.” Who is not here reminded of the
words of Jesus: ‘‘ Behold the fowls of the air;
they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather
into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth
them. Are ye not much better than they?”

Herr Deutsch draws many such parallels,
and in so doing deceives both himself and
others, since he is neither capable of appre-
ciating the difference between what is said
here and there, nor does he make any allow-

* Kidduschin, iv. 14. (Query, 82, col, ii—Edit. H. C. W. and P. 1.]
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 29

ance for such passages having been written at
two different periods.

When did this Simeon, the son of Eleazer,
live? He lived in the time of the Emperor
Hadrian, at least a full century later than
Jesus. We will not, of course, insist on that
account that he had drawn his remarks either
direct from St. Matthew’s Gospel (which was
already current in the Hebrew language), or
indirectly from Christian lips; but where such
a real coincidence exists, it is evident here, as
in most other cases, that the saying of Jesus
is the original, and Simeon’s the copy. We
say in most other cases, but we might almost
say in all; for, with the exception of Hillel,
of whom I have spoken elsewhere, all the
writers in the Talmud, whose teaching corres-
ponds to the words of the New Testament,
are of far later date than Jesus and the
archives of Christianity. For the rest we are
content to allow that the whole of Christianity
might well be compiled from the Talmud, if
it consisted in nothing further than in such
teaching as the exhortations to trust in God
and to virtuous living; but only a milk-and-
water interpretation can pare down the New
30 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

Testament writings to such ordinary moral
maxims; and, with Kirkegaard, we inquire,
‘‘ What necessity was there that the Heavenly
Wisdom should become man, to utter tri-
vialities ?”’

The Jewish people has ever been an in-
dustrious one, second to none in energy,
strength, ingenuity, and restless activity.
Handicraft and agriculture were their prin-
cipal occupations until their dissolution as
an independent state; and only in conse-
quence of their dispersion, and of the forced
restrictions placed on their industry, have
they become a nation of shopkeepers and
merchants, and thus replaced the ancient
Pheenicians. ‘‘ The God of the Jews,” ob-
serves Cicero, ‘‘must be a small god, since
He has given His people so small a land.’’'
But this little territory, of only about 170
miles long by 100 broad, enjoying as it had
done for centuries the concurrent advantages
of Divine protection * and human culture, had
become an earthly paradise. It is now but

* Raumer’s Palestine, Fourth Edition, p. 25. But where do we find
this speech of Cicero’s? The Oration pro Flacco, c. xxviii. contains at
least something similar.

* Deut. xi. 12.
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 31

the shadow of its former self. It was planted
and cultivated almost to the mountain sum-
mits, by means of terraces cut on their slopes,
and even rocky ground was made fruitful by
means of good mould being piled upon it.
The Mosaic law promoted and_ protected
agriculture by its wise enactments. It also
favoured the cultivation of the vine and the
olive, and in the Song of Solomon we see the
science of gardening brought to its highest
perfection. Iron and copper were obtained
not only from stones lying on the surface of
the ground, but also by mining. Amongst
the iron mines of the district east of the
Jordan are some known in Syria as the Rose
mines, which were again worked by Ibrahim
Pacha from the year 1835 to 1839; but a
sudden end was put to this newly revived
branch of industry by Syria falling again into
the power of Turkey, in 1840. To the Is-
raelites, Egypt was a school of science and
useful arts, of which the influence was long
felt. Even in times antecedent to the Cap-
tivity we meet with numerous trades deve-
loped into separate callings. Smiths and
locksmiths, carpenters and masons, have
32 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE,

distinct names; fullers and potters, we find,
had their especial quarters, even shaving had
already become a profession." In that early
epoch of Christianity which we are here con-
sidering, trade was so developed and so highly
valued, that many places were named after
any particular business which was carried on
there with peculiar success, such as Arbel
from its rope-walks, and Kefar Chananja and
Sichin from their potteries. Some actually
took the name of such trades as ‘‘ Magdala
the Dyer” (Migdal Zab’ajja). The Jews
were at that time far from being a commercial
people; but, of course, we are not now speak-
ing of such internal commerce as a nation
must of necessity carry on to provide its own
necessaries of life. We learn from the book
of Nehemiah that there was at Jerusalem a
provision market, to which not only peasants
from the outlying districts brought their coun-
try produce, but to which Tyrians brought
fish and other wares. Husbandry and trade
cannot exist without reciprocal buying and
selling, and therefore the high priest, in the
short petition which he offered up on the Day

* Eze. v. 2, where the barber is called gallal, later sappar.
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 33

f Atonement, after leaving the Holy of Holies,
srayed for a ‘“‘year of trading and journey-
ng." That our Lord found in the Temple
ables of money-changers, who for a commis-
jon exchanged unholy for holy coins; and
eats of them who sold doves, where those
vho were unable to bring more costly offerings
ywrocured the birds requisite for sacrifice, does
tot prove any especial love of trade on the
vart of the Jewish people. These were
ranches of industry which sprang naturally
rom the Temple ritual, but which, intruding
hemselves in an unsuitable place, had de-
traded the outer court of the Temple into a
\oisy bazaar. We are also told that on the
Mount of Olives, beneath two cedars which
warmed with doves, stood booths in which
ceremonially) clean flesh, etc., was offered
or sale. But it was not on these “ booths of
3ethany ”* that there lighted the fiery zeal of
he Purifier of the Temple.

Any special preference for that description
f trade which subsists by the exchange of

! Yoma, v. 3. Compare with the History of Fewish Poetry, by Dr.
elitzsch, p. 187.
2 Mexia, 88 a. J.; Taanith, 69 b. Compare Shabbath, 15 a.

4
34 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE,

foreign rather than native productions, is no-
where observable amongst the Jewish people,
either when we look backwards as far as pos-
sible beyond the first century of Christianity,
or forwards to about five hundred years after
it. ‘‘ Hate not toilsome labour,” says Sirach,
vu. 16, ‘‘nor husbandry, which the Most
High has created.” About trade nothing is
said. In the sixty-three books of which the
Talmud is composed we scarcely find one
word in honour of commerce, though many
pointing out the dangers of money-making
and of a wandering life. ‘ Wisdom,” says
the Rabbi Jochanan, in reference to Deut.
XXX. 12, ‘tis not in heaven, that is to say,
she will never be met with in the proud; she
is not beyond the sea, that is to say, thou
shalt never find her with traders and (travel-
ling) merchants.”* The reason is apparent:
the unsettled life of one who is always
speculating on gain nourishes a materialistic
spirit, which will never allow him to become a
thoroughly religious character.

If, in the middle ages, the Jews who had
absorbed all commerce made themselves

* Erubin, 55.
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 35

detested as usurers, they had, in taking usury
from the Gentiles, the Mosaic law on their
side," which here draws a distinction between
foreigners and co-religionists which is not
recognised by Christianity. To live, however
by taking usury was not in the spirit of Juda-
ism, for the Talmud* places him who lends
on usury on a level with the gambler, and
declares both vicious men, whose testimony
cannot be received in a court of justice.
‘“When the Holy One, blessed be His
aame!”’ says a passage in the Talmud,’ “ pro-
aounced His sentence on fallen Adam, the
rears of the unfortunate ran down when the
words were spoken, ‘ Thorns and thistles shall
t bring forth unto thee,’ and he exclaimed,
O Lord of the world, shall I eat from the
same crib as the ass?’ But when God pro-
eeded, ‘In the sweat of thy face thou shalt
sat bread,’ he was content.” The life of man
s no longer paradisiacal, and his own main-
nance is, as the Talmud here says, often as
,ard to him as is her labour to a woman;
rea, hard as was the controlling of the Red
3ea when a miracle of God rent its waters

* Deut. xxiii. 19, 20. 2 Rosch ha-Schana, i. 8. 3 Pesachim, 118 a.
*
4
36 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

asunder in the midst. But even in this work-
a-day world the superiority of man over the
beast is attested by the fact that his daily
bread, scanty and hard-won as it may be, is
yet the reward which nerves him for his daily
labour. The laden ass, staggering under his
burden, and the ox dragging the plough, are -
but the passive and unconscious slaves of
mankind. Man, however, becomes the ser-
vant of the earth’ when he helps her to bring
forth, both the seed full of promise, and golden
fruit. ‘‘ Love labour” was a favourite maxim
of Schemaiah,’ the teacher of Hillel, who died
possibly a few years before the birth of Jesus.’
‘‘Great is labour,” says another, ‘for she
honours her Master;”* and “great,” says
yet a third, “is labour, for she» warms her
Master.” And that ordinance of the Mosaic
dispensation, which, whilst requiring the
stolen sheep to be restored four-fold, exacted
a five-fold restitution for the theft of an ox,
may be justly accounted for by the circum-
stance that, in the latter case, the prejudice

* This in the Hebrew is a beautiful play on words. Sanhedrin, 58 b.
(Eted, servant, and oled, peasant. Pro. xii. 11. Comp. Ecc. v. 8.)

? Aboth, i, 10. 3 Nedarim, 49 b. 4 Gittin, 67 a.
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. air

done to the owner in his labours should be
taken into consideration. ‘Behold, there-
fore,” says the conclusion, ‘ how highly labour
is esteemed by God.”' And, when a young
man presented himself on one occasion be-
fore Rabbi Ismael,* the Rabbi asked him,
‘“My son, what is your occupation?” He
replied, ‘‘I ama Scribe.” ‘‘ Then,” exclaimed
Ismael, ‘‘be thou conscientious, my son, for
thy work is god-like.”

Yes! all work worthy of the name is god-
like, for the world is one great whole in which
everything acts and reacts. Each separate
thing is but a stepping-stone to some higher
end, and all things work out together the
grand purpose of the whole. The purpose
that is, which God projected, when it seemed
zood to Him to create the world, and He
executed His design. Mere selfish enjoy-
ment can be the allotted task of no individual;
rather must the work of each one lie in making
ais dealings subservient to the good of the
whole community by which he finds himself
surrounded, immediately in close, and rela-
ively in ever-widening circles. In this sense,

* Kamma, 79 b. ® Sota, 20 a.
38 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

and leaving the materials of earthly labour and
its present difficulties out of consideration, we
may still say that labour is god-like and
eternal. For even the creative energy of
God, by which He made His Almighty power
subservient to His love, is called work, on
the first page of the Bible. And in the
celestial world, wherever and whenever it is
unveiled, before the eyes of holy seers, it is
not idle and monotonous rest which we be-
hold, but movement, activity, self-sacrifice,
fulfiiment of Divine decrees, making known
of exigencies relating both to heaven and
earth, in a word, labour in God’s service. It
is for this reason that St. Paul, in so many -
passages of his Epistles, exhorts his readers
to labour and to wait on their worldly calling,
to work with their hands the thing which is
good, that they may have to give to him that
needeth,’ and that they may have lack of
nothing.* So, too, runs a saying of the
Talmud, ‘‘ Make the Sabbath a working-day
(without faring better on that day than on
any other), and thou shalt want nothing from
other men.” And again, in another place,

* Eph. iv. 28. ? 1 Thess. iv. 12.
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 39

‘Let a man compel himself even to the most
repulsive labour and he shall lack nothing.”
The whole world is founded on the principle
of reciprocal completion; but an idler is
useless, and is a hindrance rather than a
useful link in the chain of this organisation.
Giving was ever more blessed than receiving,
and the bread of charity from another man’s
hand has ever a bitter taste. Therefore, too,
St. Paul refused to profit by the right which
was his, as a preacher of the Gospel, to be
supported by his willing hearers. Barnabas
and some other of his fellow-workers also
aeld the same views as this Apostle, who, in
writing to the Thessalonians, bears witness to
aimself that, whilst unwearying in preaching
-he Word, he laboured with his own hands
jay and night that he might not be charge-
ible to any of them.’ In this he was more
‘ortunately circumstanced than his brother
Apostles* of Palestine, who were taken away
rom their calling as fishermen. He under-
stood a business which could be carried on
vithout hindrance either on land or water.
There is no trade, says the Talmud, which

1 Thess. ii. 9; 2 Thess. iii. 8. ? 4 Cor. ix.
40 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

the world can spare; happy is he who has
had in his parents the pattern of a business of
superior character.’ ‘In point of dignity and
rank there is a difference between trade and
trade; but to the lowest attaches no disgrace
if it supplies a real human want, and any
calling is better than none.”’* When St. Paul
says, ‘‘ Let him that stole steal no more, but
rather let him labour;” this sounds like an
allusion to the old Jewish saying, that ‘‘ when
a man teaches his son no trade, it is as if he
taught him highway robbery.”* ‘Cover up
dead cattle on the highway,” says a country
proverb, ‘‘and say not I am a priest, or I am
a great man, and the action is distasteful to
me.” * And ‘ God has so ordered things that
every artisan loves his craft, so that no trade
should disappear from the world.”

At the time of our Lord, there was at Jeru-
salem a skilful and much patronised digger of
wells, fountains, etc. (bajjar), named Simeon,
a native of the village of Sichnin in Palestine.
This man once said to Rabbi Jochanan, the
disciple of Hillel, ‘‘I am quite as great a man

* Kidduschin, 82 b. * Kidduschin, 29 a.
3 Pesachim, 113 b.; Bathra, 110 a. 4 Berachoth, 42 b.
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 4!

is thou art.” “‘ How so?” inquired the cele-
wrated Rabbi. ‘For the reason,” replied
simeon, ‘that I, no less than thou, supply
he wants of the community. If any man
comes to thee and inquires for ceremonially
clean water, dost thou not tell him, Drink
rom yonder fountain, for its waters are pure
ind cool? or if a woman inquire concerning a
rood bathing place, sayest thou not, Bathe in
his cistern, for its waters wash away un-
‘cleanness ?’’' In fact, for the due observance
f the Jewish laws of purification, Simeon was
juite as indispensable a person as all the
loctors of the law, whose decision was sought
n cases of doubt.

Even to this day some favourite maxims,
egacies of these olden times, yet linger on
‘ewish lips, such as ‘‘ Meloche is Beroche,”
hat is, ‘‘ Labour is happiness;” and again,
‘Arbeit is haan Charpe,” or ‘‘ Work is no dis-
rrace.”’* There is certainly no lack of beggars
vho stroll from country to country, and from
lace to place, living on the bounty of their
ellow countrymen, and there are vagabonds
vho have taken to heart the parting blessing

¥ Midrasch Koheleth, zn. 4, 17- ? Tendlau.
42 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

of a mother to her son on his leaving home:
‘Let them kick you, let them beat you, let
them trample on you, let them spit on you
and throw you into the kennel; but grow rich
you must.” Who can fail to perceive what
estrangement from God, and what a worldly
spirit have spread, even among the better
classes of the Jewish people, since they aban-
doned agriculture and handicraft for the seduc-
tive pursuits of commerce, or devoted them-
selves, as had already begun to be the case
even in the time of the Empire,’ to sensa-
tional literature and dramatic science? Yet,
in every department this people display
talents which may vie with the most brilliant
achievements; and an energy, of which some
of our Liberals* stand so much in awe, that
on the question of passing the Bill for Jewish
Emancipation, they do not fear to be incon-
sistent.

Even in agriculture the Jews were soon at
home, when again allowed to practise it. In
1849, when the right of holding land was con-
ceded to them in Austria, hundreds closed

* One Alityros was a noted Jewish actor. See Yosephus’ Life, chap. xix.

* These observations apply, of course, to Germany only.—Tr.
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 43

reir shops, and, throwing their packs from
ieir shoulders, turned exultingly to farm-life.'
: remains to be seen whether free trade will
1ake them once more in love with handicraft,
1 that sense in which the ancients say, ‘It is
old at bottom.”

Yes; labour is gold at bottom. ‘Let there
ome seven years of famine,” says an old
ewish * proverb which accords with this Ger-
1an-Christian saying, ‘‘they will not force
leir way in at the workman’s door.” Yet
ven labour has its darker side. It is remark-
ole that the first handicraft which we find
1entioned in the Bible took its rise amongst
1e descendants of Cain. Tubal-Cain was
ie first smith. Cain in fact means smith,
ad Tubal, iron chips. So faithfully, indeed,

everything perpetuated in the East that the
acksmith of the village’ Gtibbata-ez-zétun on
-ermon, with whose help Wetzstein wrote his
ventory of the workshops of the place, called
.e iron splinters struck off when working at

IVertheimer Chronicle, Vienna, 1856, p. 53. This transition from
idicraft is shown in the delightful novel, Trenderl, by Leopold Kompert
his Bohemian Fews,” 1851.

Sanhedrin, 29 a.
44 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

his forge, tibal.t | The Cainite branch of the
oldest humanity exhibits the rise of worldli-
ness, and from it a certain Cainite poison has
clung to handicraft. Purge yourselves of this
my dear young friends! Let not your souls
be snared in the earthy substances you handle!
Suffer-not your calling to be as a cage to your
souls! Materialism, narrowness of mind, un-
disciplined and uncultivated vulgarity, let
these be hateful to you! You have not only
an earthly but a heavenly calling. See to it
that they are interwoven. So may the lowliest
of you stand higher than many a high-born
gentleman, the light of whose eyes is quenched
in dissipation ; higher than many a one proud
of his riches or of his noble birth, and whose
soul is sunk in his stable or his kennel. But
I have wandered from my subject. The next
lecture shall induct you all the deeper into the
peculiarities of Jewish artisan life.

* Viva voce communications from Consul Wetzstein.
45

 

III.

The Comparative Rank held by different Trades in
Public Estimation.

 

legree accomplished the extremely difficult
ask of reading this work for themselves, will
‘e unable to form any distinct idea of this
aany-membered colossus. It may be com-
ared to a vast debating club, in which there
um confusedly the myriad voices of at least
ve centuries. We all know, by experience,
hat with whatever care and exactitude a law
aay be formulated, it is always susceptible of
arious interpretations, and question on ques-
ion is sure to arise when it comes to be
46 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

applied to the ever varying of circumstances
in actual life.

Figure, therefore, to yourselves about ten
thousand legal definitions, all relating to Jew-
ish life, and classified under different heads,
and with these about five hundred doctors
and lawyers, belonging principally to Pales-
tine or Babylon, who make these definitions
one after the other the subject of examination
and debate, and who, with hair-splitting acute-
ness, exhaust not only every possible sense
the words will bear, but every possible prac-
tical occurrence arising out of them. Imagine,
further, that the fine-spun threads of these
legal disquisitions frequently lose themselves
in digressions, and that, when one _ has
waded through a long tract of this sandy
desert, one lights here and there on some
green oasis, consisting of stories and say-
ings of universal interest. This done, you
will have some tolerable idea of this enor-
mous, and in its way unique, code of laws,
in comparison with which, in point of com-
prehensiveness, the law-books of all other
nations are but lilliputian; the latter re-
semble, indeed, calm and studious retreats,
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 47

vyhen compared with the hum of its kaleido-
copic Babel.

Amongt the constant repetitions of ‘‘ Rabbi
N. IN. says,” and “Rab, WN. N. says’ and
‘Mar. (Master) N. N. says,” it may hap that
ere a Pharisee stands forth and exclaims,
‘God, I thank Thee that Iam not as other
yen are,’ and that there some humble
ainded one prays, with the publican, ‘‘ God
e merciful to me a sinner!’’ When we
ay, therefore, that the Talmud is full of
espectful allusions to trade and handicraft,
his does not prevent pharisaical pride of
2arning from finding expression here and
here ; a pride which, fresh from the heights
f the study of the Law, looks down‘ con-
smptuously on all professions in the world,
nd holds the ink of the sage to be more
recious than the blood of martyrs.* Rabbi
Techuniah Ben-Hakana was wont, on leaving
ae schools, to pray thus: ‘‘I thank Thee,
) Lord my God, that Thou hast cast my lot
mongst those who frequent the schools, and
ot amongst the idlers at the corners of the
creets: for I rise early, and they rise early,

t F. Kidduschin, 66 b. ? An Arabic proverb.
48 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

I turn early to the words of the THora (Law),
and they to vain things; I work and they
work, I work and receive reward, they work
and receive none; I run and they run, I run
towards everlasting life, and they flee to the
pit.”* How much less proud and assuming,
if compared to this, sounds the utterance of
like import which was used by the scholars in
Jabne (Jamnia): ‘‘I am God’s creature, and
the equal of my fellow man; I have my calling
in the town, and he his in the field; I go early
to my work and he to his. Even as he does
not vaunt his work, so neither should I mine;
and sayest thou to thyself, ‘I produce great
things, and he small;’ yet have we learnt,
Though one produce great things, and another
small, yet shall the like reward be to each, so
far as his heart is, whilst working, lifted up to
God.”* Nevertheless, though all work which
supplies a real necessity is honourable, and
though the honour of each workman is meted
out both by God and man, according to the
divine standard of the moral and religious
feeling and line of action connected with his
work, yet ever and everywhere amongst man-

* Berachoth, 28 b. * Berachoth, 17 a. Comp. 2 Cor. viii. 15.
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 49

ind has there been a difference in the estima-
on in which different kinds of work are held;
nd this difference is justifiable, so far as it
roceeds from a correct point of view, and is
leasured by a just rule. We must hold it
rong that in ancient Egypt, as in India at
1e present day, the honour in which any
ork was held was fixed by the rank of its
iste. Just so in Germany in the middle
zes; the degree of estimation enjoyed by
ay kind of work kept pace with the honour
° the craft; and the position held by the
‘tisan in society was not according to the
ature of his occupation, but was high or low,
scording to the rights of the guild to which
2 belonged. That community of interests
1ould draw together the members of the
ime craft les in the nature of things. We
-e such associations, for instance, that of the
ilors in our own town,’ continuing to exist
ren after the introduction of free trade.
his, therefore, is not precisely the same
ing as the corporate guilds of former days.
1 the time of our Lord the members of dif-
rent trades were bound together in a similar

* Leipsic.
50 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

manner. There was, for example, a peculiar
train of thought and mode of speech, which
was called the ‘“ Fuller’s sayings.”’ The
fullers, who cleansed and thickened woollen
stuffs, and occupied for that purpose a parti-
cular bleaching ground, situated near the
upper pool, on the road to Joppa,’ formed
therefore a circle amongst themselves, and
expressed themselves after a peculiar fashion,
which could only be understood by the
initiated. There were also the companies of
the ass-drivers and watermen, who bound
themselves to replace, at the cost of the
corporation, the ass or the boat of any mem-
ber of the society who had not lost either
through culpable negligence.’ Still, guilds in
the strictest sense of the term these were not.
On the other hand, in Egypt, the land of
caste, trades unions flourished, even amongst
the Jews there.* The Jews of Alexandria had
a far-famed and magnificent synagogue, so
large that when the congregation were re-
quired to say Amen, the reader (chazzan) was

* Succa, 28 a; Bathra, 134. ? Jes. vii. 3.
3 Kamma, 116 b. Compare Fischer on Buxtorf’s Lexicon, v. x'D1,
Pp- 169-70.
4 Gretz Hist., 3, 33.
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 51

bliged to use a veil or head-cloth as an
yptical telegraph. This article was called a
udarium (a kind of napkin), for pocket-
tandkerchiefs in those days there were none.
n this synagogue the congregation did not sit
ogether haphazard, but the workers in gold
nd in silver, the nail and needle smiths, the
opper-smiths, and the weavers had each
heir proper station and seats; and if a poor
raftsman came in, he seated himself among
us fellow-workmen, who maintained him until
ie obtained employment."

The coppersmiths settled in Alexandria,
rho in their journeyings carried with them a
iortable bed,* and whose badge was a leathern
pron,’ had a synagogue‘ and a burial-place®
> themselves in Jerusalem. That they were
rganised as a guild, may be gathered from
ae fact that mention is made of their Rabban
r Master.*®

¥ Succa, 51 b. ? Sablath, 47 a. 3 It is called mun, Chullin, 57 b.
4+ Megilla, 26 a. 5 Nazir, 52 a.
5 Aloda Zara, 17 b, D»DV. Sw yn. The signification of DvD Ww is cer-
nly doubtful; the person here so called was put to the proof by being
quired to distinguish the warp and the woof-threadsin a yarn. Wiesner
tudies in the Babylonian Talmud, 2, 98 f.) connects therefore tarsi with
> Latin ¢textor.
5*
52 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

The spirit of trades union spread thus from
Egypt to Palestine; but handicraft was not
estimated according to accidental corporate
privileges, extending beyond its own pale.
Neither, certainly, was it prized according to
its intellectuality, nor the ideality of its pur-
suits, nor yet in accordance with its relation-
ship to the higher or lower interests of man-
kind; for handicraft and science were at that
time so blended into one another that the lan-
guage had not even separate terms for them.
There was not then, as now, within the sphere
of handicraft a graduated chain of steps, by
which one might mount to the highest pin-
nacle of science; and there was then no such
brotherhood between mechanism and science
as exists at the present day, when a mechanic
can hold the most influential position in a
progressive science even; for example, in
optics and acoustics. The Mosaic law had
fostered in the people a strong and keen per-
ception of clean and unclean; a trade which
brought a man in contact with unclean sub-
stances, which made him personally offensive,
ranked low on that account. Tanning, by
which the skins of beasts were converted into
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 83

eather, and mining, which bores into the
zarth, were both considered as such dirty
ades that a woman was allowed to separate
aot only from a collector of dog’s-dung, who
supplied the tanner with this ingredient of
‘an, but also even from a tanner or a miner,
is well as from a leper, or one afflicted with
in offensive polypus; and it was immaterial
whether her husband had become that by
which he annoyed her so intolerably before or
ifter marriage.* ‘‘ The world,’ says an oft-
‘ecurring proverb, ‘‘cannot exist either with-
nut the perfumer (bassam) or the tanner
‘(burseki). Happy is the man whose calling
s perfumery, and woe to him whose calling is
Tanneries were, like the

202

chat of a tanner.
iwellings of curriers and miners, obliged to
ye at least fifty yards from any town.’
Notwithstanding all this, a ‘‘ but” attached
sven to perfumery. Any intercourse with
voman, beyond that of married life retired
vithin the strictest seclusion of home, was,
imongst the Jews, as everywhere in the East,
»xtremely restricted, and was regarded with
sreat suspicion. “That a woman should allow

™ Kethuboth, vii. 10. 2 Kidduschin, 82 b. 3 Bathra, ii. 9.
54 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

her hair to be seen uncovered, was held to be
a disgraceful exposure, and listening to the
song of women verged on unchastity.’ So
strict indeed were they, that though in Judea
a bridegroom was allowed to pass at least one
hour alone with his affianced wife before mar-
riage, it was considered dubious whether this
concession should be extended to Galilee.’
How easily then can we enter into the
astonishment of the disciples at finding Jesus
engaged in conversation with a woman; with
the Samaritan!* He who sought to raise
mankind from the slough of sin to moral
freedom, and desired to lift woman also from
the abasement in which she was at that time‘
held by the one-sided views of the opposite
sex, to the rights of a free personality, con-
versed with women in a freer manner. Rénan
has turned this to account in various piquant
incidents of the romance into which he has
transformed the life of Jesus.

* Berachoth, 24 a. ? Kethuloth, 12 a. 3 John iv. 27.

+ The position of women in ancient Israel was very different from that
held by them in the later days of Judaism. Miriam and Hulda, the pro-
phetesses, and Deborah, who judged Israel, find no counterparts here.
He who teaches his daughter the Law, says the Talmud (Sota, 21 b.),
teaches her immorality, because she may make a bad use of what she has
learnt.
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 55

Jesus in truth was compelled to act thus:
not only because God had so ordained it,
that the line which began with the Blessed
among Women, continued itself in Mary
Magdalene, Salome, and other holy female
believers, but also expressly to break the
ban of the old prejudice, and to found that
communion of spirit, in whose spiritual atmo-
sphere the lines disappeared which the Mosaic
law had drawn between the sexes. Inter-
course with women is only seductive to him
in whom the fire of evil passions is not
extinguished by that Living Water of which
Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman. For
this very reason we cannot wonder that the
century of Jesus, which knew not the healing
power of this new life, this emancipation of
the spirit from the fetters of the flesh, should
regard with contempt and suspicion every
trade, which exposed those who practised it
to intercourse with women. In the same
spirit in which it was said that no unmarried
man or woman should keep a day school,
because the former would be likely to be
visited by the mothers, and the latter by the
‘athers of the pupils, do we read the precept
56 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

that no one should allow his son to learn a
trade likely to bring him in contact with the
opposite sex. Amongst the callings enu-
merated are those of the goldsmith, wool-
carder, handmill-borer, perfumer, weaver,
hairdresser, fuller, cupper and bath-heater,
none of whom could ever be king or high-
priest: not on account of personal unfitness,
but because of their degrading employments,’
which were held in this low estimation on
account of the dangerous temptations in-
separably connected with them; temptations
only to be overcome by self-control as strict
as that practised by Rabbi-Chanina and
Rabbi Oschaiah. These rabbis both followed
the trade of shoemaking in an abandoned
district of the Holy Land. They: made shoes
for women but never lifted up their eyes to gaze
on them when they brought home their work.’
A wise man, runs a parable,’ established
his son as a perfumer at a rendezvous of fal-
len women. The situation of his dwelling,
his calling itself, and the wantonness of

* Kidduschin, iv. 13, 14, and with this the Gemara, 82 a.
? Peachim, 113 b.

3 Landau, Genius and Language of the Helrews, p. 209.
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE, By

youth all did their work; he fell a prey to
vice. The father’s indignation broke loose,
and in his rage he exclaimed: ‘I will kill
you!” A friend heard the threat. ‘‘ What!”
exclaimed he, ‘‘are you so outrageous that
you will kill your son? Would no other
calling suit him than this trade in perfumes?
and was there no other position for his shop
than this market for courtesans ?”’

Another point of view which determined
the estimation in which various trades were
held, was the general repute in which those
who followed them stood. There were some
callings which exposed those who exercised
them to the temptation of appropriating more
than was right of the different materials
entrusted to them. The concluding Mischna
of the treatise Bana Kama, gives minute
directions for avoiding this. ‘ The flakes of
wool,’’ we there read, ‘‘ which come off when
the fuller soaks in his stuff are his, but those
which come off during the process of carding
belong to the owner. The three threads
which the cloth-maker weaves into the sel-
vage, but which the fuller draws out, belong
to the latter; but anything beyond these to
58 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

the owner of the cloth. If, however, there
are black threads, which border the white
cloth, the fuller may keep them after drawing
them out of the stuff, since black does not
look well on white. If a tailor has any sur-
plus thread sufficient to use in sewing, or a
piece of cloth as long or broad as three
fingers, both belong to the owner of the
materials. The shavings made by a carpenter:
in planing wood he may keep, but any made
by the axe are the property of the owner.
Should he be working in the house of his
employer, the latter has a claim even on the
saw-dust.”

Many trades were proverbially infamous
on account of their customary dishonesty
towards their employers. Let no one, says
an old proverb which has come down to us,
allow his son to be an ass or a camel-driver,
a barber, a skipper, a shepherd, or a pedlar,
for these are all thievish callings. The ass-
drivers, says another, are mostly godless fellows,
while the camel-drivers (notwithstanding the
temptation inseparable from their wandering
life to help themselves to the property of
others) are generally honest; and sailors (on
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 59

account of the dangers to which they are
constantly exposed) are usually pious. The
best of the physicians is ripe for hell, on
account of the too materialistic train of
thought engendered by their profession, and
their too frequently preferring the rich to the
poor; and the most upright of the butchers
is a companion of Amalek, because, in his
greed of gain, he is not careful about the
quality of his meat.’

The following story* may serve as an il-
lustration of the craft and deceit for which
the ass-drivers were notorious. There was,
in a certain town, a great dearth of salt. A
company of donkey-drivers, belonging to the
place, agreed to go and fetch some from some
other locality, and bring it to market as
quickly as possible. On going to call their
head-man to accompany them, he replied:
“To-day and to-morrow I must work in my
field; but wait so long and we will then go
together.’ By working in his field, he, how-
ever, meant something very different to what
he said, and hastened to initiate his wife into

™ Kidduschin, ix. 24. Sofrin, 47 d, and in other places.
* Landau, p. 185.
60 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

his artifice. ‘‘Take heed,” said he, ‘‘that when
I call for the yoke thou bring me the saddle,
and when I ask for the jug that thou bring
me the sack.” He then threw the sack across
his ass’s back and trotted off. Later on, his
men coming to fetch him, they were informed
that he had started off the day before, and as
they set out on their journey he met them
returning with his load. ‘‘ Why hast thou
used us thus?” cried they. ‘‘ Don’t be fools,”
replied he; ‘‘if we had all gone together, salt
would have been cheap enough by this time;
but now, when you come back, mine will be
all sold, and you can still make a handsome
profit.” The speaker thus proving himself
a master in subtilty as well as donkey-driving.

The fact that sailors were considered pious
on account of their business bringing them
ever face to face with an uncertain and
dangerous element (though the rule had its
exceptions), reminds us that Jesus called His
first four disciples from the fishing boats on
the lake of Gennesaret.' The fishing on the
lake was free; and though the sinking of
bow-nets was prohibited, lest navigation

* Matt. iv. 18-22 b.
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 61

should be impeded, for the rest, every one
was free to try his fortune there with net or
line. This was believed to be a liberty
especially insisted on by Joshua’ when divid-
ing the land. These fishermen did not amass
fortunes, yet previous to the Jewish war, the
sailors and the poor of Tiberias made so
strong and formidable a party, that Jesus
the Son of Sapphias, who had set himself up
as commander of the town, maintained his
position by their support.*. Even as Jesus
Christ chose His first and most renowned
Apostles amongst the fishermen or sailors of
the lake of Gennesaret, whom, according to
St. Matthew, He first saw on the shore of the
lake, but, according to St. John, had already
met in Judea, where they were in the habit
of taking their wares for sale, (which circum-
stance explains the acquaintance of John the
son of Zebedee with the household of the
high priest,)* so did the (at that time) despised
trade of the tanner, open a hospitable home
to St. Peter in Joppa, where he was mentally
prepared to extend his preaching of the

* Kamma, 21 a. 2 Fosephus’ Life, chap. 12.

3 John xviii. 16.
62 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

Gospel to the Gentiles.‘. On the other hand,
it is a blot on the history of the dyers, that
one of them with his club gave the death-
blow to St. James the Just, the brother of the
Lord, when, as Heggisippus* records his
martyrdom, he was thrown down from the
battlements of the temple. Very disagreeable
too were the weavers (gardijjim) ; ribald songs,
to which no decent man would listen, were
called weavers’ ditties.’

In the treatise Edijoth 1, 3, we are intro-
duced to two respectable weavers from the
Dung-gate of Jerusalem, whose evidence was
accepted on a question of law; but, with this
exception, history has no good to say of the
weavers. In the Babylonish city of Ne-
hardea, two Jewish journeymen weavers being
illtreated by their master for coming late to
work, embraced the profession of arms, and
under the Emperor Caligula these bold ad-
venturers long ruled the districts of the Tigris
and Euphrates.* Another weaver, of the name
of Jonathan, who belonged to the robber-band
of the Siccari, attached to himself the poor

* Acts ix. 48. * Eusebius’ Eccles. Hist., ii. 23.
3 Sota, 43 a. 4+ Aloda Zara, 26.
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE, 63

people of the neighbourhood of Cyrene, and
led them into the wilderness, where they
expected to see miracles. They were, how-
ever, easily dispersed by the Romans.
Jonathan tried to save himself by lying
calumnies, which cost thousands of his people
their lives, until at length unmasked, he was
severely scourged and then burnt alive. With
these events, which took place under the
Emperor Vespasian, Josephus concludes his
work on the Jewish War. When in Erlangen,
I used to hear the hum of the weavers’ spool
in passing so many houses, it always seemed
to me as if this humming were accompanied
by the sighs of poverty. There have been
times when weaving was richly paid, but.
generally it has lain under the curse of
poverty. It did so at the epoch which we are
now considering. ‘A weaver who cannot
stoop,” says an old proverb, ‘‘ his life shall be
shortened by the anathema ;’" that is to say,
that only by a servile pliancy and complai-
sance can he hope to prolong his miserable
existence. In another form this proverb runs,
A weaver who curses his fate shortens his

* Josephus’ Antiquities, xviii. 2.
64 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

years by a year. That is, he must content
himself with his lot, if he would not shorten
his life by repeated outbreaks of despair.’ So,
when a proverb tells us that even a weaver is
a potentate in his own house,* the humble
social standing of the weaver is brought
before us, and the sense is, that any calling,
however humble, makes him who follows it
a master, within certain limits; which is what
the Centurion of Capernaum intended to
express where he says that he has a limited
jurisdiction, within which his word is law;
but Jesus a boundless one.’ Neither is there
any calling so unimportant that a man may
not be proud of it. For man, blind to his
own sin, is but too often self-righteous, and
can be proud in any station of life. From
pride of noble birth down to beggarly pride;
this vice takes the most innumerable forms.
A wife especially, will always hold her hus-
band’s calling in honour, and is disposed,
however mean it may be, to magnify it to
herself. Let aman be but the size of an ant,
says a proverb, yet will his wife take her place

* Buxtorf, Lex. vy. J. ? Megilla, 12b. See also Raschi.
3 Matt. viii. 9.
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 65

amongst the great. This self-respect is, when
it does not degenerate into conceit, the
divinely appointed consequence of wedded
love, which feels its own happiness in the
smallest particulars, and throws its trans-
forming light even over the most. trifling
circumstances. If aman be but a watchman,
says another proverb, his wife is content, and
does not want lentils for her pot; and yet a
third says, If a man is but a wool-comber, yet
his wife calls him before the threshold, and
seats herself beside him.*

Many such sayings have come down to us
from these olden times, and. almost every
trade has contributed its quota to the col-
lection. For instance, ‘After the ox comes
the butcher;’’* that is to say, his importance
is measured by the value of the cattle he
slaughters. ‘‘ The blacksmith who sits at his
forge is often paid by the work of his own
hands,”* meaning, he forges the weapon
which may be the instrument of his death.
The miller’s proverb that, ‘‘ every man’s luck
lies in his trough,”* needs no explanation ;

For these three proverbs, see Febamoth, 118 b, and o.
2 Bereschith Rabla, 576. 3 Pesachim, 28 a. 4 F. Peahi., 1 and 8.
6
66 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

and since we have touched on marriage, let
us cast a glance into an artisan’s cottage.
Even in these old times we find warnings
against too early marriages, often the fruitful
source of family wretchedness. Let a man first
build a house, is the comment on Pro. xxiv. 27,
and plant a vineyard, and then let him take a
wife. On the other hand, a happy marriage,
contracted at a suitable age, was considered as
the greatest happiness on this side of the
grave, especially for one who has to live by the
work of his hands. ‘A sleepy wife makes an
empty bread-basket,” says one proverb; whilst
of an industrious woman it is said, she spins,’
even when gossipping. She is not only main-
tained by her husband, but she helps to
support him and the children. For instance,
it was customary in Judea, for women to
make woollen, and in Galilee, linen clothing.
To a woman who asked a scientific question,
Rabbi Eleazar gave answer, ‘‘ The only wis-
dom which befits a woman lies in her distaff ;”
and the prophet Elias replies to Rabbi Josiah,
on his inquiring in what respect a woman was
a helpmeet to her husband (Gen. ii. 18):

* Sanhedrim, 7a; Megilla, 14 b.
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 67

‘“The husband brings home corn; but can
he eat corn? He brings home flax; but can
he clothe himself with it? No; but the wife,
by grinding the meal and spinning the flax,
enlightens his eyes and sets him upon his
legs.” * Domestic servants were treated as
members of the family, and the death of a
good servant we find thus deplored: ‘Alas!
for the good and faithful servant, in all whose
work there was profit.”’* Kindness and con-
sideration for servants is instilled both by
precept and example. ‘‘ Beware,” we read,
‘of eating fine bread thyself, and giving thy
servant black; or of sleeping thyself on
cushions whilst he les on straw, specially
when he is thy countryman and fellow be-
liever; for he who takes a Hebrew slave sets
at the same time a master over himself,’
inasmuch as he must allow those claims on
kind treatment which such an one can always
urge. Righteousness was already understood
by the better sort in the sense in which St.
Matthew describes Joseph, the husband of
Mary, as a just, or (as the word is translated
by Luther), as a pious man; that is, they

* Fel'amoth, 63 a. 2 Berachoth, 16 b. 3 Kidduschin, 20a.
6*
%

68 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

held it to consist, not in strict adherence to
the law, but in following the law of love.
Some coopers once allowed the wine to run
to waste from a cask belonging to a certain
Rabbi. He seized their garments to make
good his loss. They complained to a teacher
of repute. ‘‘ Thou shalt restore their cloth-
ing!” was his sentence. ‘‘Is this true judg-
ment ?’’? demanded the defendant? ‘ Yes,”
replied the judge, ‘‘even as Solomon exhorts
thee to walk in the way of good men.” (Pro.
il. 20.) The garments were restored. The
coopers, however, clamoured further. ‘We
are poor men, and have worked the whole
day, and now we hunger and have nothing.”
Then the arbitrator once more gave sentence:
‘“Go, give them their hire.” ‘Is that jus-
tice?”’ asked again the astonished Rabbi.
‘““ Yes,” said the judge, ‘‘thou shalt, even as
Solomon continues, keep the paths of the
righteous.” * According to another story,
four hundred casks of wine belonging to a
wealthy sage turned sour. Certain outspoken

» Mexia, 83a. The Jerusalem Talmud, Mexia vi. 6, relates a similar
story of a potter whose wares were broken by some people charged with
their transmission.
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 69

friends who regarded this as a visitation from
heaven, begged him to examine his life.
‘“Do you then suspect,” cried he ‘that I
have done any wrong because this evil is
come upon me?” They answered, ‘‘ Can
any man accuse God of having punished thee
without a cause?” ‘Come on, then,” re-
turned he; ‘let him who has heard evil of
me declare it!’’ They spoke: ‘‘ We have
heard that his lordship keeps back from his
gardener his due share of the vines.” ‘‘ Has
the gardener then, indeed, left me anything
remaining?” he exclaimed; ‘‘he robs me of
everything.” His friends, however, insisted
on it that he was wrong, and referred him
to the proverb, that ‘‘he who steals from a
thief is no better than a thief.”"* Such traces
of a line of conduct which was guided by
grace rather than law, and which overcame
evil with good, should benefit us wherever
we meet with them, though true it is that to
such actions we should not require special ex-
hortation. To all mankind the pattern of
that Divine love should suffice, which, thank-
lessly as we repay it, daily makes its sun to

2 Berachoth, 5 b.
7O JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

rise on the just and on the unjust. Yet how
much closer is the duty of that love brought
home to us, which is founded not on the
loveableness of our neighbour, but on his
need of love; since Jesus, the Messiah of
Israel, the Saviour of the world, has offered
Himself for His sinful people, yea, for all
sin-polluted mankind. From His life-blood
poured out on Golgotha, may be derived by
all who will let His sacrifice be to them that
which it is meant to be to all men, the gift
of a righteousness valid before God, and the
power of a new, world-embracing love.
Brothers, friends, of whatsoever rank or
calling you may be! strive that your souls
may be ennobled through this righteousness
and this love, and take this lily and this rose
as your emblem !

 
71

 

IV.

A Fune day tn Anctent Ferusalem during the last
Decade before Christ.

  

fae N the ninth, or possibly the eighth year
ms «(for the date cannot be exactly ascer-
ned of the last decade before the Christian
era, all Palestine and Syria were waiting
in suspense for the climax of a fearful tragedy:
Mariamne, the descendant of the royal race
of the Maccabees, the noblest and best be-
loved of Herod’s wives, had already fallen a
victim to his gloomy suspicion; and intrigue
had now succeeded in making him suspect
his two sons by the murdered princess,
Alexander and Aristobulus, the pride and joy
of the nation, of plotting against his life.
By means of intimidation, he had brought
matters to such a pass, that a tribunal, sitting
at Berytos, had condemned them, unseen and
72 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

unheard, to death. All were now asking
whether it were possible, that a father would
permit the execution of his own children,
above all, of two such noble and undoubtedly
innocent sons.

To this period of terror-stricken expecta-
tion let us transplant ourselves in thought,
and unroll the picture of a day in ancient
Jerusalem.

It is a week-day of the month Siwan,
which answers to our June. The starlight
fades gradually in the cloudless heavens,
before the early-breaking dawn. The two
divisions of the Temple watch, all provided
with torches, have met before the chamber
in which the high priest’s meat-offering is
prepared, and have mutually passed the word
that all is in order and readinéss. Those of
the priests who have been able to pass this
night in sleep, are risen, have bathed, and
donned their robes of office. In the Stone
Hall, in one half of which were held the
sittings of the Sanhedrim, lots are being cast,
for the division of the duties of the coming
day. The brazen laver, which has stood all
night in water, has been drawn up, and in it
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 73

the priests have bathed their hands and feet.
And now the bells ring their first morning
peal for the town lying below, and the priests
sound their trumpets, whose blast, in the
quiet of the early morning, can be heard far
and wide, both in the Upper and Lower, and
in the Old and New Town.

By command of the captain of the door-
keepers, the Levites now open all the gates
of the Temple, and preparations begin for
the morning service, of which the chief
feature is the daily sacrifice of a lamb.
The altar of burnt-offering is cleansed, the
faggots strewn on the glowing embers begin
gradually to kindle, the musicians fetch their
instruments and take them out of their
wrappers, the guards are relieved, and the
priests and Levites who were on duty the
previous day are dismissed. All this takes
place by torchlight ; but meanwhile the chief
timekeeper is observing the dawn of the day,
and some priests deputed by him, ascend the
battlements of the Temple. When the sun
has so far risen that Hebron, lying amongst
the mountains south-east of Jerusalem, can
be distinguished, they cry, ‘‘ Barkai ad Che-
74 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

bron” (the light has reached Hebron),’ and
instantly rings forth the cry, ‘‘ Hither to your
duties, O priests! lLevites, hither to your
pulpét! Israelites, hither to your places!”
This last call was addressed to the repre-
sentatives of the general congregation. This
band was relieved every week, and it was
their duty to be present at the sacrifices, and
to pass the night in the Temple.

Meanwhile the city and its suburbs are
awaking. The castle of Antonia resounds
with military signals, and the booths of Beth-
Hini are opened beneath the cedars on the
Mount of Olives. In the Temple street,
which leads from the Castle Square to the
west wall of the Temple enclosure, cattle-
dealers and money-changers are hurrying in
advance of the worshippers to the Temple
bazaar in the outer court of the Gentiles.
Those, too, who mean to attend the morning
service, betake themselves from the Upper
Town, through the Xystus Gate, from the
New Town through the Market Gate, and by
many another road, to the ascent of the Tem-
ple Mount. Especially frequented is the

* Foma, iii. 1, with the Gemara.
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 75

bridge uniting the Xystus Terrace with the
Temple enclosure. Here and there some one
pauses to look down on the left at the splendid
theatre, or, on the right, towards the Tyro-
pcean, or Cheesemakers’ Valley,’ and to in-
hale the sweet air wafted thence from the
numerous dairies. Not all, however, go to
the early service at the Temple; Jerusalem
has hundreds of synagogues.* The two fine
gentlemen yonder, dressed according to Greek
fashion, and speaking Greek with each other,
are on their way to the synagogue of the
Alexandrians. This worthy burgher carrying
his prayer-mantle, in which his tefillin is en-
folded, under his arm, is going to the syna-
gogue of the coppersmiths, where he pays for
his place; whilst yonder lady, with the
bouquet of roses, and fresh from the hands
of the hairdresser, has no idea of hiding her
costly morning toilette behind the lattice of
the women’s gallery at a synagogue, but
trips with mincing steps towards the Temple
Mount, in order to show herself there, in the

* The cheesemakers were called meggabbenim. Schallath, 95 a.
2 480 according to 7. Megilla, 73 b. 460 according to j. Kethuloth,
35 b.
76 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

court of the women." The worshippers scatter
themselves in the most opposite directions.
Most of them wear serious faces, and, where-
ever two walk and converse together, they
never do so without looking cautiously around.
A venerable old man, with a long beard and
two snowy curls in front, murmurs to himself,
as he passes through the square in front of
the theatre, ‘(I thank Thee, O my God, and
God of my fathers, that Thou hast given me
my portion amongst those who frequent the
schools, and wait in the synagogues, rather
than amongst those who seek their pleasure
in the theatre and the circus.”* His wife,
walking beside, or rather a step behind him,
murmurs ‘‘ Amen,” in a low voice, and whis-
pers, as with tearful eyes she glances to the
left, at the tower of Mariamne, ‘‘ Thou hast
passed beyond it. It is well that thou no
longer livest, noble Mariamne!”

Meantime the sun has risen, and the actual
hour of prayer, at which time the sacrifice was
offered in the Temple, has arrived. Yonder

* See my Commentary to Fes. iii., 16 f. A female hairdresser was
called xo129. See Lightfoot, Hore, p. 408.

* Berachoth, 28 b; and also the parallels in the Ferusalem Talmud.
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 77

Pharisee, who has allowed himself to be
surprised by the hour of prayer in the
street, stands suddenly still, and binds his
ponderous phylacteries on forehead and arm.
That labourer, who, carrying his basket, has
climbed the fruit-tree close by, stops gather-
ing its treasures, and offers his morning
prayer from the natural temple formed by its
branches.’ Prayer ascends on all sides; in
Herod’s palace alone all is yet silent. The
tyrant sleeps, and his parasites creep about
on tiptoe. The people pray, and wherever
they do so, mingle with those orisons which
are uttered aloud, a silent prayer for deliver-
ance from their tyrant, and an intercession for
Alexander and Aristobulus, the two noble sons
of the daughter of the princely Maccabees,
the high-hearted Mariamne, murdered by her
husband, by this very Herod who, having
listened to their calumniators, now keeps his
sons in prison, hovering between life and
death. Yet even the government of a Herod
is not bad enough to lack the support of a
swarm of hirelings and partisans, toadies and

* Berachoth, 16 a.
78 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

sycophants, such as the court perfumer, the
court baker, etc.

After the morning service, but before it is
concluded in either synagogue or Temple, a
scene full of the brightest and most stirring
life displays itself in the great market in the
Lower New Town. In forming an idea of
this market, let no one, however, picture it to
himself as held in some great square, where
stood the Town Hall. The Town Hall of
Jerusalem stood on the Xystus Terrace. This
Lower Market was just such a long, wide
street as we are accustomed to call ‘‘ The
Long Lane,” or the ‘‘ Broadway” in our Ger-
man cities. Shops, booths, and stands are
closely ranged along both sides of the street ;
hucksters are cheapening pastry made with
the fine flour of Ephraim,’ which will sub-
sequently be retailed at a profit, in the more
out-of-the-way parts of the city; whilst the
cakes of figs and raisins are being wistfully
eyed by yonder poor little maid, whose ears,
in default of ear-rings, are transfixed with

* The Ephraim mentioned in John ii. 54 ony, whence came the say-

: ing, “Thou carriest straw to Ephraim,” or, “Thou throwest water in the

sea,” meaning to do anything superfluous or useless. Menachoth, 85 a.
Midrash to Exodus ix.
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 79

little pieces of wood; and fish of all kinds,
from Tiberias, rivets the attention of those
juvenile students whom we mark a little fur-
ther on, and who should be making the best
of their way to the academy founded by
Simeon-ben-Schetach.*

Jewellery and ornaments of all kinds, even
false teeth, mounted in gold, are here to be
had. Here is a man proclaiming the excel-
lence of his ‘‘dibs” (syrup of grapes), whilst
there, another loudly recommends his Egyp-
tian lentiles of the most superior quality. A
third has cheap carraway seeds, and turns a
pepper-mill. Wherever an open space has
been left before the houses, the different
artisans, whose work will admit of it, have
transplanted their workshops into the street ;
and there sit, and labour so industriously,
that they would not break off, were even
a Hillel, or some sage equally renowned, to
pass by.’

Here we see a shoe-maker, fastening the
upper leather to the sole of a sandal; there a
tailor is trimming a splendid prayer mantle
with an elegant fringe, whilst an armourer is

Gritz, History of the Fews, 3-145. ? Kidduschin, 33 a.
80 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

hammering away at the handle of a sword of
Syrian iron. In the less frequented and
shadier side streets, still greater varieties of
callings are pursued in open air; even flax
being beaten in the street." The market gets
every moment more crowded, as buyers,
sellers, and idlers throng to it from all sides.
Down below, at the corners of the Market
Gate, and above, at the openings of the
North Gate Street, and the street of the
Women’s Tower, labourers are standing wait-
ing to be hired. One of them is engaged to
come and draw flax from the steeping tub,
but the employer is careful to add, ‘‘ Bread
and peas, there is no better fare to be had at
my house.”* Yonder, too, at the Market
Gate, and therefore in the very midst of the
town, the despised guild of donkey-drivers
have a stand, and one of them has the good
luck to be chosen to convey a bedstead and
other furniture, together with the indispensable
flutes, to Bethany, in readiness for a wedding
about to be celebrated there.* Here we come
upon a crowd, through which one can hardly
push one’s way without hearing some offensive

* Chullin, 60 a. ? Mexia, vi. 13 vii. 1. 3 Ibid., vi. 1.
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. SI

remark. A man, with a look of suffering about
him, hurries by, grave and_ self-absorbed.
“The gentleman,” observes a donkey-driver,
‘‘seems to have had a bad dream: to which
of the twenty-four interpreters may he be
going?”’" A bath-keeper makes his way
through, and is greeted with, ‘‘Good morning,
Master Surgeon; how goes business?” ‘A
hundred blood-lettings for a ‘sus’’’* (groat),
replies he. A fat copper-faced scribe pushes
an old woman, rather roughly, out of his
way. ‘Ah, ha! old fellow,” screeches she,
jeeringly, ‘‘ with your red face you should be
winebibber, a pawnbroker, or a swinekeeper.’’'
If we walk in a straight line from the Market
Gate we can traverse the Lower Town, and
leaving it by the gate in the wall of the
Maccabees, by which it is enclosed, we shall
find ourselves in the open country, close to
the tomb of John the High Priest. Here we
will turn southward, and going through the
gate of Gennath will make our way to the
Upper Market, lying between the old fortress
of the Maccabean Kings, and the palace of
* Berachoth, 55 b. * Schatath, 129 b.

3 ¥. Schekalim, 47 b. Compare with l. Nedarim, 49 b.
7
82 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

Herod, which in point of splendour throws
even the Temple itself into the shade. Here
too there is life enough, but nothing to com-
pare with the merry uproar of the great Lower
Market. Things are quieter here and more
decorous; and here we chiefly find those
callings of this ‘‘polytechnical” city’ estab-
lished, which are held in especial favour by
King Herod; sculpture, landscape-gardening,
etc. ,

A goldsmith has here exposed for sale a
Terpdle,* that is to say, a golden artificial vine
of embossed work; and close by a potter ex-
hibits his wares, both useful and ornamental,
formed of black and white earthenware.
Here too we can buy the most delicious figs
in Jerusalem: those which come from the
famous rose garden, and are manured by blood
from the sacrifices.’ That white-robed old man,
on whose feet are shoes which no beggar would
stop to pick from the gutter, if they lay there,
is an Essene;* and as he looks inquiringly

* Jerusalem is so called by Aristeas.
? Josephus, Antiquities, xiv. 3.
3 Maseroth, ii. 5; compare with Kamma, 82 b.

* Herod favoured the Essenes; see Josephus, Antiquities, xv. 10, 33
War, ii. 8, 3 f.
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 83

around, he hopes to discover some one, who
will show him the way to the house of the
head of his order. By this time the heat of
the day is already very considerable, since the
fresh morning breeze from the Mediterranean
has died away, and the great cistern in the
middle of the market-place is besieged by
both old and, young. Now and then the
crowd shrinks back timidly, to make way for
one of the royal grooms; and intending pur-
chasers stand aside, to give precedence to one
of the royal eunuchs.

A young Galilean, however, who has spread
a square of linen on the ground, and placed
on it a large jar of Lebanon oil, with a further
attraction in the shape of a gigantic water
melon, stares, amused and defiant at the
cringing throng, cowed alike by fear and ser-
vility. ‘‘ Whence, then, art thou?” asks a
scantily bearded, trembling little mannikin,
for whom he is pouring oil into a clay egg,
which serves as a measure.’ ‘‘I am from that
city,” replies he, ‘‘which nestles free as a bird
on the mountain.” He means Sepphoris ;*
and observing amongst the passers-by, a dyer,

® Herzfeld Metrological Researches, p. 102. * Megilla, 6 a.
*
84 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

who, to show’ his trade and what he can
achieve, has passed red and blue threads
through the flap of one ear, and green and
light yellow through the other; the Galilean
bursts into a loud laugh at this curious self-
recommendation; and, striding up to him,
demands, ‘‘ Master Tobias, canst thou also
change red (adom) to white ?”

The question was an allusion to the Edomite
Herod, and a Herodian police-spy hurries off
to call the market-watch;* but when two
soldiers command the youth to follow them,
he resists with such Herculean strength that
he cannot be dragged from the spot. A dense
crowd gathers around, and the soldiers begin’
to fear for themselves, the uproar having
broken out so close to the palace. One, there-
fore, closes with the Galilean, and, whilst they
struggle together, the other runs his sword
through his body. With the cry ‘‘ He shall

* F. Schablath, 3b. Mischna. ‘The scribe (libellarius) shall not go
abroad on Friday evenings with the pen behind his ear, neither the dyer
with his patterns (xo111—8etyna) in his ear, nor yet the money-changer
with the denarius in his ear.” See also the Scholion. The Mischna of
the Babylonian Talmud says nothing about the dyer and money-changer,
but says instead, the tailor with his needle.

? Josephus, Antiquities, xv. 10, 4.
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 85

visit thy transgression, O! daughter of Edom,
and discover thy sin,” the young man falls head-
long to the ground, and his blood mingles with
the oil streaming from his shattered jar. The
air rings with outcries of rage at the violence
of the soldiers; with outcries of despair, for
liberty so shamefully trampled under foot;
with groans of sorrow, for the blood of the
young martyr of freedom, so wickedly shed;
but, as if by some magic signal, universally
understood, the confused shouts turn to breath-
less silence, as from mouth to mouth the news
passes, of the approach of a man who has
just passed under the Gennath gate; and with
light, and almost noiseless step, but casting
on all sides keen, observant glances, is thread-
ing his way through the market-place. Under
his arm he carries an elegant casket, whilst
his attire is more Alexandrian than Jewish ;
his hair is black, but, as it would seem dyed,
and his fingers blaze with sparkling rings. In
passing before the table of a scribe, who has
‘‘Tefillin” and all sorts of amulets against
evil spirits to sell; he runs his eye over the
exposed wares, and exclaims, ‘‘ Ah! I see you
would be a second Diophant!”’ that being the
86 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

name of the expert who had forged a letter
as from Alexander, the now imprisoned son
of Herod and Mariamne, to the commandant
of the fortress of Alexandrion; in which the
former called upon that officer to acknowledge
him, when his father should have been put out
of the way, and to deliver over to him all the
warlike stores in the castle. ‘ Your worship
does me too much honour,” replies the old
man, deeply offended at the comparison. The
much-feared new-comer makes straight for the
thickest of the throng, it parts, and the bloody
corpse of the young Galilean lies before him ;
but, quite unmoved by the spectacle, he merely
cries in a harsh, repulsive voice, ‘‘ Friends,
you prove the truth of the proverb: Where
the ox has fallen, there the butchers are
gathered together.” This man is Tryphon,
the court barber, who flatters himself that by
a master-stroke of cunning, he will to-day rise
far higher than ever in Herod’s favour. A
worthy old soldier in the king’s service, named
Teron, had taken the fate of the Princes,
Alexander and Aristobulus, so much to heart,
that he had gone almost mad in brooding over
it. He ran about exclaiming that right was
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 87

trampled on and falsehood triumphant; and
at length, poured out the excess of his indig-
nation to Herod himself; naming to him, at
the same time, many who shared his feelings
in the army. The consequences might have
been easily foreseen. He and his son, who
had been attached to the person of the Prince
Alexander, were now kept behind bolts and
bars in the Castle of Antonia. These two,
thought Tryphon, are alike beyond help or
injury; I may, therefore, fairly turn the mis-
fortune, in which nothing but their own stu-
pidity has involved them, to my own advantage.
Full of these thoughts, he passed under the
palace portal, and mounted the magnificent
flight of stone steps, which led to the lofty
platform on which the royal castle was built.
Here, hoping to find the king awake, he arrived
between ten and eleven, or, as the hours were
at that time reckoned from sun rise, between
five and six o’clock. Yesterday, in one of the
spacious halls of the palace, a high festival
had been held in honour of Nicholas of Da-
mascus; and here, far into the night, a hundred
guests had sat carousing, draining bumpers to
the death and confusion of the king’s enemies.
88 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

The heat of a June sun is meanwhile growing
fiercer and fiercer; both markets are by this
time deserted, and we too are getting both
hungry and thirsty. What shall we drink,
Median beer? or yet better, Babylonian? or
shall it be Egyptian zithos, or native cider ?*
We need not seek long for a host* (uschpiza)
who can serve us to our liking. In the Wool-
comber Street (schik schel zammarim)* we
passed a house, in front of which great jars
were standing. These contain wine to be fer-
mented by exposure to the sun. We enter,
and, to improve our acquaintance with the
country even in eating, inquire whether we
can have a dish of locusts, fried either in
mead or honey, or even merely salted. But
how thronged and how riotous is the place!
Before the landlord can answer our question,
a coppersmith, whom we recognise by his
leathern apron, thrusts his beaker of wine
under our nose, and yells, ‘‘ Fools! by eating
without drinking you consume your own
blood !”* whilst a soldier strolls up, and with

* Pesachin, iii. 1. ? Erulin, 53 b.
3 Erulin, 101 a, where a lane of the poultry-keepers (pattamim) is also
mentioned.
4 Schallath, 67 b.
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 89

the remark, ‘‘The gentlemen are scholars, it
’ clinks cups with the coppersmith,
and both shout, till our ears are like to split,
‘‘This cup to the prosperity of the gentlemen
and their scholars!’’ (Chamra wechaja leftim
rabbanan wethalmidehon)* ‘‘O thou Chamor”
(ass), shrieks a third, ‘‘what hast thou to do
with scholars? Say not all, where the sword is,
there is no book?”* Two quieter men, who
are playing ‘‘ Nerdschir,” or as we should call
it, tric-trac, in a corner,’ make room for us,
and we seat ourselves beside them. The
racket grows louder and louder in the sooty
den, and we soon perceive that, thanks to the
despotic government, even this, the lowest
stratum of society, is split into Herodians and
lovers of freedom. ‘‘ How goes it with Aleph
and Aleph?” asks some one, meaning, with
Alexander and Aristobulus. ‘‘ Blockhead,”’
replies his neighbour, shaking his fist in the
speaker’s face, ‘‘silence is the best sauce.’”*
‘‘ Who was the fellow in the upper market ?”
inquires another. ‘‘Afra lefima de Jjob,”

seems ;’

T Schablath, 67 b. 2 Aloda Zara, 17 b.
3 See my article on Chess in Fiirst’s Orient, 1840. No. 4.
+ Megilla, 18 a.
90 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

‘dust in Job’s mouth,” z.e., ‘hold your foul-
mouthed jaw,”’ growls a tanner, in answer.

‘‘How now, thou stinking fungus,” retorts
the first; “shall I be muzzled by thee?”
“Curse away,” replies the master tanner, ‘“‘a
myrtle is a myrtle even amongst weeds.’”*
The very walls have ears, and here dare no
man speak his mind freely; but, on an acknow-
ledged Herodian giving a crocodile sneeze, so
that his neighbour hastily pushes away his
cup, that its contents may escape admixture
from the impending shower, the whole un-
mannerly rout breaks into the cry: “ Jas, jas,
Much good may it do you! Much good may
it do you!”

Meantime the sun has reached the meri-
dian, and the white marble of the palaces
flings back its noon-tide rays with dazzling
splendour. The Temple overhangs the city
like a mountain of light; and even a glance
upwards, either towards the temple, the Castle
of Antonia, or the city of David, with the
three towers of Herod’s Palace, is intolerable.

® Bathra, 16a. ? Sanhedrin, 44 a.

3 See Buxtorf’s Chald. Lexicon \Ox. (In Judzo-Babylonian it was said
Asvtua! Good health!)
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. gI

The streets are deserted, and nothing breaks
the stillness but the occasional cry of a water
carrier, or of some hawker of Edomitish vine-
gar; 1.¢., wine fermented by steeping barley
in it. Labourers and donkey-drivers sit in
the shade, and dip their bread in a kind of
whey, called Babylonian Cuthach. Down at
the dye-works yonder, things are done in rather
better style; the journeymen there, are en-
joying a kind of soup made with sliced onions
and roast meat, and washed down with zuman,
water mixed with bran.‘ But, on the gold-
smith’s table stands a large jug of wine, to-
gether with a vessel fitted with a fine net-work
of Egyptian palm straw, to serve as a wine-
strainer; besides various luscious fruits, by
way of second course.’

The air is heavy, but heavier yet are men’s
hearts: for a rumour has run through the
city, that King Herod has sworn death to
hundreds, in a fresh paroxysm of fury. Here
and there some one will tell how he had seen
Tryphon, the court barber, crossing the Castle
Square, under the guard of four soldiers.
“Yes,” says another; ‘‘I was in the Temple

T Pesachim, iii. 1. 2 Shalbath, xx. 2.
92 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

at the second hour of prayer, and on my way
home, as I came down out of the Temple
street, and on to the Castle Square, I saw
them shut the iron door, and Tryphon, hang-
ing down his head, and driven by four soldiers
across the bridge over the ravine to the Castle
Gate.” He was right. The king’s favourite
had hoped to rise yet higher in his good graces
by pretending to betray a secret. He had
shaved the king and left him; but struggling
with himself, and unable to come to a decision,
he walked long up and down the avenues,
with which the open space round the Palace
was planted. At length, having taken his re-
solution, he begged an audience of the king,
and, in his presence, vented the lies it had
taken him so long to hatch; namely, that that
Teron, who was already imprisoned on account
of his zeal for Alexander and Aristobulus, had
often tried to persuade him to cut the king’s
throat with his razor, and promised him high
favour and rich rewards from Alexander,
should he do so. ‘I thank thee for thy can-
dour,” replied the king; who, ready at all
times to believe everything that was bad, was,
of course, especially so, when it was told him
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 93

to his face; above all, when it related to his
deeply-slandered sons. The tale heard, Herod
sat brooding over it long and gloomily, till,
springing suddenly to his feet, with a roar
more like a beast’s than a man’s, at which
Tryphon trembled from head to foot, he ex-
claimed :—‘‘ So, then, he would often have
persuaded thee; and it is but to-day that it
has pleased thee to tell me this! So long
hast thou lent thine ear to this dog, and hast
hatched treason with him! Doubtless, the
reward was not high enough to tempt thee to
this blood-letting, which thou hadst intended
for me!’”’ Tryphon would have spoken, but
the king tore open the door, and shouted,
‘Seize him! To Antonia with him! and say
to the governor, that he is an accomplice of
Teron and his son.”

On this Tryphon was instantly cast into
prison, and whilst the artisans of Jerusalem
were enjoying the short rest they allowed
themselves during the noon-tide heat, the
executioners and officers of justice were hard
at work in Antonia, and were taking down
in writing the confessions they were wring-
ing from their tortured prisoners. Pity for
94. JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

Tryphon, whose accusations had already
brought misery on many families, could not be
expected in Jerusalem; but could we penetrate
inside the houses, we should hear from every
one expressions of fear and compassionate
anxiety, for the fate of the two sons of
Mariamne. Reciprocal mistrust had indeed
so undermined the confidence of even the
nearest relations, that these feelings would
often be but timidly expressed; yet, even now,
loud and fearless utterances on the subject
were not wanting.

By this time it is three o’clock, and a crowd,
chiefly of young people, is seen approaching
from the North Gate, its number swelled every
instant by fresh arrivals, who join it from all
sides. Loud inquiries as to what is the mat-
ter come from the houses, and it appears that
a ‘‘Biccurim procession” has halted before
the North Gate. ‘‘ Biccurim” were the first-
fruits of the earth, which, being set apart as
holy to the Lord, were now being brought
into the Temple.

The land was divided into twenty-four
circles. At the time appointed, those who
desired to bring their firstfruits to Jerusalem,
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 95

gathered themselves together to the capital
city of their circle; and there, without seek-
ing the shelter of any roof, passed the night in
the open street, so that they might be ready,
at the earliest morn, to yield instant obedience
to the cry of the captain of the circle: ‘Rise,
and let us go up to Zion, to the house of the
Lord our God.” Such a train had now come
to a halt before the North Gate, in order from
thence to announce its speedy arrival in the
Temple, and also to arrange the offerings in
due order, by making garlands of the fairest
fruits, etc. Already the Delegates of the
Temple are on their way to meet the pro-
cession; these are the representatives of the
priests and Levites, who are on duty, and the
treasurers of the Sanctuary, and already we
hear from afar the joyous notes of the flutes.
Nothing more charming could possibly have
broken through the gloom which this day over-
hung Jerusalem. The spectacle roused that
Israelitish patriotic feeling, which the tyran-
nical government had nearly stifled; and even
we can but feel, that such sights chimed
far better with the national spirit, than the
play-acting and Greek music of the theatre,
96 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

or, than the combats of gladiators and wild
beast fights with which Herod entertained
Jerusalem. The inhabitants of the neigh-
bourhood bring fresh figs and even grapes,
though June is not yet ended, some in vessels
of gold and silver, and some in baskets made
of plaited willow-withes; whilst those who
have come from a distance offer dried figs and
other fruits; and from the baskets hang doves,
destined for burnt offerings, with their wings
bound. First of all comes a bullock, which is
to be the joint thank offering of all; his horns
are gilt, and on his head he bears a crown of
olive. It is a long train which enters Jeru-
salem, marching to the music of the flutes,
and the deputation from the Temple, whose
duty it is to receive these numerous visitors
with due honour, is, on this account, numerous
also. Curiosity is soon satisfied as to whence
they come; they are from Sebaste, the old
Samaria, and ever as they pass along, the
artisans sitting at work by the way-side, or at
the doors of their houses, rise respectfully and
greet them with the cry, ‘‘Achenu ansche
Sebasti bathem leschalom!” ‘Welcome, O
men of Sebaste, our beloved brothers!”
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 97

When, still accompanied by the flutes, they
reach the ascent to the Temple Mount, each
man takes his basket on his own shoulder,
and, arrived at the court of the men, the
Levites chant, to the accompaniment of music,
the psalm which commences, “I will extol
thee, O Lord; for thou hast lifted me up,
and hast not made my foes to rejoice over
me.” The doves hanging to the baskets are
taken for burnt offerings, and the other offer-
ings are delivered to the priests, the givers
meanwhile reciting the confession appointed
for those who offer the firstfruits, in the book
of Leviticus.‘ All this takes place to-day,
about the hour of the evening service. A
great multitude of men, women, and children
have followed the procession into the Temple,
and now throng round them as they come out.
Relatives and friends take charge of those
dear to them, whilst hospitality soon provides
for all strangers. And as men sit with their
hosts at the evening meal, the more luxurious,
perhaps, reclining on cushions, never does the
question, ‘‘ Know you nothing of the sons of
Mariamne?” remain unasked. ‘ They are still

* Lev. xxvi. 3-15-
98 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

captive in the Sidonian village of Platane,”

says one. ‘No,” replies a second speaker,
‘“‘they are in a far stronger prison: they have
been taken from Platane to Tyre. But say,
O men of Jerusalem, what is the mind of the
king concerning them?” ‘He will put them
to death,” replies the master of the house,
“and then build two towers in their honour.”
‘““He never loved them,” remarks his wife,
‘“‘for he hates all who are better than himself.
I have sometimes seen him walking with the
two princes. They overtopped him almost
by a head, but how did they stoop, to prevent
his feeling that they were taller than he!” A
rabbi, who forms one of the party, here con-
siders that, as a disciple of Hillel, whom
Herod held in great honour, he is bound to
take the king’s part, but is silenced by the cry,
“Fie! If thou hast taken hold on God’s work”
(.e., occupied thyself with God’s Word), ‘put
on His livery too!” (i.e., practise love).’ But
when one related, and’not without bitterness,
what a ‘‘moustache day”? Tryphon had had
(it was thus that barbers described their un-
lucky days, on which they had made but

* Beréschith Rabba, chap. lv., etc.
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 99

1

trifling profits) ;* and when another told how,
in consequence of the calumnies with which
Tryphon had blackened them, the worthy
Teron and his son had been so cruelly tor-
tured, that in their agony they had falsely
accused themselves; and how another gigantic
execution of hundreds was certain to take
place within the next few days, then even the
countryman from Thirza exclaimed, ‘‘ How
happy shall I be when I am once more beyond
the walls of the Holy City! of this den of mur-
derers!”” And when he did regain his home,
what were the awful tidings which greeted
him? Alexander and Aristobulus had, in the
meantime, been dragged from Tyre to Sebaste,
and there strangled !

But in Jerusalem, during the following days,
the streets ran blood, and horrible was the
daily task of cleansing them.* In the theatre
the king had himself denounced to the assem-
bled multitude, Tryphon and the principal
officers of his army as guilty of high treason,
and the rabble of Jerusalem behaved like a
blood-thirsty beast, when thus left free to
glut its unbridled vengeance on the officers,

¥ Duke’s Flowers of Rallinical Lore, p. 102. 2 Mexia, 26 a.
g*
100 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

who were for the most part detested. Three
hundred perished, generally beaten down with
clubs and stones. Teron fell too. But still,
now from some quiet chamber, now from some
dim corner of a synagogue, or issuing, perhaps,
from the darkness of some secluded archway,’
rose the prayer that the Messiah of God
might even yet come quickly, and put an
end to this bloody tyranny, and to all this
earthly turmoil and confusion.

Yes! it is indeed a thorough purification,
of which this atmosphere stands in need,
heavy as it is alike with the odours of
voluptuousness and the fumes of the blood of
innocent victims of perverted justice, reeking
too with the smoke and steam and fat of sacri-
fices and burnt-offerings. And this purifica-
tion is even now at hand, when some thirty
years later Jesus of Nazareth shall issue
forth from the iron door of Antonia, and,
bearing his cross, shall pass along the Via
Dolorosa to Golgotha. Then the hour of
the Herodians, then the hour of Redemption
will have struck.

' Para, iii. 2.
IOIr

 

On the Combination of Letters and Handicraft.

    

may ° the procession with the firstfruits
Wea) passed through Jerusalem, we saw how
all the artisans, who were sitting at work in
the street, before the doors of their houses,
rose to bid it a kindly welcome, pleasantly
surprised by the sight of so many fellow-
countrymen from a distance, and impelled by
the religious character of the procession to
show this outward token of respect, by which,
indeed, they honoured God Himself, through
these His servants, come hither to do Him
homage.’ For the rest, a workman was ex-
pressly allowed to remain seated, and to con-
tinue his work, when any one passed to whom
respectful salutation was due; and highly
honoured as was the study of the law, yet the

2 Biecurim, iii. 3.
102 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

tradesman engaged in his work, was not re-
quired to rise even before a sage." We may,
however, fairly assume that some of these
very artisans were themselves learned men.
Even in Germany, Jacob Bohm, who in 1594,
after his years of wandering, settled down as
a master shoemaker at Gorlitz, was one of the
profoundest thinkers the world has ever seen,
who to this day has never found his equal in
his endeavours to reduce the knowledge of
God and the world, heaven and earth, to a
coherent system, considered from a scriptural
Christian point of view. In Germany, too,
there was a time when the burgher-craftsmen
invaded even the knightly domain of song, and
produced many a minstrel who was really a
master in the poetry of folk-lore, such as the
famous Hans Sachs, of Nuremburg, who was,
at the same time, a tailor. Still, the union of
handicraft and study was of a different kind
at the period now under our consideration.
In Jacob Bohm we see a man who, bound by
his earthly calling to the shoemaker’s bench,
yet soared to the highest regions of thought,
on the pinions of a spirit which had been

* Kidduschin, 33a; Chullin, 54 b.
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 103

richly endowed both by nature and grace.
He is an extraordinary character. In the
schools of minstrelsy, which grew up out of
the trade-guilds, it was not science, but art,
which was now as diligently cultivated by the
burgher classes as it had been heretofore,
almost exclusively, by the nobles. Poetry
was here considered as an elevating, noble,
and delightful pastime, which harmonised well
with the spirit of the age. But when in
former days, amongst the Jewish people, many
a rabbi was at the same time an uschcaf (shoe-
maker) or a sandelar (sandal-maker), this was
nothing exceptional, nor must we argue from
it that, along with his daily-toil, he delighted
in study; but rather, that it was then the
general custom to earn one’s bread by one’s
hands and handiwork, whilst following at the
same time the calling of a teacher. There
certainly were not wanting isolated voices,
which even then declared that science and
handicraft were incompatible with each other ;
but the view that handicraft was ennobled by
its connection with science, or, as we ought
rather to put it, that science was ennobled by
its connection with handicraft, was neverthe-
104 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

less the dominant opinion. Jesus ben-Sirach,
in his book of proverbs, written about 200 B.c.,
and translated into Greek by his grandson
some seventy-five years later, mentions prac-
tical occupations with all honour; as, for ex-
ample, those of the farmer, the workman, and
the artificer, but holds them incompatible with
the pursuits of the student of the law (z.e.,
man of science). He depicts the work of the
ploughman, the mason, the carpenter, the
smith, and the potter, in order to show that
their employments, if pursued with suitable
diligence, leave them no leisure for study, and
that they therefore cannot become either sages,
magistrates, or representatives of the people.
‘“‘ Without these,” says he, ‘‘cannot a city be
inhabited; and they shall not dwell where
they will, nor go up and down. They shall
not be sought for in public counsel, nor sit
high in the congregation: they shall not sit on
the judges’ seat, nor understand the sentence
of judgment: they cannot declare justice and
judgment, and they shall not be found where
parables are spoken.” A dictum with which,
as I very well remember, people here in

 Ecclus., Xxxviil. 243 XXXiX. 1.
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 105

Leipsic opposed in 1831 the introduction of
the constitution and of the civic deputies.
For the rest, the resolution of this question
was finally arrived at, at a discussion which
was held on the subject during the second
century after Christ.'. Howcan the Scripture
say (Deut. x1. 14), ‘‘ Thou shalt gather in thy
corn,” whilst in another place (Josh. i. 8) it is
commanded, ‘‘ This book of the law shall not
depart out of thy mouth;”’ how is it possible
to carry out both injunctions simultaneously ?
From these passages Rabbi Ismael drew the
deduction, that the study of the law and labour
for the supply of our earthly necessities were
compatible, and that the one could be accom-
modated to the other. Rabbi Simeon bar
Jochan replied, however: ‘‘Is this possible ?
How can a man who ploughs busy himself
with the study of the law at the time for
ploughing, or a sower at the time of sowing,
or a reaper at the time of harvest, or one who
threshes at threshing-time, or again, he who
would winnow when the wind serves? No;
let the people of Israel only faithfully fulfil
the will of God, and then the menial tasks

* Berachoth, 35 b.
106 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

incumbent on them will be performed by
foreigners, as says Isaiah (Ixi. 5), ‘Strangers
shall stand and feed your flocks, and the sons
of the alien shall be your ploughmen and
your vinedressers.’” It is added, that many
who followed the proposition of Rabbi Ismael
attained the desired object, but not so those
who, agreeing to the recommendation of Rabbi
Simeon, made study their exclusive occupa-
tion, or, as it 1s expressed,’ took the Thora
for their handicraft, and made God’s work
their work. It is also clear, from the maxims
of teachers of the greatest antiquity, that
even in the first century after Christ, the com-
bination of study with some calling by which
the means of subsistence might be secured
was considered desirable. ‘‘ Love labour,’’’
was a favourite injunction of Schemaiah, the
teacher of Hillel, whilst to the family of
Gamaliel we owe the saying, ‘“ Beautiful is
the union of the study of the law with some
honest calling, for by the diligent pursuit of
both a man is weaned from sin, but all study
unaccompanied by work ends in vanity, and
draws sin in its train.”* Judah the Holy, the

¥ Schablath, 11 a; Berachoth, 16 b. ? Aloth, i. 10. 3 Abloth, ii. 2.
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 107

editor of the Mischna, who sprang from this
same family, in which the dignity of patriarch
was for centuries hereditary, named Rabbi
Joseph ben Meschullam and Rabbi Simeon
ben Manasseh (possibly with an allusion to
the Essenes), the holy congregation, because
they devoted one third of the day to study,
one third to prayer, and one to labour. The
word of Solomon the preacher, ‘Live joy-
fully with the wife whom thou lovest,” he ex-
plained, after the allegorical mode then in
fashion, to mean, Choose thee some branch of
industry as well as the Thora (law), to which
thou hast lovingly devoted thyself." There-
fore, not only study combined with the prac- ,
tice of compassionate charity,* not only an
honest calling and a life of devotion;* but
study and handicraft, knowledge and labour,
headwork and handiwork, were at that time
considered as well-assorted and inseparable
pairs. Not only, therefore, would celebrated
teachers carry their seats on their own
shoulders to the schools, since all labour call-
ing for physical exertion was esteemed honour-

™ Midrasch Koheleth, ix. 9. 2 Aloda zara, 17 b.
3 Kidduschin, iv. 13.
108 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

able,’ but a certain Phineas was busied in
cutting stone, when word was brought to the
stonemason (sattath) that he was chosen high
priest.* Rabbi Joseph turned the mill, Rabbi
Schescheth dragged planks, whilst he praised
the labour which forced the sweat from his
brow;? and more than a hundred Rabbis, who
come before us in the Talmud, were both
artisans and bore artisan names. With the
two shoemakers, Rabbi Oschaiah and Rabbi
Chanina, we became acquainted in an earlier
chapter. Three Rabbis at least, Abba,
Chanan, and Judah were tailors (chajjat) ;
another Judah was a baker (necht6ém), and
yet another a perfumer (bassam); so that in
this republic of letters we meet not only with
a physician, Theodos (Nazir, 52 a) an as-
tronomer, Samuel (Mezia, 85 b) an architect,
Abba Joseph (Midrasch on Ex. c. xiii.) a
surgeon, Abba (Taanith, 21 b) a surveyor,
Ada (Erubin, 56 b); a scribe, Méir (Guittin,
67 a), and Nahum and Nathan (Peah c. ii.)

* Nedarim, 49 b.

* Sifra ad Mallim f., 192 b. Compare for the name of his calling with
Mexia, 118 b. Another version represents Phineas as called from the
plough.

3 Gittin, 67 b.
V

JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 109

a money-changer, Chana (Chillin, 54 b), and
a grave-digger, Abba Schaul (Nidda, 24 b),
but also with two fishermen (zajj4d), Ada and
Jose; a grits-maker (garsi) Joshua, a wood-
cutter (Mafza Késin) Chanina, a_leather-
dresser (schallach) Jose, an oven-setter (tan-
nuraj) Ami, a _ sandal-maker (sandelar)
Jochanan, a smith (nappach) Isaac, an em-
broiderer (Pikk6li) Simeon, a potter (kad-
dar) Nehemiah, a dyer (cobeés), Abba
Oschaiah, a carpenter (naggar) Abin, and
a thread-maker (scheztri) Simeon. A most
renowned doctor was Rabbi Joshua ben
Chananiah, a needle or clasp maker." When
on one occasion he proposed to withdraw into
retirement on account of some wrong which
he had suffered, Rabbi Gamaliel offered him-
self as peace-maker. He presented himself
accordingly at Joshua’s house, but when his
eye fell on the blackened walls, he exclaimed,
with some appearance of scorn, ‘‘One can
tell at once, by the walls of thy house, that
thou art a needle-maker!”’ Joshua, however,

¥ Not to multiply quotations, we have stopped at the two fishermen
(zajdan-ajja). We find Ada the fisherman mentioned, Moeéd Katan, 11 a,
and Jose the fisherman, 7. Berachoth, iv. 3.
TIO JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

repaid this ill-advised speech of the descen-
dant of a rich and highly aristocratic family
with the humiliating retort, ‘‘ Woe to the
generation who have thee for their guide!
Thou little knowest with what hardships the
‘wise must struggle; little knowest thou how
they are fed and maintained!” ‘I acknow-
ledge my fault,” replied Gamaliel; ‘“‘ forgive
me!” But Rabbi Joshua paid him no heed
until Gamaliel besought his forgiveness for the
honour of his family (z.e., in consideration of
the many services they had rendered to the
state).’

Another celebrated teacher, Judah-bar-Illai,
who lived in voluntary poverty, was by trade
a cooper’ in the town of Uscha in Galilee; he
would himself carry to the school-house the
cask, seated on which, he intended to lecture.
There were, at that time, no paid instructors.
Even in Rome, the Emperor Vespasian was
the first to set aside a certain sum annually
for the payment of Roman or Greek teachers.’
Nor does it appear, from any Jewish source,

* Berachoth, 28 a.
? See Jost’s History of Fudaism and its Sects, Il., 86.

3A. Schmid., History of the Liberty of Thought and Conscience, etc.,
P- 443-
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. III

that scholars paid any fixed sum to their
tutors. The learned, or teachers of wisdom,
as they were called, could only count on the
gratitude of their scholars and their parents,
on some consideration in the distribution of
the tithes for the poor, and, in certain cases,
on support from the funds of the Temple.’
Neither could they earn anything as authors.
Rome certainly swarmed with booksellers in
every quarter; but bookselling in Palestine
was a thing unknown; added to which, the
codification in writing of the so-called oral, or
traditional law was, until the second century
after Christ, considered to be forbidden. No
wonder then that the pursuit of some re-
munerative occupation, as well as study, was
held to be most advisable. Far, however,
from regarding this as a necessary evil, the
men of those days recognised, in thus working
in the sweat of the face, a blessing of healthy,
moral discipline, which admitted of no sub-
stitute. This arrangement could also be the
better carried out, that, at that time, learning
depended less on reading than on hearing;
whilst the objects of study were both far fewer

' Herzfeld, Hist., iii. 266.
112 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE,

and far less varied than at present; for ex-.
ample, there were then no classical languages
to study; these were not learnt from books,
but only as intercourse with Romans or
Greeks rendered their acquisition possible or
necessary. It is, therefore, quite in accord-
ance with the custom of the times, when we
find that Saul of Tarsus, in Cilicia, afterwards
the Apostle St. Paul, although he had chosen
learning as his profession, and to this end had
gone to Jerusalem, the metropolis of national
science, yet understood a trade. Like Aquila
of Pontus, whose friendship he formed in
Corinth, he was a tentmaker,* that is to say,
not exactly a maker of tents, but of tent-cloth.
Tarsus lay in a fertile plain, watered by the
Cydnus, and highly suitable to the breeding of
cattle. Accordingly, we find that Cilician
wool was one of the most favourite materials
of which cloth for covering the frame-work
of tents was manufactured. To this day, the
tent-cloth of the wandering tribes of Arabia,
is chiefly made of goats’ hair. The manu-
facture of such tent-cloth, or tent-linen (for
which it was cannot be exactly determined),

¥ Acts xviii. 3.
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 113

Saul would probably have learned from his
father, who most likely exercised the same
industry; since, as a general rule, the son
followed his father’s calling, unless deprived
of his instructions by death.’ But Saul’s
father, a strict Israelite, and belonging to the
sect of the Pharisees,* did not wish that his
son, whose talents and ardour in the pursuit
of knowledge, afforded ground for the highest
expectations, should confine himself to handi-
craft. Tarsus was certainly a city rich in all
means of educational development, which, in
its eager cultivation of philosophy and science,
eclipsed even Athens and Alexandria ;* but
the place suited above all others for the train-
ing of a Jewish man of letters was Jerusalem,
the City of the Temple, and of the far-famed
schools of Hillel and Shammai. Nor was
Saul quite unknown there, for there he had
a married sister, whose son, in later days,
saved him, now the Apostle of Jesus Christ,
from the hands of his would-be Jewish’ mur-
derers.* All the more anxious, therefore, were
his parents, and all the more easy was it to

t Erachin, 16 b. Compare 7. Kiddushin, 31 b. > Acts xxiii. 6.
3 Stralo, xiv. 5, 18. 4 Acts xxiii. 16.
o
114 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

them, to send their son to Jerusalem. Here,
as he himself tells us,’ he was brought up at
the feet of Gamaliel, and instructed with all
diligence in the law of the fathers. Possibly,
even, he may be that purposely unnamed
scholar of Rabbi Gamaliel, the grandson of
Hillel, whom the Talmud once brings before
us as engaged in discussion with his master,
respecting the signs of the Messianic epoch.’
During these years of academic life, the trade
on which he had decided, and which he had,
doubtless, learned at Tarsus, may very likely
have been in abeyance. As an Apostle, how-
ever, he again practised it, and it did him
priceless service. Return we now to Him
from whom our first proposition took its rise,
and who, since He is the Beginning and the
End, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever,
should also be both the Beginning and the
End of every undertaking. Jesus was the
legitimate son of a carpenter, miraculously
born into the married life of Joseph and Mary.
He is Himself spoken of as the carpenter
(Mar. vi. 3), although in very early days the

* Acts xxii. 3.

? Schallath, 30 b. Comp. Block, Source and Period of Authorshtp of the
Book Koheleth (1872), p. 36 ff.
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 115

description in Matthew (xiii. 55), ‘‘ The car-
penter’s son,’’ began to be preferred, and
Origen, deciding in favour of this reading in
his work against Celsus the opponent of
Christianity,’ even expresses a doubt whether
Jesus is anywhere described as ‘‘the car-
penter ” in the canonical Gospels. We, how-
ever, would leave the text of St. Mark un-
altered, notwithstanding the frivolous gibes
to which it even yet excites ignorant sceptics.
For we are enlightened as to the high honour
in which handicraft then stood, and how well
it marched hand in hand with the Teacher’s
calling. A thick veil certainly overhangs those
thirty years by which the public manifestation
of Jesus was preceded: once only is it lifted
to recount the pilgrimage of the boy of twelve
years of age with his parents to Jerusalem.’
The apocryphal Gospels would fain be better
instructed, and have all sorts of marvels to
relate respecting the share taken by Jesus in
His father’s daily labour.’ Yet even if merely
considered as the product of imagination,
these stories are, in themselves, so rude,
* Contra Colsum, vi. 36. * Luke ii. 42.
3 See Rud. Hoffmann’s Life of Fesus according to the Apocryphal Gospels,

1851.
g*
116 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

frivolous, and silly, that it would almost be
a sin to load your memories with such
caricatures. Nor can we approve it, that the
Moravians, whilst suppressing with good
reason many of Zinzendorf’s hymns, which
speak in a repulsive manner of Jesus the
Carpenter, yet retain in their litany, not only
the expression, ‘‘ May thy precious sweat of
toil lighten our labours ;” but also, ‘‘ May thy
faithfulness in daily labour make us faithful in
our part.” The Church of Christ should, in
Divine service, keep closely to the Word of
God, which says nothing whatever of Jesus’
faithfulness in daily labour. Yet, more than
probable it certainly is, that He who came
down from heaven and took our nature on
Him, He who was made in all things like
unto us, sin only excepted, and who submitted
Himself to the laws and customs of His
people, was not only an obedient son to His
mother, but also a willing helper of His father
in the work of his calling; and, even as it was
by no mere accident that His first miracle
was wrought at a wedding, so it was by no
accident that He was born, not in the house
of a smith, who forges the death-dealing
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 117

weapons of war, but in the house of a car-
penter, where He who came to bring peace on
earth, and desired to hallow both the dawn
and the conclusion of human life, could help
to fashion both the rockers of the cradle, the
planks of the coffin, and the peaceful instru-
ments of husbandry and family life.’ But,
even as that Phineas, of whom we have just
heard, could no longer work as a stone mason
after his elevation to the high priesthood,
so did the ministerial energy of Jesus, after
those thirty quiet years, utterly preclude the
possibility of His carrying on any other occu-
pation. It is impossible to picture Him to
ourselves (as Shammai once comes before us
in the Talmud),* with His carpenter’s rule in
His hand. His Divine mission, which aimed
at winning a new foundation and form of life
for His own people, and for all humanity,
gathered itself up during those three last
years, into so tremendous and engrossing a
labour, both externally and internally, that,
with His exhausting struggles, prayers,

T Justin, Dialogue cum Tryphone, c. 88.
? Schallath, 31 a, according to Raschi, for the purpose of measuring
out their work to the builders.
118 JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE.

teachings, and miracles, no room was left for
anything not immediately connected with His
saving work. His zeal in God’s cause con-
sumed His life during these three years, and
the sweat of His face was at length changed
into the bloody sweat which burst from Him
in Gethsemane. His suffering, no less than
His doing, was the hardest and most important
work. His soul was the mould of a new
world, the birthplace of a new humanity.
Therefore, He was content, during these three
years, to receive His earthly support from the
hands of faithful love;* and what remained,
after the supply of the most pressing necessi-
ties, was, by the hands of the -Apostles, given
back to the poor, always the objects of their
Master’s love.*

To handicraft, however, must remain the
honour that the Redeemer of the world sprang
from an artisan’s family. The first king of
Israel was taken from following the plough,
the second was called whilst keeping sheep,
and the second David, the Messiah of Israel,
was called from a carpenter’s workshop.
Happy are they who recognise the heavenly

* Matt. xx. 8, and elsewhere. * John xiii. 29.
JEWISH ARTISAN LIFE. 119

decree carried out in the earthly form, and
humbly adore instead of mocking! When the
Emperor Julian the apostate undertook his
expedition against the Persians, which he was
to expiate with his life, he threatened to punish
the Christians so soon as the war should be
over, unless the ‘‘ Carpenter’s Son” would
help them. An aged minister, of Antioch,
replied to him, ‘‘ This Carpenter’s Son is even
now fashioning a coffin for thy corpse.’’'
For His true disciples, something better is
fashioned from the wood of His cross, and
with the mortar of His blood is something
better built up. Let us each one take heed
that we may be admitted into that heavenly
city of peace, which, through Him, is builded
of God.

* Sozomenus, Church Hist., vi., 2, comp. Theodoret, Church Hist., iti. 18.

 
 
A CRITICAL COMPARISON

BETWEEN

JESUS AND HILLEL.
PREPACE,.

 

able in its suggestiveness, regarding not only

the difference between Jesus and Hillel, but
the difference between Jesus and all mere
human teachers and reformers, antecedent or
subsequent, as to form a most formidable
weapon in the hands of those who see in Jesus
not only the greater than Hillel, but the
greater than Jonas, and the greater than
Solomon, the wisest of men. Was Jesus

man? Was Jesus God? Was Jesus truly both?
124 PREFACE.

In the belief that the ensuing pages will help
many to decide these momentous questions
for themselves the present translation has
been undertaken; it will have done its work
should any, hitherto prepared when contem-
plating the life and character of Jesus, to say
‘‘Ecce homo,” be led from its perusal to say,

“Ecce Deus.”

THE COLLEGE,

BIRKENHEAD.

May, 1877.
125

 

A CRITICAL COMPARISON
BETWEEN JESUS AND HILLEL.

ag

foan—E was most beautiful to behold! His
i884 height reached fully seven spans, his
hair was light and somewhat waving, but his
eyebrows were black and arched, his eyes
bright and piercing, his nose prominent, his
beard yellow and not very long. The hair of
his head was long, for never had razor come
upon it, neither the hand of man passed over
it, excepting indeed the hand of his mother
whilst still a little child. His figure was
slightly bent, not quite erect. His colour
was as the ripened wheat, his face, like that
of his mother, was not round but oval, not
very ruddy, and expressive of gentleness and
meekness, dignity and understanding. He
was the exact similitude of his pure and
stainless mother.”

 
126 JESUS AND HILLEL.

It is Jesus who is thus described by Nice-
phorus Callisti, who, writing in the fourteenth
century, relied, no doubt, for the particulars
of this description, on the testimony of ancient
writers. Could we ask him the names of his
authorities, he would most likely cite John
the Damascene, who flourished in the eighth
century; and, could we pursue our inquiries
to this source, the latter would probably be
honest enough to confess, ‘‘ This portrait is
but a worthless and fanciful product of the
imagination.” For, though in coins, busts,
and statues, we have contemporary likenesses
of the Roman emperors, from Augustus and
Tiberius downwards; though on the walls of
the Egyptian temple of Karnak, the con-
temporary portrait of Rehoboam, the son of
Solomon, is even yet to be seen; and though
the palace walls of Korsabad and Koyunjik
still glow with contemporary representations
of king Sargon in his war chariot, and king
Sennacherib on his throne, yet, so far are we
from possessing even a tradition, still less a
description, of the outward appearance of
Jesus, that both before and after the days of
Constantine, opinion in the Church was
JESUS AND HILLEL. 127

divided, as to whether we ought to picture
him to ourselves, during the time that he
walked amongst men, as having been undis-
tinguished in appearance, or of ideal beauty ;
whilst, in support of both these views, reli-
ance must be placed, not on old traditions,
but on passages from the Old Testament.
Let a passage from Rénan’s Life of Fesus
follow this ideal portrait of the Middle Ages.
‘* Jesus,” we there read, ‘‘ was born in Naza-
reth; and the streets in which the child
played exist still in those stony paths and
blind alleys, by which the houses are sepa-
rated. Joseph’s house most likely resembled
these same poverty-stricken huts, whose only
means of admitting light is through the door,
and which are workshop, kitchen, and sleeping-
room all in one; whilst their entire furniture
consists of a carpet, two or three cushions on
the floor for seats, a few earthen utensils, and
a painted coffer. Here, in Nazareth, Jesus
passed the first years of his childhood; and
here, at the now ruined fountain of the little
town, Mary doubtless daily stood, chatting
with her undistinguished countrywomen ; and
still in this spot, female beauty, especially the
128 JESUS AND HILLEL.

Syrian type in all its melting loveliness, is
met with in a remarkable degree. Here
nature, at once sublime and lovely in her
aspect, became the first instructress of Jesus;
and from hence, even in his childhood, he
took part in the yearly journeys to Jerusalem
at the great festivals. Joseph died before his
son began to take part in public life; and,
feeling herself a stranger in Nazareth after
the death of her husband, Mary returned to
Cana, where Jesus passed his ripening youth;
and where he first excited public attention.
He came forward asa Teacher. The voice of
the young carpenter acquired suddenly an
extraordinary sweetness. Those who had been
familiar with him hitherto scarcely recognised
him in his new character. His amiable dis-
position, and probably one of those exquisitely
beautiful faces, which are sometimes met with
amongst the Jewish race, combined to draw a
magic circle round him. He particularly
attached himself to Hillel, who, fifty years
earlier, had promulgated maxims with which his
own had much in common, and who, by the
meekness with which he had endured poverty,
by the gentleness of his disposition, and by his
JESUS AND HILLEL. 129

opposition to the priests and hypocrites, had
become the real teacher of Jesus; if indeed
we can speak of a teacher, when considering
so exalted and original a character.”

All that Rénan here states is either gra-
tuitous contradiction of the Gospel narrative,
such as the assertion that Jesus was born at
Nazareth, or mere assumption, as that Mary
removed to Cana after Joseph’s death ; whilst
statements introduced with the vague term
‘‘ probably,” are in reality nothing but fanciful
sketches of his own, such as when he likens
Joseph’s home to the dwellings of the now
deeply-degraded population of Palestine,
praises the beauty of the women of Nazareth;
about whose charms other travellers have
found nothing to say, or ascribes to Jesus
himself, either exquisite personal beauty, or an
extraordinarily winning address. This Life of
Fesus took, nevertheless, the whole civilised
world by storm; and we should be in error
were we to seek the cause of this wonderful
popularity, exclusively in the bold scepticism
of the baok, or in that spirit of opposition to
Christianity, as a religion of revelation and

miracle, which is so marked a feature of our
10
130 JESUS AND HILLEL.

times. Certainly the applause with which
this work was greeted may be, in a measure,
accounted for by the fact, that, by its means,
thousands found themselves with malicious
joy, confirmed in the idea, that, when viewed
by the light of modern progress, the Church’s
dogma of the Person of the God-Man would
melt away like a dream of bygone ages. The
reading public, cloyed with the most refined
sensationalism, devoured it so eagerly, be-
cause it offered them a new and piquant sub-
ject, entitled indeed The Life of Fesus, but
which, after the fashion of the Mysteries of
Paris, might just as well have been called
the Mysteries of Jesus. In this book, both
sentimentality and sensuality found abundant
nutriment, uniting in itself, as it does, the art
of a Dumas or a Sue with the love of effect
peculiar to a Pére Lacordaire. In it frivolous
speeches alternate with enthusiastic bursts of
feeling, whilst every natural affection is de-
based to carnality. Even political discontent
was flattered in this work, which represents
Jesus in the light of a noble and romantic re-
publican, something of a Camille Desmoulins ;
and which, whilst holding up to Imperial
JESUS AND HILLEL. 131

France the times in which he lived, as a
mirror, in which she might see her own re-
flection, offers as well the programme of a
new social revolution.

All this, however, will not suffice to account
for the effect this book has produced, and
which may partly be explained on higher
grounds than those already mentioned. It
has cleared away the haze in which, to
thousands, the personality of Jesus was
shrouded, and asks once more, as a burning
question for the times, what we are indeed to
think of him. And in driving this question,
the most momentous and critical for all hu-
manity, deep home to the conscience of both
Jew and Christian, it has subserved a Divine
purpose, in a manner which the author
assuredly never contemplated. Nor would
this book have thus succeeded in making the
person of Jesus the centre-point of modern
thought, had not its writer availed himself of
all the graces of composition to endow his
portrait with form and colour.

It was this that constituted its great charm
in the eyes of Christian readers. It aimed at

the strictly legitimate task of bringing the
10*
132 JESUS AND HILLEL.

historical account of Jesus into living conformity
with the times and country in which he lived,
thus meeting the wish natural to all Chris-
tians, to be able to form some definite idea of
his appearance in the days of his flesh.

But the likeness drawn by Rénan is no
historical portrait. It 1s a caricature, com-
pounded of the most contradictory elements,
a lying imposture which subsists only by the
falsification of the true history. This we can
prove by a single example, namely, by one of
those false statements in which Hillel is
pointed out as having been the true and
actual teacher of Jesus. Rénan is, however,
too much of a Christian to rank Hillel higher
than Jesus, highly as he values the former;
since in one place he observes, ‘ Hillel can
never be considered as the true founder of
Christianity,’ an idea which it would have
been mere folly to contradict, had he not re-
garded Hillel as a being whose moral great-
ness was at least akin to that of Jesus.

On the other hand, Dr. Geiger, the learned
Rabbi of the ‘‘ Reformed” Congregation of
Frankfort-on-Main, in his Lectures on Judaism,
and in his History (published in 1864), is too
JESUS AND HILLEL. 133

good a Jew to rank Hillel below Jesus.
‘‘Jesus,” says he, ‘‘ was a Pharisee, who fol-
lowed in Hillel’s footsteps. He never gave
utterance to a single new idea. Of Hillel, on
the contrary, we may say, and the term, far
from degrading, will only ennoble him, that
he presents us with the portrait of a genuine
Reformer. And,” adds Geiger, with a side
hit which we can easily understand, ‘this
Hillel is a strictly historical personage. In
the case of other men, indeed, tradition
colours their whole life, decks them with
miracles, and envelopes them in her tinsel.
But the more wonderful the legend, the more
incredible does it become, and all the more
surely does it obscure the real character, and
render contemptible the object it seeks to
glorify, when we come to consider him as a
historical personage.”

Dr. Geiger’s Lectures * have been extensively
read, they have been discussed in widely cir-
culated newspapers; and we believe that we
shall render a not unwelcome service to un-
prejudiced readers, both Jewish and Christian,

? A second edition of these lectures appeared in 1865, but in it these
remarks were left unaltered.
134 JESUS AND HILLEL.

if in these pages we examine this same Hillel
a little more closely, who by Rénan is placed
on a par with Jesus, by Geiger is ranked far
above him.

He is, in truth, deserving of our sympathy ;
a truly great and loveableman. Nor amongst
the contemporaries of Jesus is there one,
who, if compared to him, is so well fitted as
Hillel to bring out in its fullest light the peer-
less individuality of his character. Indeed,
in drawing the comparison about to be insti-
tuted, we enjoy a double advantage; firstly,
because the notices of Hillel contained in the
Talmud are unusually numerous, and, al-
though not free from grotesque exaggeration,"
are generally trustworthy; and secondly, be-
cause we are in no danger of our judgment
concerning him becoming confused.

* As for instance where according to Sofrim, xvi. 9, his knowledge is
said to have been so comprehensive that he understood not only all
languages, but also the speech of mountains, hills, and valleys, the speech
of trees and herbs, the speech of savage and tame beasts, and the speech
of demons. And again according to Succa, 28 a, where he is stated to have
had eighty disciples, thirty of whom were worthy that the Shechinah
(Presence of God) should rest upon them, thirty who were worthy that at
their bidding, as at Joshua’s, the sun should stand still, and twenty of
greater mediocrity. The greatest of all was Jonathan ben Aziel, of whom

it is related, that, when he sat reading the law, every bird which flew over
his head was immediately consumed.
JESUS AND HILLEL. 135

He flourished during the reign of Herod
the Great, and died during the early childhood
of Jesus.’

When Herod, as we read in Mat. ii. 4o,
demanded of the chief priests and scribes
where Christ should be born, Hillel may well
have been president of that sitting of the
Sanhedrin, which, in strict accordance with
Scripture, gave the king the reply, that he
must be born at Bethlehem-Ephrata.

Much beyond this date his life could not
have been prolonged; and he never had the
opportunity of either acknowledging or reject-
ing the Saviour. He must, therefore, be
considered as having been virtually a pre-
Messianic celebrity.

And now, ere we enter on the task of call-
ing up a distinct picture of Hillel’s life and
work, in order to compare them with the life
and labours of Jesus, we will promise our
readers to adhere strictly, in the case of the
former, to the accounts which have come
down to us of him, without adding any

' According to the Talmud, l. Schabbath, 15 a, the date of Hillel’s
presidency of the Sanhedrin, was just one hundred years before the fall

of Jerusalem.
136 JESUS AND HILLEL.

comments of our own; and, in the case of
the latter, to hold aloof from all that modern
critics reject, and to keep exclusively to such
testimony as even the criticism of a Strauss
cannot shake ; following principally the Gospel
according to St. Mark, as that which has at
present, the honour of being considered both
the oldest and the most trustworthy.

 
137

 

 

44 ~=and how did Jesus?

This is the first question, to which their
respective histories must supply the answer,
and that, without our adding to, or diminish-
ing aught from the record.

About fifty years before the commencement
of our era, the following occurrence took place

in Jerusalem.

Shemaiah and Abtalion, the most celebrated
doctors of that day, had on one occasion, the
eve of the Sabbath, conducted throughout the
whole night,’ a numerous class of disciples,
engaged in the study of the law. It was the
month Tebeth, and just at the time of the
winter solstice; therefore, about the end of
December. When ‘‘the pillars of the dawn
were set up” (it was thus that the Semitic

* lt. Foma, 35 b.
138 JESUS AND HILLEL.

races expressed themselves, since in that lati-
tude the sun shoots like a ball of light above
the horizon, after a much shorter twilight
than with us), Shemaiah observed to Abta-
lion, ‘‘Good brother Abtalion, our school-
house is generally well lighted in the day-
time, but this morning it is so dark, that it
must be a cloudy day.” On looking up, how-
ever, something resembling a human form
was descried in the aperture of the window.
Someone climbed on to the roof, and there
a man was actually found buried in the snow
which had fallen during the previous night.
It was Hillel. They soon extricated him,
bathed, and rubbed him with oil, and laid
him before a fire, saying amongst themselves
as they did so, ‘‘He is worthy that on his
account the Sabbath should be broken.”

But how had Hillel placed himself in this
situation ?

This Hillel, grandfather of Gamaliel, at
whose feet sat St. Paul the Apostle, and an-
cestor of a family in which the office of pre-
sident of the Sanhedrin was for centuries
hereditary, belonged to a family of Jewish
exiles at Babylon. Though able to trace
JESUS AND HILLEL. 139

their descent from David,’ his kindred were
poor; and both Hillel and his brother Shebna’
had come to Jerusalem, one to seek his fortune
as a trader, and the other to slake his thirst
for knowledge at the fountain-head of national
learning. In order to accomplish this, he
had to hire himself out as a journeyman, and
his daily earnings amounted to a tropaikon.
This was the Greek name for the Roman vic-
toriatus, a small coin, of the value of half a
denarius, and stamped with the image of
victory. One half of his gains had to support
his family (for he was married); the other he
paid to the steward of the Beth-ha-Midrasch,
that academy over which Shemaiah and
Abtalion presided. One day, however, when
he had been unable to meet with work, he
was denied admittance by the avaricious
steward. Favoured by the darkness of the
night, he clambered up to the window placed
in the top of the wall, whence he could see
and hear all that passed below; but unable
long to endure the intense cold of the heavy

' Bereschith Rabba, § 98, which in support of its testimony appeals to
a pedigree found in Jerusalem. por 7730.
2 b, Sota, 21 a, according to which he in later times shared his earnings

with his brother, who was also a student.
140 JESUS AND HILLEL.

snow, from which even Jerusalem is not
always exempt, he sunk down in that state of
insensibility, from which he was on the follow-
ing Sabbath morning with difficulty restored
to life.

It was thus that Hillel’s talents were de-
veloped. To satisfy his thirst for knowledge,
he resorted to the most celebrated teachers of
his day, and spared no pains to acquire the
heritage of their wisdom. Schooled by the
greatest celebrities in the learning of the
Thora, he, in after times, became himself one
of its highest authorities. When the question
was once debated, whether the Pascal lamb
could be slain on the eve of the Passover
should it happen to fall on a Sabbath, Hillel
came forward as the guardian of the correct
interpretation, and decided the question in
the affirmative.’ From this time forward, he
was regarded as one of the principal ex-
pounders of the so-called oral or traditional
law; to which, in a stormy and degenerate
age, he secured uninterrupted development,
by his personal gentleness, high culture, and
moderate Pharisaical tendencies.

* l, Pesachim, 66 a, 7. Pesachim, 33 a.
JESUS AND HILLEL. 141

A reformer he never was. Dr. Geiger only
places him on this pinnacle, in order to rank
Jesus below him. But he alone can be called
a reformer, who, indued with creative genius,
restores a debased or deformed national reli-
gion to its original purity, and breathes into
an expiring body that new life which first
takes its rise in himself. Such reformers
were Samuel and Ezra. Hillel, however, left
everything as he found it. He introduced,
indeed, some few novelties in the administra-
tion of civil law, especially in matters relating
to commerce and money-lending, by which
the letter of the Mosaic law was subtly
evaded. But, with these exceptions, he
simply carried out the Pharisaic system of
maxims. With the actual faith of his nation
he scarcely meddled; much less did he ever
revive it from decay or quicken it with new
impulses.

All history, on the other hand, proclaims
what Jesus has become; nor need we first
compile the story. It is enough to say, that
the fact confronts us, if only we do not ob-
stinately close our eyes to it. Hillel was no
reformer; else, what was the primitive form of
142 JESUS AND HILLEL.

religion amongst his people which he re-
stored? Or, what were the errors which he
swept away? But Jesus is the founder of a
new religion, which stands to the religion of
the Old Testament, in the relation of its very
heart and kernel, of its disentrammelled spirit.
He is the founder of a humanism undreamt
of before his day, of a religion of philan-
thropy and humanity, which declares all walls
of partition between different races to be
abolished, and he has instituted a universal
brotherhood, through the new bond of a divine
and all-embracing love.

How then, we ask, did Jesus effect this?
He too, like Hillel, was descended from a de-
cayed branch of the family of David ;* though
unlike Hillel, instead of being brought up in
Babylonia, where the Jewish population began
at that time to rival their countrymen at
home in national culture, he grew to man’s
estate in Galilee, a province on which the

* Though not the actual, yet as the legitimate son of Joseph, the son
of Jacob (see Matt. i.), Jesus was descended from that branch of the
house of David which was founded by Solomon, and through his mother,
Mary the daughter of Heli (Luke iii.), from that which was founded by
Nathan. In the Talmud Mary is referred to as by", daughter of Heli,
whilst inl. Sanhedrin, 43 b, Jesus is said to have been m9) ap (related to
the king’s house).
JESUS AND HILLEL. 143

Judean looked down with the same lofty con-
tempt with which a Greek regarded Beeotia,
or a Parisian may think of a Gascon; his
home being in the most despised spot of this
despised district. In the Talmud we meet
with celebrated men from a number of town-
ships, both in Palestine and Galilee, who
have now vanished, leaving no trace behind ;
but from Nazareth (Nazara),' there comes not
one. Josephus, the historian, who during the
Roman war had to organise the Galilean re-
volt, counts no fewer than 204 over-populated
towns and villages. He gives the names of
several, but does not even mention Nazareth.
Had this spot, indeed, been referred to only
in the Gospels, modern criticism would doubt-
less have decided that it never existed. But
there it lies to this day, as it lay 2000 years
ago, with its houses built into the slope of
the mountain, in the hollow of a deep and
narrow basin, which, enclosed by mountains
on three sides, slopes down southward towards
the famous plain of Jezreel, renowned as a
battle-field in both ancient and modern times.

Here, in this deep retirement Jesus grew

' Both forms are met with in the oldest Greek MSS.
144 JESUS AND HILLEL.

up as a lily of the field. For him there were
no opportunities of education beyond his own
home, if we except, perhaps, the Synagogue.
Hillel may well be considered as the de-
positary of the wisdom of Shemaiah and
Abtalion; but who, amongst his astonished
contemporaries, could point out the teacher
of Jesus? The Talmud certainly assigns him
a celebrated master, Joshua the son of Pera-
chiah, with whom it states that he fled to
Alexandria, to escape the fury of a murderous
king, and by whom he was subsequently ex-
communicated’ as a renegade disciple, to the
blast of four hundred rams’ horns. But this
excommunication concert is an absurdity, and
the whole story an impudent fabrication.* This
Joshua lived a whole century earlier than
Jesus, who, as we know, went down into Egypt,
but it was as an infant at his mother’s breast.
Nor can he have brought back impressions
from thence, where Judaism had entered on a
more enlightened and liberal phase than in
the mother country. Still less can he there

t b, Sanhedrin 107 b (in unabridged editions).

> The emigration of Joshua the son of Perachiah, took place at the time
of the persecution of the Pharisees under the Asmonean king Alexander I.
Jannai (died 76 8.c.). See Jost’s History of Fudaism and its sects, 1., 237.
JESUS AND HILLEL. 145

have studied magic, as another Talmudistic
fable declares him to have done.'

Since, however, no human spirit can develop
itself independently of impulses from without,
so Jesus, by intercourse with his pious parents,
and others by whom he was alternately at-
tracted and repelled, would gradually receive
a, to us incalculable, world of impressions.
These doubtless helped to make him that
which he finally became, but this was actually
determined by his own unique nature, by
which these impressions were treasured up
and worked out. His principal means of de-
velopment was communion with God, through
His Word, as contained in the Holy Scrip-
tures. This Word, received from without, told
him what were the needs of his people, and of
mankind, and for whose help they waited. And
the God within him told him what was the ser-
vice which he was called to render, both to his
own people, and to the whole human race;
not, like Hillel, to persevere in a system of
ordinances, but, laying aside these outward

* b, Schablath, 104 b: the “son of Stada,” xTOD 72, a name of contempt
given to Jesus, brought enchantments from Egypt in a cut which he
had made in his flesh. This is an indirect testimony from an enemy’s lips
to the historical truth of our Saviour’s miracles.

il
146 JESUS AND HILLEL.

ceremonial observances, to bring mankind into
a direct and spiritually-free relationship to
God; and to yield himself a willing sacrifice
to the fulfilment of this supreme vocation. In
other words, he strengthened himself in God
with ever increasing certainty, as that Messiah
promised aforetime by Moses and the pro-
phets. He experienced in himself what the
servant of Jehovah expresses in Is. 50. 4:
‘“The Lord God hath given me the tongue
of the learned, that I should know how to
speak a word in season to him that is weary:
he wakeneth morning by morning, he waken-
eth my ear to hear as the learned.” The
more deeply he studied the prophecies, and
the more closely he marked the corruption of
his people, dead in the works of the law, the
more clearly was it revealed to him, that he
must be prepared for heavy suffering, and the
more earnestly did he pray for strength and
courage; even as we read in the words of
Isaiah 50. 5, 6, “‘ The Lord God hath opened
mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither
turned away back. I gave my back to the
smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked
off the hair: I hid not my face from shame
JESUS AND HILLEL. 147

”

and spitting.” And in this school of deep inner
experiences the disciple of God developed into
that Divine Teacher; who, under the lowly guise
of an itinerant Galilean preacher,’ hid the sub-
lime self-consciousness of the Messiah of Israel.

Those around him were acquainted with
the circumstances of his birth, but these were
more calculated to deepen than to explain the
strange enigma of this untaught Teacher.
When in the synagogue of Nazareth, the book
of Isaiah was given to him, that he might
read the appointed lesson of the day; he
began with the words, ‘‘The Spirit of the
Lord God is upon me; because the Lord
hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto
the meek: he hath sent me to bind up the
broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the
captives, and the opening of the prison to
them that are bound; to proclaim the ac-
ceptable year of the Lord.” And, in full as-
surance that he, and no other, was that servant
of Jehovah, whom the prophet here represents
as speaking, he, whilst the eyes of all present
were fastened on him, began his sermon with

Toyoda any. It is thus that the wandering Galilean teachers are
described in the Talmud, 2. Sanhedrin, 70 a, Chullin, 27 b.
*
il
148 JESUS AND HILLEL.

those words of strong confirmation: ‘‘ This
day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.”
Mar. 6. 2,3. The first effect of the powerful
impression made by this public manifestation
was astonishment: ‘‘ From whence hath this
man these things,” asked the Nazarenes, ‘‘and
what wisdom is this which is given unto him,
that even such mighty works are wrought by
his hands? Is not this the carpenter, the
son of Mary and the brother of James and
Joses and of Juda and Simon? And are not
his sisters here with us?” They knew no
natural explanation of the lofty self-assertion
with which their countryman confronted them
in word and deed; and therefore, as St. Mark’s
Gospel proceeds to explain, ch. 6. 3, they were
offended at him. For he lacked that patent of
nobility, which, according to Jewish ideas, was
possessed by every teacher who could prove
himself the disciple of some celebrated man.
That he stood without the pale of this privi-
leged class (m>apr nowhw) was in their eyes
no recommendation.

It was in this very point that Jesus differed
so essentially from Hillel, who simply pro-
pagated the scholastic lore of Shemaiah and
JESUS AND HILLEL. 149

Abtalion. Jesus came from no rabbinical
seminary, nor did he ever attach himself to,
or seek to build up, any existing system. Free
and direct, he tlrank of the fulness of the
Divine Spirit, and without dependence on
man, developed himself, through the Word of
God, from the depths of his own holy being.
From childhood he had lived in a communion
with God, which enabled him to speak those
words,’ whose like were, before him, never heard
from mortal lips, neither after him will be: ‘‘No
man knoweth the Son but the Father; neither
knoweth any man the Father save the Son, and
he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.”
Mats 13 27:

This it was which threw all his contempo-
raries into amazement at his doctrine, manner
of teaching, and whole mode of life; and the
despised province of Galilee then experienced
the fulfilment of the ancient prediction, Isa.
g. 2, ‘‘ The people that walked in darkness
have seen a great light: they that dwell in the
land of the shadow of death, upon them hath
the light shined.” In accordance with this

¥ These words of Jesus have come down to us through other sources
besides St. Matthew’s gospel.
150 JESUS AND HILLEL.

word of the prophet, the Talmud says, that
the deliverance of Israel shall dawn from
Tiberias; and the Sohar, that Messiah shall
be manifested from the land ‘of Galilee.
 

It,

 

His} the Babylonian teach? And what Jesus
of Nazareth? A second comparison,’ which
we will endeavour to draw will illustrate this
- more clearly than the foregoing.

A foreigner presented himself on one occa-
sion before Shammai; ‘‘ Make me a proselyte,”
said he, ‘‘ but thou must teach me the whole
law, whilst I stand on one leg.” Shammai
flew into a passion, lifted the measuring rod,
which he happened to have in his hand, and
drove him from his presence.

He now applied to Hillel, who actually
converted him under the required conditions.
He said to him, payn xb rand 0 Thy
Sri awe pps. as ans os eo,
7903, in English, ‘‘ What is disagreeable to
thyself, never do to thy neighbour, this is the

'b, Schabtath, 21 a.
152 JESUS AND HILLEL.

whole law, to which all else is but the com-
mentary. Go and learn it.” It is on the
ground of this much admired reply that Rénan
and Geiger stand, when they seek to repre-
sent Jesus as following the traces of Hillel.
We are far from undervaluing the grandeur
and nobility of Hillel’s answer. It required,
indeed, a comparatively enlightened insight
into the nature of the law to perceive that all
national ordinances and ceremonial precepts
contained in the Thora served a moral pur-
pose, regulating the relation of man to man.
But, was the code delivered on Sinai simply,
or indeed chiefly, a moral one? According to
that fundamental maxim which we find in
Deut. 6. 4, 5, and which, as the pny has been
embodied in the daily prayer of the Israelite,
may not the real sum total of the law be far
more justly described, as contained in the
command, ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul,
and with all thy might ?”

Was Hillel then justified in withholding
this precept from the enquiring idolater, whose
most urgent need was the knowledge of the
living God? To judge from his reply, it
JESUS AND HILLEL. 153

would seem that the first table of the holy law
is less binding and important than the second.
Yet morality can never be divorced from reli-
gion, without the moral duties losing the sup-
port of its divine and eternal basis. This,
however, is what Hillel does, he represents
the revealed law as a code of morality, and
ignores its divine foundation and _ require-
ments, being in this the forerunner of that
numerous class, who take the paltry maxim,
‘Do right and fear no man,” for the height of
wisdom, and indeed consider that it embodies
the whole contents of the Bible, all else
being in their opinion merely an unimportant
appendix. In Mat. 7. 12 Jesus certainly
says, ‘‘Therefore all things whatsoever ye
would that men should do to you, do ye even
so to them: for this is the law and the pro-
phets.” But this is no isolated injunction; in
the verse immediately preceding we read, ‘If
ye then, being evil, know how to give good
gifts unto your children, how much more shall
your Father which is in heaven give good
gifts to them that ask him?” And this say-
ing of Jesus, resembling Hillel’s, though not
identical with it, differs from it chiefly in its
154 JESUS AND HILLEL.

deep religious sentiment; the duty of love
to our neighbour, being deduced from the
example of that compassionate love of God,
which all must strive to imitate. These utter-
ances of Jesus form part of his Sermon
on the Mount, of which the subject was the
true righteousness; and in which the law given
on Mount Sinai, in a preparatory, and there-
fore imperfect manner, received its full de-
velopment. In this discourse true righteous-
ness is represented as the gift of God, and its
essence is made to consist in submission to
His will, and renunciation of self, and in
bringing not only the outer, but the deepest
inner life, into conformity and obedience to
Him. This righteousness consists therefore
in the reciprocal working of religion and
morality, and in it love to God and love to
man go hand in hand. For this reason we
find, Mar. 12. 28-34, that, in a case some-
what similar to Hillel’s, Jesus gave a reply
which differed essentially from that of the
Rabbi. When asked by a scribe, ‘‘ Which is
the first commandment of all?” he answered,
“The first of all the commandments is
Hear, O Israel; the Lord our God is
JESUS AND HILLEL. 155

one Lord: and thou shalt love the Lord
thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy
soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy
strength. Thisis the first commandment. And
the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt
love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none
other commandment greater than these.”
These words ring clear and decisive, and in
them we at once perceive the full truth and
harmony of the law, to the spirit of which
Jesus gives its full weight. In the Thora,
these two commandments are never met with
side by side, for in Deut. 6. 5, it is only love
to God, and not love to man, which is incul-
cated; and in Lev. Ig. 18 the command to
love our neighbour stands among many others;
whilst its basis, in the love of God, is not
alluded to. Jesus, however, brings their hid-
den connection to light. Whilst Hillel’s
moralising reply rests solely on Lev. 1g. 18,
and entirely overlooks the passage in Deut.
6. 4, Jesus unites the two great command-
ments in one whole, and that in such a
manner, that the apparently less important is
placed on a footing of equality with the
ereater; for, even as light and radiation, so
156 JESUS AND HILLEL.

are love to God and love to man, but one in
their essence and in their source. They are
one in the Lord our God, the God of Israel,
who is one God. This union of the two com-
mandments, on which all others are founded,
lies indeed in the spirit of the Old Testament
law, but it was Jesus who first proclaimed it;
he of whom Geiger says, that ‘‘he never gave
utterance to a single new idea!” Never has
a falser or more shameless aspersion been
cast on the historically original, yet cultivated
grandeur, of the Founder of Christianity. We
would render all justice to Hillel’s famous
saying, but we know Hillel (whom, at the
expense of Jesus, Geiger would magnify into
a reformer) too well to allow a false estimate
of his character to be foisted on us, on the
strength of a single speech; above all, of one,
which as we have seen, proclaimed but half
the truth. Hillel’s work was in no sense
reformatory, still less creative; it consisted
principally in the development of the so-
called oral law, which aimed at protecting
the Mosaic law from violation, by fencing
it in with innumerable preventive regula-
tions.
JESUS AND HILLEL. 157

In this exaggerated spirit of clerkly quib-
bling Hillel had a formidable rival in the
person of the stricter, and in ceremonial
matters, more exacting Shammai. One ex-
ample will show how far men had already
fallen away from the spirit of the Mosaic law.
Ex. 16. 5 contains indirectly the precept that
food intended to be eaten on the Sabbath
should be prepared the preceding day. The
sense and object of the passage are unmis-
takeable. That Sabbath rest which the law
of Moses guaranteed both to the servant and
the maid, no less than to the master and the
mistress, was not to be broken by the labour
of cooking. The doctors of the law, however,
propounded the question, whether an egg
which a hen had laid on the Sabbath might
be eaten on that day. One would have
thought this a matter requiring no considera-
tion; man taking no active part in the laying
of eggs. Nevertheless the consumption of
such egg was declared absolutely unlawful, if
it had been laid by a hen kept for the purpose
of laying, because in this case it would be the
result of a week-day occupation carried out
on the Sabbath, in disobedience to the law.
158 JESUS AND HILLEL.

Up to this point the ‘‘ Fathers of old time’’’
were agreed. But how if the hen had been
intended for eating and not for laying? And
how if a Sabbath and a Feast-Day, or as we
might say, since a Feast-Day is equal in sanc-
tity to a Sabbath, how if two Sabbaths came
together? Here, contrary to his usual cus-
tom, Shammaz’s interpretation was less strict
than Hillel’s, since he allowed the consump-
tion of the egg of a hen set apart for eating, on
the Sabbath or Feast-Day preceding it, and laid
on such Sabbath or Feast-Day. But Hillel,
the ‘‘ Reformer” according to Geiger, accord-
ing to Rénan ‘‘the real instructor of Jesus,”
argued as follows: Since such egg was per-
fected on a Sabbath or Feast-Day, and there-
fore came unlawfully into being, it is on this
account unlawful to eat it on the Sabbath or
the Feast-Day following; and though it might
in itself be lawful to eat the egg of such hen
on the Sabbath or Feast-Day, had it been laid

on a Sabbath or Feast-Day which was not
either preceded or followed by a Sabbath or
Festival, yet even this must be considered for-

* oy niax. Hillel and Shammai are thus named in the Mishna
Edujoth, 1. 4.
JESUS AND HILLEL, 159

bidden, because one might otherwise fall into
the temptation to eat it on such Sabbath or
Feast-Day, when it would, on the afore-
mentioned grounds, be strictly prohibited to do
so. And since on the Sabbath that which is
to be eaten must not be carried from place to
place, such egg must not only not be eaten,
but not be hfted up or put aside. A con-
scientious person, therefore, would naturally
avoid touching it, since he might be tempted
even to take it in his hand, or even looking at
it, since in doing so he might begin to lust
after it. In this celebrated controversy of the
egg,’ as in many others, Hillel carried his
point against Shammai, since it seems a voice
was heard from heaven, yp na, which said,
‘The words of both are the words of the living
God, but let the lessons of Hillel be carried
into practice.” *

Now just conceive for one moment a

' A whole treatise of the Talmud which treats of Festivals in general
takes from this controversy, with which it opens, its name of Beza,
“the egg.”

2b, Erulin, 13b. According to this passage the preference was given
to the doctrine of the Hillelites, because they were gentle and polite,
giving due consideration to the words of the Shammaites, and even
allowing the latter to take the uppermost seats at the consultation.
160 JESUS AND HILLEL.

scrupulous compatriot presenting himself to
Jesus with the question whether he might eat
an egg laid at such and such a time; and,
supposing that his question did not die on his
lips, when he found himself face to face with
one whose whole aspect must have bespoken
the embodiment of the spirit of the law, as
well as the most uncompromising denuncia-
tion of all hypocrisy; may we not imagine
what reply he would have received? For
when the scribes and Pharisees asked of
Jesus, ‘‘Why walk not thy disciples after
the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with
defiled (that is to say, with unwashen) hands?”
he answered, ‘‘ Well hath Esaias prophesied
of you, hypocrites, as it is written, This people
honoureth me with their lips, but their heart
is far from me; howbeit, in vain do they wor-
ship me, teaching for doctrines the command-
ments of men. For laying aside the com-
mandment of God ye hold the tradition of
men, as the washing of pots and cups, and
many other such like things ye do.” (Mar.
7. 7,8.) This ceremony, therefore, concern-
ing which there runs a rabbinical maxim,
‘‘ He who despises the washing of hands shall
J&eSUS AND HILLEL. 161

be consumed from the face of the earth,’ '
had no religious value in the eyes of Jesus,
and this solitary example will suffice to show
how determined was the position he took up
in opposition to that traditional law, on the
upholding and development of which Hillel’s
special fame was grounded.

The tendencies of these two diverged as
widely as heaven from earth. The teaching
of Hillel is juristic, casuistic, and narrow-
mindedly national, whilst that of Jesus is
universally religious, moral, and humane.
Hillel lives and moves only in the externals,
and Jesus in the spirit of the law. The latter
frees the law of God from the boundaries,
with which, whilst destined for but one people,
it was necessarily enclosed ; whilst the former
strives, on the contrary, to strengthen these
bands, sometimes by stricter, sometimes by
milder enactments, without much laying to
heart the command contained in Deut. 28.
28, ‘Ye shall not add unto the word which I
command you, neither shall ye diminish aught
from it,” 43y"an yoo aaoin xb. The prag-
matic historian here finds himself in great

‘bo Seta, gb. soem yo pra ove mye. dT 7
12
162 JESUS AND HILLEL.

perplexity. Nowhere in the times or country
of Jesus do we meet with the true connect-
ing link of the manner in which he exalts
morality as opposed to ceremonialism. Reénan
disconnects the bon mot by means of which
Hillel gained a proselyte, from the general
tenor of his doctrine, in order to represent
Jesus as building on his foundation; and
Geiger, who makes Jesus follow in Hillel’s
steps, misleads those only who are not suf-
ficiently acquainted with Jewish literature to
know that Hillel trod the broad highway of
rabbinism, on which Jesus turned his back,
whilst he struck into another path, which till
then had never entered into the heart of
man.

And how much have the Essenes to answer
for?' But this fraternity, who much re-
sembled the Freemasons, and were settled
on the western shore of the Dead Sea, never

* As for instance in Griitz’ History of the Fews, where we read, “The
most ideal conception of the Messiah, and the Messianic ‘ times of refresh-
ing,’ was that which the Essenes pictured to themselves.” But we in fact
know nothing whatever of the ideas of the Messiah which the Essenes may
have entertained. ‘John the Baptist” continues our author, “was
evidently an Essene;” but in his manner of life he was a copy of Elijah,

and no Essene, and beyond his manner of life the supposition that he was
an Essene is wholly unsupported.
JESUS AND HILLEL. 163

appear on the stage of New Testament his-
tory. Indeed, since they excelled even the
Pharisees in point of abstemiousness and
cleanliness, and avoided yet more jealously
than did these latter, all intercourse with the
common people, one can scarcely imagine
that any other sentiment than that of re-
ciprocal disgust could have existed between
them and Jesus (supposing, indeed, that
they ever came in contact with each other),
when we recollect that he received pub-
licans, fishermen, and so-called sinners as his
disciples, that he ate and drank with them,
and instead of fasting, strove to encourage in
his followers a spirit of nuptial joy. Nowhere
in the tendencies of those times can we dis-
cover a connecting link with the teaching of
Jesus, it is only to be found in the voice of
Old Testament prophecy, which after a silence
of two centuries and a half revived anew in
John the Baptist. Jesus exhibits the old pro-
phetic view of the worthlessness of the dead
works of the law, but he says not only ‘‘ The
sabbath was made for man, and not man for
the sabbath,” but also, ‘‘ The Son of Man is
Lord also of the sabbath” (Mark 2. 27, 28),

13*
104 JESUS AND HILLEL.

thus arrogating to himself a sovereignty, not
only over traditional precepts, but over the
actual law itself as given on Sinai, such as no
prophet would have dared to assume without
the most glaring presumption. Nor does he
rest satisfied with interpreting the letter of the
law by its spirit, but makes known his own
judgments, as being the full and conclusive
expression of the will of God, and as supple-
menting the imperfect revelation of that will
contained in the Thora. This none surely
had dared to do, save he who knew himself to
be that mediator of the new covenant, 73
mwn, spoken of in Jer. 31. 31, in whom,
according to the word of the prophet, the
work of revelation which was begun on Sinai
should be fully perfected. For instance, the
law allowed a man to put away his wife, by
means of a bill of divorcement, for any ‘ un-
cleanness” which he might find in her, the
facility of such divorce being fettered by but
one condition, namely, that should the di-
vorced woman become the wife of another, her
first husband should never take her to wife
again. (Deut. 24. 4.)

The wording of the required ground of
JESUS AND HILLEL. 165

divorce is here so vague, that the disciples of
Shammai held, that the meaning of the term
‘‘uncleanness,’’ should be restricted to moral
delinquency. But this view was opposed by
Hillel, who actually maintained that a man
might put away his wife, even if she had only
burned his food.' Jesus here is not content
with merely interpreting the law in its strictest
sense, he goes much deeper and further. On
the one hand he perceives in the permission
to separate, and the decree of the bill of
divorcement, an effect of the far-seeing wis-
dom of God, which sought to gradually
educate to true sanctification of spirit, a stiff-
necked and carnally-minded people; and, on
the other hand, he opposes to this temporary
divine permission, the primitive institution of
marriage at the Creation as an indissoluble
bond, uniting a man to his one wife (Mar. Io.
5-9), together with the expression of his own
will, which certainly tolerates no ground of

* Guttin, ix. 10. Modern Jewish authorities endeavour to do away the
revolting character of this dictum, by saying, that burning food may be
explained to mean, a woman having sacrificed her own reputation, or that
of her family. (Vide Jost’s History of Fudaism and its Sects, 264.) But
this view is contradicted by the words \7Dx “even if only,’’ which indicate
but a trifling fault.
166 JESUS AND HILLEL.

divorce excepting adultery: ‘‘ But I say unto
you, That whosoever shall put away his wife,
saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her
to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry
her that is divorced, committeth adultery.”
(Matt. 5. 32.) What sublime consciousness
of equality with the Divine Majesty do the
words, ‘‘ But I say unto you”’ express! The
code given on Sinai is to him merely a pre-
paratory step in the revelation of the things of
God. He knows himself to be the Mediator
of that perfected and Divine Work. In the
Sermon on the Mount, which even the most
captious critics allow to be a true specimen of
the teaching of Jesus, he recognises on the one
hand the divine character of the law, and of
the Old Testament writings, when he says
(Matt. 5.17, 18), ‘‘ Think not that Iam come to
destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not
come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I
say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one
jot or one tittle, shall in no wise pass from the
law, till all be fulfilled ;”* whilst on the other

* This expression is known to the Talmud, but through a translation
which distorts its real meaning, b. Schallath, 116 b, “I am not come to
diminish aught from the law of Moses, but to add to the law of Moses
(DDN), am I come.”
JESUS AND HILLEL. 167

side, he opposes the mere literal and external
fulfilment of the law, and urges on_ his
hearers, in a new and deeper sense, a free-
hearted and willing obedience to its precepts;
laying before them, at the same time, some
examples of the true spirit in which they were
conceived. That inward working which is
shadowed forth in Deuteronomy, and con-
tinued by the prophets, is fully carried out by
him, who declares himself the fulfiller of
the law and the prophets. He, who accord-
ing to Geiger, ‘‘never gave utterance to a
single new idea,” breathes a new spirit into the
law, and writes it on our hearts in a manner
unheard of till his day; a manner which
differs utterly from the school of Jewish-
Alexandrian allegory, and with which the few
scattered beams of light met with in the rab-
binical writings, cannot for a moment be com-
pared. Need one do more than read how, in
Matt. 5. 33-37, he prohibits the desecration
of the name of God, and strikes at the very
root of perjury? ‘Let your communication
be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay;” as though he had
said, Your simple Yea and Nay should be equal
to a solemn oath, for he who is truly pious
168 JESUS AND HILLEL.

stands ever in the presence of God. Thus
too with the command, Thou shalt not kill;
whilst the preparatory dispensation of the
Old Testament forbids murder, He, the law-
giver of the kingdom of Heaven established
amongst men, declares that the guilt of one
who is angry with his brother without a cause,
who insults or despises him, is equal to his
who is guilty of murder. (Matt. 5. 21-24.)
And how ineffably does he transfigure the
stern law of retaliation by the spirit of Divine
love! (Matt. 5. 38-48.) Retaliation may be
practised, not indeed rendering evil for evil,
but recompensing evil with good. The law
says indeed, Thou shalt love thy neighbour
(qy5) as thyself (Lev. 1g. 18); but by this
term ‘‘neighbour” a fellow-countryman was
understood, and a line of conduct was per-
mitted in dealing with Gentiles, which would
have been unlawful if pursued towards an
Israelite. It ordains the utter destruction of
the Canaanites and hallows the inexorable
warfare, which was to be maintained against
them with the devouring sword. The com-
mand to love one’s neighbour appears here as
narrow-hearted, as we might expect to find a
JESUS AND HILLEL. 169

precept intended for a single race, and not for
all mankind. Jesus, however, breaks down
this barrier of partition and inculcates an
universal philanthropy, which should subsist
regardless of nationality, rank, merit, or sym-
pathy. My neighbour is henceforth every one
who needs my help or whose help I need; even
my enemy. All men are to acknowledge one
another as brethren, for all have one Great
Father in Heaven, whom he, Jesus, has re-
vealed and brought near to them. This uni-
versal love is nowhere enjoined in the Old
Testament Scriptures, and although here and
there generosity towards an enemy may be in-
culcated, Jesus is the first and only one, who
ever elevated to the rank of a moral principle
this love, which should embrace even those
that hate us. How deeply the whole world
has been stirred by those words, ‘‘ Love
your enemies, bless them that curse you, do
good to them that hate you, and pray for them
which despitefully use you and persecute you,
that ye may be the children of your Father
which is in Heaven:”’ all history shows. In
these words the highest idea of morality is
held up for our imitation, and ever since they
170 JESUS AND HILLEL.

were uttered, all true progress in the history
of mankind has consisted in the triumph of
the love they teach. For whatever Judaism
may know of this, it is indebted, not to Hillel,
nor to any other of its ancient sages, but to
this Jesus of Nazareth, ‘‘who,” says Geiger,
‘never gave utterance to a single new idea;”’
but who in fact ushered in a new epoch with
this principle of all-embracing charity, a prin-
ciple from whose light not even Judaism could
hide itself, however little it may know of him,
of whose glory this light is but an emanation.

Face to face with the ideal morality of the
Sermon on the Mount, we cannot forbear to
recognise in Jesus the truly great man, who
understood the essence of morality to its very
foundations; yet must we allow him to be
more than this: a prophet who opposed the
hypocritical, heartless righteousness of works
in fashion in his day, by manifesting the spirit
of the law through its letter; nor only so, but
even that Prophet like unto Moses do we see
him to be, whose coming is foretold in Deut.
18. 15, and who was to be the Mediator of
the final revelation of God, even as Moses
was the Mediator of the preparatory. But,
JESUS AND HILLEL. I71

according to his own testimony, he is One
greater than these. As the liberator of reli-
gion from the swaddling bands and leading
strings by which she had been fettered hitherto,
he towers immeasurably above not only Hillel,
but all other sages, yea, all other prophets of
Israel. At the conclusion of the Sermon on
the Mount, which modern criticism allows to
be “the Truest of the True,” he speaks of
himself as the future Judge of all men, who
will hold them responsible for the hearing and
doing of the Word proclaimed by his mouth;
and who would unmask all those hypocrites
who would seek to justify themselves before
him, with the judicial sentence: ‘‘I never
knew you, depart from me ye that work
iniquity.” (Matt. 7. 23.) And when asked
by the High Priest, ‘‘ Art thou the Christ, the
Son of the Blessed?” (Mar. 14. 61) he re-
plied, ‘‘Iam: and ye shall see the Son of Man
sitting on the right hand of power, and coming
in the clouds of Heaven.” (Mar. 14.62.) In
this witness to himself he exalts himself far
above mankind, and into the closest union
with God. By him the destiny of all men
is to be decided, and through him God’s
172 JESUS AND HILLEL.

sovereignty over the human race is to be
proved. What lofty self-consciousness is ex-
pressed in those self-chosen names, Son of
God, and Son of Man! Wewill not here seek
to explain these names, but this at least they
teach us, that in him met the movement of
mankind towards God, and the movement of
God towards mankind, even as two lines con-
verge to a common centre, and in him heaven
and earth join hands in reconciliation. What
shall we say then to this declaration, by which
on the one side he represents himself as the
Head of the human race, and on the other as
essentially united to God? If we renounce
both the arbitrary caprice of a Colani, the shears
of whose criticism would pare away everything
‘‘exaggerated” from the testimony of Jesus
to himself; and the half-heartedness of a
Schenkel, who by false explanations would
seek to reduce it to the level of our compre-
hension, there remains nothing for us but the
choice, either with Strauss and Rénan, to con-
sider this Galilean, notwithstanding his incon-
testable greatness, only from the pathological
point of view of a great intellect, strained
almost to insanity, or with Paul and all the
JESUS AND HILLEL. 173

Apostles to bow in faith and adoration before
the God-Man, the Saviour, who, when the
misery of mankind had reached its highest
point, came forward self-devoted to stem the
torrent; not as a Deus ex machina, but as one
whose way had been prepared step by step in
the expectation and history of Israel, even to
that last prophetic voice, which foretells at
once the advent both of the Mediator, the
God-Man, and also of his forerunner in the
spirit and power of Elias, John the Baptist.
‘Behold, I will send my messenger, and he
shall prepare the way before me: and the
Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to
his temple, even the Angel’ of the covenant,
whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come,
saith the Lord of hosts.” (Mal. 3. 1.) The
messenger is Elias, the Lord who is coming,
sent by the Lord of Sabaoth, is very God of
very God, because in him was completed that
chain of supernatural appearances of the
Angel of Jehovah, which from patriarchal
times had been vouchsafed in connection with
the covenant of Israel. The Lord and the

‘It is thus that the word man 0) is translated in the German

Version. Translator.
174 JESUS AND HILLEL.

Angel of the covenant are one and the same,
for the Angel of Jehovah is Jehovah himself,
is his Presence, in whom he manifests him-
self, (See Ex, 33. 14; Deut, 4. 37; Isa,
63. 9, 35). O Israel, people of the cove-
nant, lay this to heart; if Jesus be not this
Lord and Angel of the covenant, must ye not
still await his coming? But God and Man in
one Person must your Messiah, your Saviour
be, if your prophets, even unto this Malachi,
have spoken truth.

But it is time that we unroll our third
picture, in order to measure Jesus and that
Hillel, whom Rénan dares to represent as his
true teacher, side by side. This third picture
will show us clearly how the life of each differed
from the other in suffering, and how. far Gratz
is right, when he says, in his History of the
Fews (Vol. III., 1863), ‘‘ The gentleness and
humility of Jesus remind us of Hillel, whom

indeed he appears to have taken as his
model.”
175

 

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3 aT is related in the Talmud, that on a
ree =certain occasion, two men came to high
words in Jerusalem, on the following subject:
“Talk not to me!” exclaimed one, “I will
give 400 stis” (the name of a coin stamped
with the image of Zeus, and equal in value to
the Roman denarius) ‘‘to whoever shall suc-
ceed in really putting Hillel into a passion.”
‘‘Done,” cried the other, and proceeded to
carry out his wager. It was a Friday afternoon,
and Hillel was busy washing and combing
in preparation for the following day, when at
this most inconvenient hour, and without
addressing him by his proper title, a voice
shouted before his door, ‘‘Is Hillel there ?”
The Rabbi quickly threw on his cloak, hurried
out, and enquired, ‘‘ What is your will, my
son ?”’ ‘J would ask thee somewhat,” replied

 
176 JESUS AND HILLEL.

his under-bred visitor. Towhom Hillel: ‘ Say
on, my son.” ‘ Howisit that the Babylonians
have such nasty round heads?” enquired the
fellow. Hillel: ‘‘My son, thine is a weighty
question. It is because they lack skilful mid-
wives.”’ The enquirer turned his back on him
and walked off. After the lapse of an hour he
returned and cried as before: ‘‘Is Hillel there?
Is Hillel there?” The latter, wrapped in his
mantle, again came forth and asked, ‘‘ What
wouldest thou, my son?” ‘I have a question
to put to thee!” ‘Ask it, myson!” ‘Why
have the Tartars such little slits of eyes?”
Hillel: ‘‘My son, thou hast asked a weighty
question. It is because they inhabit great
sandy steppes.” The enquirer retired, and
after another hour, raised the same uproar as
on the former occasions in front of Hillel’s
house: ‘‘Is Hillel within? Is Hillel within ?”
For the third time the Rabbi, wrapping his
mantle about him, came out with the words,

‘‘My son, what is your will?” ‘TI have some-
thing to ask thee.” Hillel: ‘Speak then, my
son!” ‘*Why,” demanded his persecutor,

‘““have the Africans such broad flat feet?”
Hillel: ‘‘Because, my son, they dwell in marshy
JESUS AND HILLEL. 177

districts.” The enquirer proceeded, ‘I would
fain ask thee many other questions, but fear
thou mightest be wroth.” Hillel, however,
drew his cloak closer around him, seated him-
self beside his visitor, and replied, ‘‘ Say on,
my son, ask whatsoever thou desirest to know.”
This disarmed his companion, who cried:
‘*Thou then art Hillel, whom men call the
Prince of Israel.” ‘‘ Yes,” replied the Rabbi.
“If it be so, I hope there are but few like

thee in Israel.” ‘‘ Why so, my son?” asked
Hillel. ‘‘ Because on thine account I have
lost four hundred denare.” ‘“‘ Be not so hasty,

my son,” replied Hillel: ‘better is it that
thou shouldest lose four hundred, and yet
again four hundred denare on Hillel’s account,
than that Hillel should lose patience.” Hillel’s
good nature was indeed so great, that it was
almost boundless. He is said to have hired a
riding-horse and running footman for an im-
poverished noble, and once, when such an
attendant could not be procured, it is re-
lated that he himself ran three miles in this
capacity.’

Hillel’s complaisance indeed led him at

* lL. Kethuloth, 67 b, and in other places.
13
178 JESUS AND HILLEL.

times to transgress the bounds of truth.
Shammai, for instance, insisted that in nuptial
songs, nothing but truth should be spoken of
the bride; whilst Hillel taught, that on these
occasions, one should try and look on her with
the bridegroom’s eyes, and, therefore, however
unattractive she might be, should praise her
beauty and grace.’ This same good nature
even led him for the sake of peace to tell a lie,
when once he artfully represented as a cow,
an ox which he desired to have slaughtered
for sacrifice in the outer-court of the Temple,
in order to avoid a quarrel with the disciples
of Shammai, over a point of law.* Only by
the fact that his far-famed gentleness had its
shady as well as its sunny side, can we under-
stand how Hillel could have lived honoured
and favoured under the arbitrary rule of
Herod the Great, whose government was as
cruel towards his own subjects, as it was
" L, Kethuboth, 16 b, 17 a.

* He waved the animal’s tail about in order to conceal its sex. The
story is to be met with /. Beza, 20 a, and in other places. Comp. Jost’s
History of Fudaism and its Sects, 1., 267: “ Hillel not only allowed himself
to be intimidated by Shammai, but also in the outer court of the temple
yielded so completely to his insolent disciples, that to avoid a quarrel he
was guilty of an untruth, which the Rabbins consider as a highly meritorious
action on his part.
JESUS AND HILLEL. 179

cowardly towards Rome; yet, under this
prince, Hillel held the highest national post of
honour in Jerusalem, and attained, like Moses,
as tradition informs us, the great age of 120
years."

Gentleness and its kindred virtues of hu-
mility and patience, formed a leading feature
in the character of Jesus; and for this very
reason he is spoken of asthe Lamb. (Jno. 1.29;
comp. Isa. 53. 7.) Ceaselessly wandering,
and denying himself every enjoyment that
did not directly tend to the furtherance of his
Work, Jesus unweariedly held his ground
before the multitudes who thronged around
him, seeking healing or instruction; and
whenever he did withdraw himself from
them, it was always either to escape from a
spurious enthusiasm, by which he was deeply
pained, or in solitary prayer, to strengthen
himself anew for his ministry of love. ‘The
Son of Man,” says he, ‘‘came not to be ministered
unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom
for many.” (Mar. 10. 45.) These words enun-
ciate that idea of atonement, which, though
calculating reason may deem it absurd, is yet

¥ Bereschith Rabla, § 100.
13*
180 JESUS AND HILLEL.

(and this we dare aver without the slightest
exaggeration), deep graven on the hearts of
all men, of whatever race they may be, or to
whatever degree of culture they may have
attained. When the Roman Curtius leaps
from the rock to save his nation, or when, ere
the Greeks set sail for Troy, Iphigenia is
offered as a sacrifice; or again, when in China
the brother of the Emperor Wu-Wang de-
votes himself to death, in the hope of thereby
restoring his sovereign to health and life, all
this proceeds from the impulse of an idea
common to all mankind. There is, however,
no people on the earth, amongst whom this
- idea is stronger or more deeply-rooted than
amongst the Jews. To them the voices of six
thousand years cry aloud, that sin demands ex-
pration; be it by the punishment of the sinner,
by which justice is satisfied, or be it by the
self-substitution of an innocent person, of
which mercy allows the sinner to have the
benefit. In the first case, the suffering expiates
as such; in the second, the atonement is
effected by the voluntary suffering of the sub-
stitute, its merit and prevailing strength being
poured forth on him whom it seeks to ransom.
JESUS AND HILLEL. 181

The whole sacrificial system of the Old
Testament was a foreshadowing of this idea.
For the offering of the victim on the altar
was in every case preceded by the presentation
of the blood before the altar. The gift was
first made acceptable by the atonement, and
the means of atonement is the blood. Of
which God the Law-giver says (Lev. 17. 11),
“The life of the flesh is in the blood: and I
have given it you to make an atonement for
your souls upon the altar, (won DIM %D
755° 219) for the blood maketh atonement
through the soul’’’ (the soul, that is, which it
contains, which thus takes the place of the
sinner). But in the case of animal sacrifices,
the substitution was symbolical, not actual,
as 1s intimated in the words, ‘‘I have given
it.” The guilt of a sinner can only be really
expiated by a self-devoted and innocent victim
of his own race. ()NN3.) In harmony with
this idea there runs a Jewish saying, in reference
to the ordinance, that, onthe Dayof Atonement,
the High Priest had first to make atonement

t In this quotation the translator has rendered the German translation
of the Sacred Text into English, and not simply copied the passage from
our Authorised Version. It will be seen that the word ‘hrough alters the
meaning of the text considerably.
182 JESUS AND HILLEL.

for himself, before proceeding to do so for
the priesthood and the whole congregation.
7|D) ayn RD Nd aya Oy aD WaT RD
‘sor Sy, ‘i.e, the guilty cannot make atone-
ment for the innocent, but only the innocent
for the guilty.” Another proverb says nm)
M7DIDN pty, or, ‘the death of the righteous
maketh expiation ;’’ and to this day, a pious
son, when thinking of his father, will say:
‘May I be the atonement of his death-bed;’’*
whilst the tender-hearted will pray for his
enemy: ‘‘If he be in the wrong, set to his
account any greater uprightness that I may
possess ;’’ and if the wicked son of a pious
mother should after all be converted from his
evil ways, the popular judgment finds expres-
sion in the words: ‘‘ His mother’s ‘sechus’
N33, z.e., merit has helped him.’’*

Following out this idea of mysterious, but
not on that account less real, interchange of
moral guilt and merit, Jesus took the determi-
nation to offer himself as an atonement for
his own nation, and for all mankind. He
knew that no evil exists greater than sin,

* See Zunz on History and Literature, p. 332.
* See Kompert, History of an Alley, 1865, Vol. I., 1313; IL. 180.
JESUS AND HILLEL. 183

which is the root of all evil; and this sin of
all flesh he bore as his own, upon his heart
and conscience, that he, through his holy
life and innocent death, might do away this
mass of iniquity from before the face of God
the Just and Merciful; and might, in his own
person, prove a new and vitalising starting
point in the history of the human race. But
common as was this idea of atonement to all
mankind, and especially to his own people,
what was it that justified him in devoting to
it his whole being, in making it in fact the
one deed of his life? Our answer is, that
he with Divine certainty knew himself to be
the King-Messiah; not such a Messiah as was
then hoped for, robed in transitory and worldly
greatness, but suchas he is depicted in the types
and prophecies of the Old Testament, which
ever foreshadow his universal dominion, on
the dark background of a mortal agony, which
should issue in the happiness, both of himself
and all mankind. When, in the book of
Isaiah (53. 4, 5), Jesus read the repentant
lamentation of his people: ‘Surely he hath
borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows:
yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of
184 JESUS AND HILLEL.

God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for
our transgressions, he was bruised for our
iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was
upon him; and with his stripes we are
healed.” Then, responsive to the Word of
God in this Scripture, the Word of God in
the depths of his being answered, saying,
‘‘ Thou art he,” and this outward and inward
Word of God, perfected by the utterance of
his divinely-human self-consciousness in the
words, ‘‘I am he,” formed one harmonious,
three-fold chord, before which, now in over-
powering joy, and now in overpowering sadness,
every faculty and fibre of his being vibrated.
From the day of his baptism in Jordan, he
held himself in readiness to undergo his bap-
tism in blood. He knew who should be his
murderers, namely those Pharisees, who set
the minute observance of the law, above that
fulfilment of prophecy, which a new epoch
was ushering in. He knew also the place of .
his murder, even that Jerusalem, where Simon,
the son of Hillel, though president of the
Sanhedrin, was completely cast into the shade
by Caiaphas the High Priest, a proud and
blood-thirsty Pharisee. Already during his
JESUS AND HILLEL. 185

three years’ ministry had death threatened
him in many shapes, though he had hitherto
avoided it, in order by his preparatory labours,
to secure the due comprehension and fruits of
his self-devotion. But every step of his rest-
less, wandering life, brought him nearer to that
Jerusalem, of which he says, ‘It cannot be
that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem.”
(Lu. 18. 31-33.) Of his own free will he goes
up to the city, like a lamb to the slaughter.
Since he feared not death he feared not man;
and since he met death to abolish the penalty
of sin, and trample its power in the dust, we
ever find his gentleness united to a lofty and
courageous truthfulness, which is wanting in
the meekness of Hillel. He who could say,
‘“Come unto me all ye that labour and are
heavy-laden”’ (Matt. 11. 28), was the same
who brandished the scourge over the dese-
crators of the Temple, and treated with
contempt the warning of Herod Antipas, who
took him for the avenging spirit of John the
Baptist; the same who rolled the thunder
of his denunciations over the Pharisees, and
never kept back the truth, whatever exaspera-
tion it might arouse. For, whilst the prophets
186 JESUS AND HILLEL.

of the Old Testament all knew themselves to
be subject to the law, Jesus places himself
above it, as Fulfiller and Expositor of the true
Will of God, and as being himself the per-
sonal goal and tangible limit of the revealed
Testimony. Nay, even when a prisoner before
Pilate and the Sanhedrin, he never, notwith-
standing all the appearances against him, de-
sisted from the assertion of his Divine and
Kingly Majesty.

Here again we are confronted with our
former dilemma. Either this witness of Jesus
to himself is self-deception, and Judaism is
right in shutting itself off from Christianity as
from a back-sliding daughter, behind that
barrier of the law, which Hillel took such
pains to strengthen; or this was really he, to
whom the whole choir of the Apostles, as well
as the gospel of St. Mark, bears witness,
when it opens with the words, ‘‘ The beginning
of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of
God; as it is written in the prophets, Behold,
I send my messenger before thy face, which
shall prepare thy way before thee. The voice
of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye
the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”
JESUS AND HILLEL. 187

Either this was a man who overrated himself,
and, who, notwithstanding the truths contained
in his teaching, did far more to falsify than to
illustrate the idea of God, when claiming to
be the Son of God, he made himself equal
with God, as touching his nature, and by his
claim to be Redeemer and Judge of the world,
placed himself on an equality with the Al-
mighty as touching his office; or, here was
indeed the Christ proclaimed by Old Testa-
ment prophecy as })INM, the Judge of the
world, who should come to his Temple.’ We
must either share the horror of the Jewish
High Priest, who on asking the question,
‘¢ Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed,”
and being answered, ‘‘I am,” rent his clothes,
exclaiming, ‘‘ Ye have heard the blasphemy !”
or we must side with the centurion, who, wit-
nessing the death of Jesus on the cross, cried,
as he drew his last breath, ‘‘ Truly this was
the Son of God!” (Matt. 27. 54.) Yes,
this was the Son of God, he is so still, he
who was dead, and, behold, he is alive again

* Both Christian and Jewish readers may weigh with advantage the
meaning of the following texts: Isa. vii. 14, comp. with Isa. viii. 8;
Isa. ix. 6 (5), comp. with x. 21; Zec. vi. 12, 13, compare Psa. cx. and
Jer. xxiii. 5,6; Mal. iii. 1, comp. with Hag. il. 6-9.
188 JESUS AND HILLEL.

for evermore. This was the antitype of Isaac,
that promised seed of Abraham, whom he
offered on Mount Moriah; the antitype of
David, who says (Ps. 16. 10), ‘‘ Thou wilt not
suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.”
This is the Messiah of God, who since he is
God as well as man, is called by the prophets,
“The Mighty God” (Isa. g. 6), and ‘‘ Jehovah
our Righteousness” (Jer. 23. 6). This was
the Fulfiller of the law and the prophecy, in
whom all the types and predictions of the Old
Covenant are Yea and Amen. This was the
Mediator of the New Covenant, which pro-
ceeding forth from Israel should embrace all
mankind, and make all men heirs together of
its great salvation. Here of a truth was One
greater than Hillel, before whom Hillel’s
knowledge of the law, yea even the law itself,
must pale, as would the light of a taper, or
the rays of the moon, before the splendour of
the rising sun.

To Hillel’s countrymen leave we then the
task of wailing at his grave. ‘Alas for the
gentle one and pious, the disciple of Ezra.”'

* say dw yon 19 7 VOM "7 thus according to both Talmuds ran the
dirge over Hillel the elder. See 7. Sota, 9, 6; b. Sanhedrin, 2 n.
JESUS AND HILLEL. 189

Let us rather remember and adore the patient
spotless, slaughtered Lamb of God, making
our own that confession, which Isaiah, in the
fifty-third chapter of his prophecy, tells us
that Israel shall in the last days pour forth, in
bitter repentance for past unbelief. ‘‘ He was
oppressed, and he was afflicted; yet he opened
not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the
slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers
is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. Yet it
pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put
him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul
an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he
shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the
Lord shall prosper in his hand.” Hillel is
dead, and belongs to the past, as the repre-
sentative of a system of worn-out maxims;
but fess lives, and every onward step in the
progress of the human race results from the
progressive victory of the light which radiates
from him. For, though a Geiger may say,
“He never gave utterance to a single new
idea,” it is, and must ever remain a fact
deeply engraved on the history of the world,
that in this Jesus of Nazareth, there was given
to mankind a new light in the knowledge of
190 JESUS AND HILLEL.

God, and of the life which proceedeth forth
from him. And if the writings of the prophets
speak truth, there will yet come a day when
Joseph will make himself known unto the
brethren who betrayed him; and when the
twelve stars of Israel shall do him homage,
to whom Jehovah, speaking by the mouth of
Isaiah the prophet, says (49. 6), “It is a
light thing that thou shouldest be my servant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore
the preserved of Israel; I will also give thee
for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest
be my salvation unto the end of the earth.”

 
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