Library of The Theological Seminary 
 
 PRINCETON + NEW JERSEY 
 C=) 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 John Stuart Conning, D.D. 
 
 DS) 118° ° B88 1925 
 Browne, Lewis, 1897-1949. 
 Stranger than fiction 
 
STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK * BOSTON + CHICAGO + DALLAS 
 ATLANTA + SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO., Limirep 
 
 LONDON * BOMBAY * CALCUTTA 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CoO. OF CANADA, Lp. 
 TORONTO 
 
STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE JEWS 
 FROM EARLIEST TIMES TO 
 THE PRESENT DAY 
 
 BY 
 LEWIS BROWNE 
 
 WITH FIFTY ANIMATED MAPS BY THE AUTHOR, 
 GIVING A PICTORIAL HISTORY OF 
 CENTURIES OF WANDERING 
 
 flew Bork 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1925 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
CopyricHtT, 1925, 
 By LEWIS BROWNE 
 
 Set up and electrotyped. 
 Published March, 1925. 
 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 
TO THE MEMORY 
 OF 
 A GREAT HISTORIAN 
 MY MASTER 
 
 GOTTHARD DEUTSCH 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2022 with funding from 
 Princeton Theological Seminary Library 
 
 https://archive.org/details/strangerthanfictOObrow 
 
THIS IS THE STORY OF THE JEW, THAT STRANGE 
 MAN WHO WILL NOT DIE 
 
 Through thirty and more centuries he has wandered about on 
 earth, despised and rejected, bruised and beaten, yet all the time 
 wandering on. 
 
 He has seen far-flung empires crack and crumble, and mighty 
 peoples dwindle to naught. Egyptian, Canaanite, and Philistine; 
 Assyrian, Chaldean, and Persian; Greek, Roman, and Saracen: 
 all these and more have marched over him in pride. With their 
 kings and priests, their tyrants and princelings, they have marched 
 over him in vainglorious pride—only to fall and die by the roadside. 
 
 But he, the Jew, still lives on. Obstinately he fights off Time and 
 Man, pressing along on: his own path, keeping his own counsel, 
 cherishing his own dreams, living his own life in his own way. 
 
 A strange man he has been, and a strange man he remains—and a 
 stranger story than that of his life no tongue has ever recounted. . . . 
 
CHAP. 
 
 i: 
 
 VIII. 
 
 XI. 
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PROLOG UE Mere tet ees sleiten fet se shieln) stelle coke) eittteraeat el oions a iisiier ere 
 
 . The Story of Certain Half-Savage Shepherd Tribes 
 
 who Struggled out of the Arabian Desert into the 
 Fertile Crescent en vies otek ah oe ee kes 
 
 How the Hebrews Lost and Regained their Freedom, 
 Took unto Themselves a God, and Tried again to 
 Settle in the Fertile Crescent.................. 
 
 . The Brawling, Ill-Organized Struggle of the Hebrews 
 
 to Make Canaan Completely their Own......... 
 
 . Continued Opposition Forces the Hebrew Tribes to 
 
 Unite at last under a Single King.............. 
 
 . The Second King, David, Leads the Tribes to Vic- 
 
 tory, and Wins for them an Empire............ 
 
 . The Third King, Solomon, Loses the Empire through 
 
 his Extravagance, and Brings Ruin to his People. 
 
 . Civil War Rends the Nation into Two Kingdoms, 
 
 Both of which are Swallowed up by the Neighbor- 
 ALO MET PICS Satie eee woe ie rae cay et hha s 
 
 The Hebrews Continue to Live because of the Spirit 
 the Prophets had Breathed into them........... 
 
 lhe Adeals, of the: Prophets, - v.40 hi. 1s Mayes con 
 . More about the Ideals of the Prophets, and the 
 
 Story of how the Priests tried to Make them Prac- 
 LICR OIG eee e el Rate Ea or Gr RP BR, aca 
 
 How Yahvism Died and Judaism was Born in the 
 Babylonians Exile sec. ae ee wee ee) eos 
 
 22 
 
 28 
 
 35 
 
 43 
 
 48 
 
 56 
 
 63 
 
10 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 XII. 
 
 XIIl. 
 XIV. 
 
 XV. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 XV 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 9.8) 
 
 XXI. 
 
 XXII. 
 XXIII. 
 
 XXIV. 
 XXV. 
 XXVI. 
 XXVIII. 
 XXVIII. 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Trials and Disappointments after the Re- 
 turn from) Babylonis.?.3-4- 7 1e- ere . 104 
 The Priests Come into Power................ 111 
 
 The Greek Invasion Brings on the First War for 
 Freedom: of “Thought.) vse ae eee 119 
 
 The Roman Conquest sets the Helpless Little 
 Nation Yearning for a Messiah to Deliver it. 128 
 
 Joshua of Nazareth, a Young Prophet, is Hailed 
 as the Messiah by the Jews, and is Crucified 
 by the Romans.) ; acetic eee 136 
 
 How a New Religion was Created around the 
 Story of the Crucified Prophet............. 145 
 
 The Destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman Le- 
 gions and the “End” it Brought to the Jewish 
 Nation. 33535). Wises ooo ee eee 151 
 
 The Terrible Dispersion, and how the Rabbis 
 Saved the Jewish Faith. ..4 2... .222,..05.5 158 
 
 How the Rabbis Built a Wall of Law around the 
 JEWS S25 ole ON a ite oar Ee rae 165 
 
 The Making of the Talmud <.o250) see 173 
 
 The Contents of the Talmud..-............... 181 
 
 How Mohammed Built a New Religion around 
 the Jewish Idea. of:God.yc.543 shea eee eee 188 
 
 The Revolt against the Talmud............... 195 
 
 The Dawn of Intelligence in Babylonia and Spain 203 
 The “Golden Age” of Jewish Learning in Spain. 210 
 Twilight in the Christian Lands in Europe..... 217 
 The Terrible Night of Persecution............ 226 
 
CHAP. 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 XXIX. How the Jews Fled from Western Europe to Po- 
 
 Jand and ME Urkey scones sunaaeait sae ears aan 
 
 XXX. How the Jews Helped to Bring about the Protes- 
 
 XXXI 
 
 XXXIT. 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 XXXYV. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 XXXVIT. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 XL. 
 
 XLI. 
 XLII. 
 
 RANG CLOLUIATIONL ee a eee ne eae i 
 
 Persecution Compels the Jews to Re-inforce 
 the Wall of Law around Themselves...... 
 
 The Gloom behind the Wall of Law Gives Rise 
 to the Cabala and the False Messiahs..... 
 
 How the Secret Jews of Spain Fled to Holland 
 and the New World 
 
 The Darkness in Eastern Europe............ 
 
 The Story of the Good Shepherd of Poland 
 who was called Baal Shem Tov........... 
 
 The Dawn of Tolerance in Europe, and what it 
 Won for the Jews 
 
 The Struggle for Freedom in all the Nations, 
 and how it Destroyed the Wall of the Ghetto 
 
 The Struggle for Reform in Judaism, and how 
 it Began the Destruction of the Wall of Law 
 
 The Mission of Reform Judaism—and the 
 Story of those who Practiced it 
 
 The Anti-Semitic Reaction in Europe, and how 
 it Helped give Rise to Zionism............ 
 
 The Great Exodus from Eastern Europe... . 
 The Night of War, and the New Dawn...... 
 GIORGEA IV aciene Gack on tae beh a (ureietl ws ten ac Wei Neha a ecg 
 Six Charts Telling the Adventures of the Jews 
 
 11 
 
 PAGE 
 
 237 
 
 245 
 
 252 
 
 258 
 
 268 
 280 
 
 288 
 
 295 
 
 302 
 
 323 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS AND CHARTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1On to the Fertale:Crescenty. 2.42.0 2 ues sic oe pay 
 
 ZmLne PXOGUSarOUr loo y Donanm erring se ae a 33 
 
 3. LOS OUUg Ie TOP a LLOMGe: su hema weve s 41 
 
 4, The Empire of the Robber Chieftain.......... 51 
 
 Cuart A. The Adventures of the Jews, Part I.......... 61 
 5. The Bridge Between the Empires............. 65 
 
 6. The End of the Divided Kingdom............ 70 
 
 7. Israel and Judah are Deported............... 93 
 
 3.) Wien ney Game, HOMO tt eee oe tae 105 
 
 9. The Meaning of the Book of Jonah........... 117 
 
 JO Alexanders Rinipite ssaeneeiet ernest, 122 
 
 Tie After Alexanders sa, se ne incre ha oe anaes 123 
 Cuart B. The Adventures of the Jews, Part II.......... 127 
 12. The Realm of the Maccabees................ 129 
 
 13. The Story of Joshua of Nazareth.... ........ 143 
 
 14. Paul Spreads the Religion of the Christ........ 149 
 
 15. The Terrible Dispersion of 70 A. D........... 157 
 
 16.0 nere the Rabbis: Plédesmas seo tes icy ces 6 169 
 onloaOnurch Attersc aul Dieta. eee 173 
 
 18. The Church Under Constantine.............. 174 
 
 RO SOMO GOV ON erste eu atirs enn sarenisire aoe + 175 
 Cuart C. The Adventures of the Jews, Part III......... 180 
 20. Where Mohammedism Was Born............. 191 
 
 21. Mohammedanism Triumphs—750 A. D........ 193 
 
14 ILLUSTRATIONS AND CHARTS 
 
 Cuart D. 
 
 22. 
 23. 
 24. 
 25. 
 26. 
 27. 
 28. 
 29. 
 
 CuHart E. 
 
 30. 
 31. 
 32. 
 33. 
 34. 
 30. 
 36. 
 
 CuartT F. 
 
 PAGE 
 The Adventures of the Jews, Part IV......... 203 
 From Babylon to: Spait ages. acts ee 207 
 The Wanderings of Ibn Ezra................ 211 
 Here Go the Crusaders!....,.054 2. fcs on eas oro 219 
 Death:to. the: Herétical a. 3.3. oa eee 223 
 The Terrible Night in Germany.............. 231 
 The Expulsion from England—1290 A. D...... 233 
 The‘ Home of the Khazars. .s..-2.10 0 see 238 
 The Flight: Hastward. cud. 4o4 ls eee 239 
 The Adventures of the Jews, Part V.......... 251 
 The Wandering of Sabbatai Zevi............. 265 
 The Flight of the Maranos................... 271 
 How the Jews Came to America.............. 273 
 The. Cossack Breaka: Loosetears = ctcn-e care ae 280 
 Eastern Huropé 3 ci). ake ee ee ee 284 
 Ther Partition offPoland vias: Gat vale ee eee 332 
 What Happened in the Pale of Settlement..... 334 
 
STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
PROLOGUE 
 
 42 Washington §q., 
 New York City, Nov. 1, xxiii. 
 
 The proper way to write a book—at least, so I’ve 
 been told—is to buy a ream of clean white paper, 
 a stock of pens, a large bottle of ink—and begin. 
 
 And I did all that to-day. I bought the paper, 
 the pens, the ink; I even bought the wire clips with 
 which to fasten the loose pages, and the pressboard 
 folder in which to bind the whole manuscript. And 
 seven hours ago I came up to my workroom, ar- 
 ranged the materials on the table, took the best 
 pen in hand, and made ready to write. 
 
 I am still making ready to write. It is already 
 long after midnight, and the noises of the street have 
 died down to a creepy silence. Even whirling, fren- 
 zied, fevered New York has tired at last, and fallen 
 asleep. But still in vain do I make ready to write. 
 
 By this time I should have been nearing at least 
 the end of the first chapter—and I have not so much 
 as begun! In a brave flourishing hand I have written 
 across the top of a blank sheet: 
 
 —and no more. 
 
18 PROLOGUE 
 
 For now that I am ready to begin, my mind is 
 overawed. Hundreds of volumes crowd the sagging 
 shelves that range the walls. Scores of other volumes 
 litter the tables, the chairs, the floor. Encyclopedias 
 and text-books and learned monographs are scattered 
 around, and among them all sorts of pamphlets and 
 clippings. They are in many languages, and they 
 are cluttered with references to other writings in 
 still other languages. And most of them tell at 
 endless, at exhausting length, only a paragraph, 
 perhaps even but a sentence, of the long story I 
 would recount. 
 
 And the sight of all those enormous volumes is 
 appalling. Their story is so long! ... So be- 
 wilderingly involved! ... And already it has so 
 often been told. 
 
 Yet it cries out to be told still again. From be- 
 ginning to end it pleads to be retold, and not as a 
 list of names and dates, but as a wild adventure, 
 as a romance. For the whole history of the Jewish 
 people 7s a romance; the strangest, the most color- 
 ful in the saga of all mankind. 
 
 And it deserves to be retold because so few in the 
 land have ever heard it. Both Jews and Gentiles— 
 save they be historians—know exceedingly little 
 of that romance. Perhaps the first chapters of it, 
 those contained in the Bible, are familiar to most 
 people—but even they are far from rightly known. 
 
 The Bible is a whole vast world of wisdom, beauty, 
 and moral truth—but it is not a literal history. 
 Its episodes and chronicles were in the mouths of 
 desert tribesmen for long centuries before ever they 
 were written down. For long centuries they were 
 
PROLOGUE 19 
 
 passed on from father to son, growing grander and 
 more wonderful with each generation. So that by 
 the time they were set down in writing, the literal 
 truth in them, like the vein of gold in a mountain, 
 was crushed and tortured and broken in a thousand 
 places. 
 
 We know all that because for over a hundred and 
 fifty years great Bible scholars have been exploring 
 for that truth. They have toiled endlessly, examin- 
 ing manuscripts, comparing texts, digging around 
 for buried clews, spinning out theories and then 
 destroying them again—all to discover just where in 
 the Bible the literal truth breaks off, and where legend 
 begins. 
 
 Five generations of scholars have been toiling 
 at this ‘‘Biblical Criticism,” and through their 
 labor we have come to a new and nobler under- 
 standing of all the early history of the Hebrew 
 people. 
 
 But too few among us are possessed of that new 
 understanding. To most of us the Bible is still a 
 book every word of which is literal fact. We try 
 to swallow it whole, to believe it without understand- 
 ing it. As a result, its history often seems but a 
 monotonous and meaningless round of unbelievable 
 miracles and incredible facts: a long, rambling 
 chronicle of imaginative but suspicious wonders. 
 There is no grand swing in it, no dramatic surge up, 
 up, up toward the heights. 
 
 So the first chapters of the story of the Jews 
 must be retold in the light of the new understanding. 
 They must be shown to be what they truly are: 
 the immortal epic of a people’s confused, faltering, 
 
20 PROLOGUE 
 
 insatiable hunger for a nobler life in a happier world. 
 
 And the rest of the chapters must naturally be 
 retold as a continuation of that epic. For the Jews 
 did not cease hungering for the Kingdom of God 
 on Earth when they closed the Bible era. They went 
 on and on—as perhaps they still go on to-day. 
 
 That is the true wonder of their story. There has 
 been no end to the march of the Jews. They have 
 gone on and on, ever refusing to halt where the 
 world halted, ever pressing on in their own stubborn, 
 headstrong, singular way. Of course, they have 
 faltered at times; for decades, for generations, they 
 have stood still. At times they have even retreated. 
 But never for long. The slightest lifting of the 
 yoke laid on them by a slow-moving world and on 
 they have plunged—on, on, in the strangest, the 
 wildest, the most fantastic career ever essayed by 
 a people. 
 
 It is the story of that career that I want to tell— 
 that I have been trying to begin to tell all this night. 
 
 Perhaps I’m too tired now to begin, too worn 
 out from long wondering how. . . . Dawn is steal- 
 ing up behind the blackened chimneys in the east. 
 The city is awaking. There is a feeble stir in the 
 streets, a rattling of milk wagons and a rumbling 
 of trucks. Workmen with lunch boxes under their 
 arms, their hair frowsy, their faces still swollen with 
 sleep, clump along over echoing pavements. 
 
 But in the east, over where the roof tops dully 
 gleam in the morning light, there is: a greater stir, 
 I know. Old men with matted beards, and young 
 men and boys, crawl out from under feather beds and 
 shiveringly don their clothes. They touch their 
 
PROLOGUE 21 
 
 hands and faces with water from kitchen faucets, 
 whisper a prayer, and then hurry out into the streets. 
 
 Where are they going? ... But where should 
 pious Jews go so early in the morning? . . . To the 
 synagogues, of course! 
 
 So they go, hundreds of them, old and middle- 
 aged and young. They go to their little synagogues 
 hidden away in basements, there to pray as their 
 fathers have prayed these two thousand years or 
 more. 
 
 For there in the east, where now the roof tops 
 are turning from black to pearl in the growing light 
 of the dawn, lies the great ghetto of New York. 
 More Jews are huddled there than ever were seen 
 in old Jerusalem—more probably than were known 
 in all the world when Solomon was King in Zion. 
 
 What are they doing there? How did they come? 
 And why?... 
 
 It is almost four thousand years since they were 
 born, and fully five thousand miles from their birth- 
 place. What have they seen and thought, what have 
 they lived through and learnt, in all that long trek 
 through time and space? 
 
 But that is just the story I have been wanting to 
 tell all along, the story I will tell—so soon as I can 
 begin. 
 
 Only I am too tired now. 
 
 Perhaps a little later, after I have slept, I shall 
 be able to begin... . 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 THE STORY OF CERTAIN HALF-SAVAGE SHEPHERD 
 TRIBES WHO STRUGGLED OUT OF THE ARABIAN 
 DESERT INTO THE FERTILE CRESCENT 
 
 Far to the east of us, pinched between Africa and 
 Asia, lies a vast and barren region called the Arabian 
 Desert. It is a cruel, forbidding place: an endless 
 sheet of dry rock that by day is scorchingly hot, 
 like a lead roof under the rays of the sun, and by night 
 is piercingly cold. Here and there across the plain 
 are reaches of hard-packed gravel, or of drifting 
 sand that can be swept up blindingly by the winds. 
 And only at long intervals are hidden thin springs 
 of water that soak the soil and relieve the grayness 
 with a touch of green. 
 
 Four thousand years ago—even as in our day— 
 countless tribes of wild shepherds roved hungrily 
 across that dry waste. They were constantly moving 
 about, swarming with their bedraggled flocks of 
 sheep and goats from one oasis to another as the 
 springs dried up or the grass was nibbled away. 
 They had no homes save their goatskin tents; 
 they had no possessions save the stone weapons in 
 their hands, the rags on their backs, and the tribal 
 flocks and herds. The only law they knew was 
 the word of the Patriarch, the Old Man of the Tribe. 
 They had no knowledge of reading or writing, and 
 probably they could not* count above ten. 
 
THE STORY OPENS 23 
 
 Such were the early Semites, from whose loins 
 sprang the Jews. 
 
 Because they did not yet know the use of metals, 
 but made their tools and weapons of stone, we speak 
 of them as living in the Stone Age. 
 
 They were probably far unhappier than we are 
 to-day, for their life was crowded with all sorts of 
 fears. The whole world seemed to them to be peopled 
 with terrible demons and spirits. In every tree and 
 stone and tiny spring, in the thunder and lightning, 
 in the wind and the night, those demons were thought 
 to dwell; and the shepherds were greatly afraid of 
 them. They used to utter magic incantations and 
 go through all sorts of weird ceremonies in their 
 efforts to win the favor of those spirits. They used 
 to offer sacrifices to them, burning the firstborn 
 of their flocks, and often even of their own children, 
 so that those spirits might be pleased and give to the 
 worshipers many more sheep and children. 
 
 2 
 
 These Semite shepherds were divided into many 
 groups, and each of these groups consisted of several 
 tribes or clans. Each tribe had its favorite spirit 
 which—so the people believed—went with it and 
 helped it fight the other tribes. But often these 
 clans found it necessary to change favorites, for 
 each demon was believed to have power only over a 
 certain bit of desert. Therefore when a clan moved 
 a long distance it usually threw over the old spirit, 
 and took up a new one. 
 
 Idols of wood and stone were set up to represent 
 
24 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 those spirits. And in time these idols came to be 
 thought of as real gods. 
 
 There was constant warfare between the tribes, 
 for there were exceedingly few springs of water in 
 the desert, and many flocks to drink them dry. 
 The tribes fought for the possession of those springs 
 of water just as nowadays the nations fight for the 
 possession of wells of oil or mines of coal. There was 
 no law regulating the conduct of the clans, and al- 
 ways they were stealing sheep and wives and children 
 from each other. They murdered or enslaved their 
 defeated foes, they stole and cheated, they sweltered 
 and froze to death, they hungered and went mad 
 from thirst. 
 
 Their life was hard and unhappy because of the 
 barrenness of the soil on which they lived. 
 
 3 
 
 Only far to the north of the great desert is there 
 a moist and less ungenerous region. For want of 
 a better name, modern historians have called it the 
 Fertile Crescent, for it is shaped somewhat like a 
 quarter-moon. Of course, that Crescent acted 
 like a magnet upon the thirsting Semites in the 
 wilderness. They were forever struggling to reach 
 it, plunging out one after the other, scrambling 
 desperately to get a foothold in the rich soft soil, 
 falling back, trying again, falling back, trying still 
 again—and finally beating their way in and re- 
 maining there. Like hot oil spluttering out of a 
 frying pan, so were those famished and desperate 
 tribes as they came charging out of the desert. 
 
 They began coming out many thousands of years 
 
1.—On to the Fertile Crescent 
 
26 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 ago, and by the time of the dawn of history certain 
 of them had already grown very old in the rich 
 Crescent lands. Indeed, when one little group of 
 those tribes, the group which we have since come 
 to call the Hebrews, belatedly attempted to invade 
 that Crescent, they found it already overcrowded 
 with inhabitants. 
 
 There were first of all the non-Semitic peoples 
 who had drifted there from many directions, 
 and had very early begun to cultivate the soil 
 and develop some sort of civilization. Along the 
 Nile there were the Egyptians with an amazingly 
 high culture. Far to the north, in what we now 
 call Syria, there were the Hittites. Along the 
 garden lands of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers 
 there were remnants of the Sumerians, a strange 
 and at present little known people, who were among 
 the first to invent a method of writing. And in and 
 among these non-Semitic people were the hordes of 
 early invaders from the desert: the Amorites, or 
 Canaanites, or Phoenicians, or Babylonians, as they 
 were called in different places. 
 
 4 
 
 It was not easy for the still half-barbaric Hebrews, 
 with their clumsy stone weapons and feeble strength, 
 to fight their way into those well-settled lands. 
 Many times they tried, hurling themselves with all 
 their might against the fortifications in their path. 
 Their particular goal seems to have been that narrow 
 strip of land we now call Palestine, and desperately 
 they fought for its possession against the Canaanites 
 who lived there. Several times the invaders, led 
 
THE STORY OPENS 27 
 
 by patriarchs like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, 
 managed to break their way in; but they were not 
 allowed to remain in peace. The wells which they 
 dug were filled with stones and rubbish by their 
 enemies; their sheep were stolen; and occasionally 
 they themselves were massacred. 
 
 Then, to add to all these hardships, there seems 
 to have come a great famine in the land. The wells 
 became utterly dry and the flocks began to dwindle 
 for lack of food and drink. Death stared those 
 harassed Hebrews in the face. All about them were 
 their foes, the Canaanites, swooping down on them 
 in’ surprise attacks and carrying off what famished 
 sheep and goats were left to them. There was no 
 sense in remaining longer in the land, especially 
 since the rumor had reached them that far off in 
 Egypt there was drink aplenty, and also much grain 
 stored away. It was a tremendous distance to the 
 lands of the Nile, a journey for them of many weeks 
 —though a train now can cover it in little more than 
 half a day—but nevertheless many of the Hebrews 
 turned to go there. They folded their tents, gathered 
 together the remnants of their lean and sunken-eyed 
 flocks, and began the long journey toward Egypt. 
 
 And with that journey the ancient Hebrew shep- 
 herds enter into the realm of history. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 HOW THE HEBREWS LOST AND REGAINED THEIR 
 FREEDOM, TOOK UNTO THEMSELVES A GOD, AND 
 TRIED AGAIN TO SETTLE IN THE FERTILE CRES- 
 CENT 
 
 Just what happened when those Hebrew wan- 
 derers straggled into Egypt we can only vaguely 
 guess. All the hundreds of Egyptian records thus 
 far unearthed tell us nothing of the episode; and 
 the account in the Bible is not altogether clear on 
 the subject. No doubt the scholars now busily 
 digging away in the pyramids and mounds of Egypt 
 will soon have all sorts of new secrets to tell us, so 
 that in a little while it may be possible to make 
 this chapter in the story of the Jews far less brief 
 and sketchy than it must be left to-day. 
 
 All we can say now with any certainty is that 
 the Hebrew shepherds who wandered to Egypt in 
 search of food did not have to penetrate far into 
 the land. They stopped in a large tract of meadows 
 called the Land of Goshen, in the eastern part of 
 the Nile delta, and there they settled down. But 
 then, after a lapse of years, a powerful king arose 
 in Egypt, and marching down on the little settle- 
 ment of aliens, he took them all into slavery. That 
 king, or pharaoh as he was called, was probably 
 Ramses II, who lived some thirty-two hundred 
 years ago and was a little crazy with the desire to 
 
ON TO CANAAN 29 
 
 build huge temples and palaces and monuments 
 to himself and his many gods. 
 
 To satisfy this frenzied desire he needed myriads 
 of slaves, for there were huge tracts to clear and 
 vast foundations to dig, and all sorts of quarrying 
 and hoisting and dragging to be done. Even to-day, 
 when we have steam-shovels and pile-drivers and 
 innumerable other labor-saving devices, we are 
 constantly in need of unskilled laborers in very 
 large numbers. One can easily see how much 
 greater the need must have been in days when 
 hardly the simplest of machinery had yet been in- 
 vented. 
 
 2 
 
 So the wild Hebrews, men who all along had lived 
 the free and foot-loose life of desert nomads, suddenly 
 discovered themselves the most abject of slaves. 
 All their days they had to cringe beneath the lash 
 of the taskmasters while they sweated at making 
 bricks or quarrying stone. For those Hebrews it 
 was the first. taste of a misery which their descend- 
 ants were to experience many times over, and the 
 bitter memory it left in their minds was never allowed 
 to fade away. 
 
 The oppression lasted many years, for Ramses 
 II reigned a long time. But soon after his death 
 the power of Egypt began to crumble. That foolish 
 pharoah had exhausted his empire with his extrava- 
 gance, and from all sides the enemies began to 
 sweep down on the prostrate land. Hordes of bar- 
 baric invaders came charging in from Libya, and 
 bands of ravenous pirates sailed down from the 
 
30 ° STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 islands of the Mediterranean Sea. Desolation and 
 distress covered the face of all Egypt. To the 
 simple-minded Hebrews it seemed as though an 
 angry and avenging god were visiting fell plagues 
 on the land for its sins. 
 
 And in the confusion, while the Egyptians were 
 straining with all their might to fight off the savage 
 invaders, the Hebrew slaves got away. 
 
 Their leader in the rebellion and escape was a 
 young Hebrew named Moses. According to the 
 Bible story, Moses had been adopted as a child 
 by an Egyptian princess, and brought up in the 
 royal court. He had never been a slave, and there- 
 fore was able to appreciate the more clearly how 
 bitter was the plight of his brethren. But instead 
 of cutting himself off completely from them and 
 enjoying his own good fortune, he seems as a young 
 man to have taken their part against their task- 
 masters, with the result that finally he had to flee 
 from the land. He wandered about in the wilder- 
 ness with a tribe of Kenites—a people related to 
 the Hebrews—and tasting among them the joys 
 of free nomad life, he felt the call to go back and 
 deliver his brethren. 
 
 Without a leader like Moses it is doubtful whether 
 the Hebrews, grown timid and cowardly under the 
 lash of the Egyptians, would ever have been able 
 to free themselves. The worst evil of continued 
 oppression is not so much that it cripples the bodies 
 of the victims, as that it crushes their souls. It 
 robs them of courage and self-reliance. Even after 
 Moses succeeded in getting his brethren to flee from 
 Egypt, it was: all he could do to keep them from 
 
ON TO CANAAN 31 
 
 running back again. In the desert they were faced 
 with hardships they had not known in Goshen— 
 lack of food and water, for instance—and many of 
 them were ready to barter every bit of their new 
 freedom for the greasy ‘‘fleshpots of Egypt.” 
 
 3 
 
 Compared with enormous revolutions like that 
 in France in the eighteenth century, or the one in 
 Russia in recent years, the uprising of those few 
 Hebrew slaves three thousand years ago in Egypt 
 appears a quite trivial incident. Yet, because of 
 the hold the story of that uprising took on the minds 
 of succeeding generations, the event itself looms 
 up as one of the most important in all history. 
 Again and again in these three thousand years, 
 rebels against oppression and tyranny have turned 
 for courage to that old story of the Exodus from 
 
 Egypt. 
 4. 
 
 Moses undertook no easy task when he attempted 
 to lead those slaves to freedom. First of all he had 
 to get them safely out of Egypt, and that meant 
 avoiding the caravan routes—for they were infested 
 with pirates, or were guarded by Egyptian garrisons. 
 Then he had to give them a religion, so that they 
 might have the courage to withstand the hardships 
 of the desert. In Egypt the Hebrews had forgotten 
 the god they had worshiped when they were shep- 
 herds. They had no doubt accepted the gods of 
 the Egyptians in his place. But now, out in the 
 wild places once more, they believed those Egyptian 
 
32 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 gods were not present, and they were therefore 
 left without any faith. 
 
 Moses quickly felt his people’s need, and as soon 
 as he could he led them to a certain mountain called 
 Sinai or Horeb, which was believed by his Kenite 
 friends to be the dwelling-place of their god Yahveh.* 
 At that holy mountain the Hebrews solemnly swore 
 to accept Yahveh as their one and only god, and it 
 was believed that in return Yahveh would be their 
 special protector. The people’s duties in this cove- 
 nant were expressed in certain commands which were 
 easily remembered because they were ten in num- 
 ber, and could be ticked off on one’s ten fingers. 
 A wooden shrine called the Ark was made to sym- 
 bolize the shielding protection of Yahveh, and 
 wherever the Hebrews wandered, there went also 
 that Ark. For, being still a primitive folk, they 
 could firmly believe that the presence of the Ark 
 brought them safety! 
 
 5 
 
 But even after this acceptance of the protection 
 of Yahveh, the runaway slaves still remained cowed 
 and frightened. It had been Moses’ plan to go 
 directly from the Holy Mountain up to Canaan in 
 the Fertile Crescent. But when his followers heard 
 of the prowess and might of the inhabitants of that 
 region, they refused to attempt to invade it. In- 
 stead they wandered about in the desert lands just 
 
 * Through the mistake of an ignorant translator of the Bible, 
 we have come to speak of this god as Jehovah, but his real 
 name was Yahveh, which may have meant ‘The Creator,” or 
 perhaps “The Thunderer.”’ 
 
ga Gi Woes S39 WAYS 
 
34 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 below Canaan, tending their flocks and _ herds, 
 fighting hostile tribes, starving at times, dying of 
 disease and snake bites and all manner of other 
 afflictions, but not daring to strike out toward the 
 rich soil on the north. 
 
 The Bible tells us the Hebrews wandered forty 
 years in the waste lands before they plucked up 
 courage enough to invade the Crescent. Evidently 
 it was first necessary for the slave generation to 
 die off, and for a tougher and more desperate gen- 
 eration to arise. We are told that Moses was still 
 alive when that second generation had grown up, 
 and though already an old and broken man, he was 
 quick to lead them in the invasion. The little band of 
 hungry wanderers packed up their belongings, gath- 
 ered their few flocks and herds, and letting the Holy 
 Ark lead their columns, marched off toward Canaan. 
 
 They thought to enter the coveted little domain 
 from the east of the River Jordan, and so they moved 
 around to the steppe-land on that side. They were 
 not allowed to march in peace, however, for at every 
 turn they were attacked by unfriendly tribes. But 
 there was no stopping that swarm of desperate, 
 home-hungry nomads. They proved utterly irresist- 
 ible as they came sweeping over the plain. 
 
 And at last, fighting almost every inch of the way, 
 Yahveh’s followers struggled through to the Jordan. 
 
 But there, within sight of the little land to which 
 Moses had tried all those years to lead his horde 
 of runaways, the aged leader died. He died and was 
 buried no one knows where; but his memory has 
 gone down throughout all the ages as the first of 
 the great warriors for freedom. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE BRAWLING, ILL-ORGANIZED STRUGGLE OF 
 THE HEBREWS TO MAKE CANAAN COMPLETELY 
 THEIR OWN 
 
 The invasion and conquest of Canaan was a long, 
 difficult, and bloody affair. The Hebrews were 
 poorly armed, for they still used flint knives and 
 stone hatchets; and they were utterly untrained in 
 organized warfare. The odds were heavily against 
 them, for the Canaanites used chariots and fought 
 with metal weapons and. were always able to take 
 refuge in one or other of their many fortresses. 
 Only the ferocity and desperation of the invaders 
 made it possible for them to conquer at all. They 
 had come to hate with all their being the arid desert 
 and the wanderer’s life. They craved a bit of this 
 land that—to use their own metaphor—‘‘flowed with 
 milk and honey’’; and they were ready to go to any 
 extremes to satisfy that craving. 
 
 People nowadays are greatly shocked when they 
 read the Biblical account of the conquest of Canaan. 
 When those ancient Hebrews conquered a city they 
 followed the custom of the time and ‘‘devoted”’ it 
 to their god: that is, they stole all the gold and 
 silver, butchered all the cattle and human beings, 
 and then burnt the whole place to the ground. They 
 plundered and pillaged right and left, razed for- 
 tresses, and decimated whole tribes. ‘They were 
 
36 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 like ravenous beasts out of the wilderness! But we 
 need hardly urge in their defense that they were 
 still half-savages. We need only remember that 
 invading armies even in our own time behave not 
 one whit less bestially. ... 
 
 2 
 
 The invasion was not accomplished by all the 
 tribes united in one definite campaign. They fought 
 their way into the land separately, and then settled 
 down in different localities. For instance, the tribe 
 called Judah and that called Simeon went to the 
 southern part of Canaan. With them went also 
 the Kenites, among whom Moses had lived as a 
 young man. The tribe of Ephraim and half the 
 tribe of Manasseh settled down in the center of the 
 land; and the other tribes wandered off to the north 
 and almost lost themselves among the Canaanites 
 there. 
 
 It was a wildly daring and dangerous undertak- 
 ing—that invasion of Canaan by the Hebrews. 
 Once they got into the land they found themselves 
 surrounded by enemies on every side. And worse 
 still, they were cut off from each other by lines of 
 Canaanite fortresses. Clearly they had to kill or 
 be killed. They had to crowd out and murder their 
 foes, or else be crowded out and murdered them- 
 selves. 
 
 3 
 
 Then there was another difficulty: the Hebrews, 
 who were wanderers and shepherds by long training, 
 suddenly had to settle down and become farmers. — 
 
THE STRUGGLE FOR A HOME 37 
 
 They had to give up their life in open tents and 
 take instead to huddled, ill-smelling stone villages 
 inclosed by thick high walls. They had to take up 
 the life of the very people against whom they were 
 fighting. 
 
 Of course, there was grave danger that in taking 
 up the life of the enemy, the Hebrews might also 
 take up his gods and morals. And many of the 
 Hebrews succumbed to that danger. Yahveh be- 
 longed to the desert, and therefore many of the 
 Hebrews feared his power did not extend to this 
 fertile land they had entered. They imagined they 
 had to worship the gods of this new country, the 
 Canaanite gods, the Baalim as they were called. 
 Every hill and field and spring had its little Baal 
 to be fed with human or.animal sacrifices, and hon- 
 ored at festivals which often were little more than 
 drunken debauches. If this was not done it was 
 imagined that the field would not yield a crop, or the 
 spring would dry up. The sun, moon, and stars 
 had to be worshiped because they were believed to 
 control the weather, and the household idols—which 
 were a little like the totem-poles of the American 
 Indians—had to be respected because they were 
 supposed to localize the spirits of dead ancestors. 
 
 The natives believed that every accident or mis- 
 fortune was a sign that some little local god or other 
 had been slighted; and the Hebrews were not long 
 in accepting that belief. They made very poor 
 farmers and their crops often failed; but instead of 
 laying the blame for the failure on their ignorance 
 of husbandry, they laid it on their neglect of the 
 native idols. So in many sections we find the con- 
 
38 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 querors, although still worshiping Yahveh, “played 
 safe’? by sacrificing also to a dozen other gods. 
 
 In districts where that practice of ‘‘playing safe”’ 
 was most common, it was almost impossible to tell 
 who were the conquerors and who the conquered. 
 The mingling of gods was often followed by the 
 mingling of families, and in certain regions the He- 
 brews and their enemies became practically one 
 people. Thus the half of the tribe of Manasseh 
 that had been left on the east side of the Jordan was 
 almost completely absorbed by the Arameans there, 
 and the tribe of Reuben almost lost itself among the 
 Moabites. Asher took to the sea and became very 
 largely Phoenician. 
 
 After all, there was no great difference in blood 
 between the Hebrews and these other peoples. They 
 were all Semites who at one time or another in the 
 past had been nomads in the great Arabian Desert. 
 They all belonged to the same cultural stock, and 
 spoke more or less the same language. 
 
 4 
 
 And yet, for reasons we cannot quite understand 
 now, those Hebrews did not lose themselves en- 
 tirely in their Canaanite surroundings. Perhaps 
 it was because they had not yet been in the land 
 long enough to be completely assimilated; or per- 
 haps there was something in the mental make-up 
 of those invaders, memories of their hard past in 
 Egypt and of their covenant with Yahveh at the 
 Holy Mountain in the wilderness, that rendered 
 them incapable of complete assimilation. 
 
 Whatever the reason, the fact remains that they 
 
THE STRUGGLE FOR A HOME 39 
 
 persisted as a separate people. Divided as they were 
 into many little tribes, each with its own chieftain— 
 or judge, as he was called—and surrounded by 
 overwhelming hosts of the enemy, they still preserved 
 their identity. 
 
 Their judges were not drawn from any one par- 
 ticular class, for there were no class distinctions 
 among the Hebrews at that time. There were 
 neither learned nor ignorant among them, for none 
 at all could read or write. There were no rich or 
 poor, for there was practically no private property. 
 One man was as good as another, and flocks, herds, 
 and lands belonged to all the members of the tribe 
 together. 
 
 Their social life was completely democratic. In 
 time of danger, when the enemy pressed down on 
 them, they usually picked the most daring fighter 
 in the tribe to be their leader in battle. And when 
 the battle was over, this leader often continued as 
 head of the tribe for a time. But there was nothing 
 permanent about the office—which was just as well, 
 considering the type of man who sometimes became 
 leader. For instance, Jepthah who led the Gilead- 
 ites in a successful sortie against the Ammonites, 
 was a wild half-breed outlaw before his election. 
 Samson, of the tribe of Dan, was little more than 
 a burly, untamed strong-man with enormous muscles 
 but pygmy sense. And no doubt other of the judges 
 during this period were men of like inferior quality. 
 
 5 
 
 The years passed. One generation died and an- 
 other arose. But still no peace came to the Hebrews. 
 
40 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 The people whom they had dispossessed, the Canaan- 
 ites and Moabites and Ammonites, kept returning 
 year after year, raiding, pillaging, and burning the 
 little settlements. And only the lack of union 
 among those marauders saved the disunited Hebrews: 
 from utter destruction. 
 
 But then came the Philistines. 
 
 The Philistines were not a Semitic people. They 
 had not come up from the desert of Arabia, but down 
 in ships from the islands of the Mediterranean. 
 They had been among those pirate bands that had 
 raided the coast of Egypt when the Hebrews es- 
 ecaped from slavery, and now they were settled 
 along the shore of southern Canaan. Gradually 
 they had begun to creep inland, beating down the 
 Canaanite farmers in their path, until their talons 
 were fastened on the foothills right below the Hebrew 
 settlements. 
 
 It was inevitable of course that they and the He- 
 brews should meet and clash. Both were trying to 
 conquer the land from opposite directions at the same 
 time. There had been skirmishes between them in 
 the days of Samson, but the Hebrews had not then 
 realized. the danger of this new enemy. They had 
 trusted to the tribes nearest the Philistines to fight 
 them off unaided. 
 
 When the Philistines massed their troops, there- 
 fore, and made their first real attack, it brought 
 the Hebrews very rudely to their senses. They went 
 down to a crushing defeat, and then ran helter- 
 skelter to get the Holy Ark of Yahveh which they 
 had left behind them in one of their new cities. 
 Thinking the Ark would lead them to certain vic- 
 
3.—The Struggle for a Home 
 
42 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 tory, they went out to battle against the Philistines 
 a second time—and again they were defeated. 
 And more than that—the Holy Ark was actually 
 taken from them by the enemy! It was carried off 
 by the Philistines to their stronghold in Ashdod, 
 and mockingly placed on exhibition in the temple 
 of their own god, Dagon! 
 
 Consternation spread through the ranks of the 
 Hebrews. They realized at last that this new enemy 
 was not to be classed with the scattered tribes of 
 Semites whom they had fought in the past. These 
 Philistines were all united and fought as one man. 
 It was ‘evident that to beat them off the Hebrews 
 would have to resort to tactics they never before 
 had tried. They would have to unite. The warriors 
 of all the tribes would have to rally together and 
 stand shoulder to shoulder under the leadership 
 of one man. They would have to become a nation 
 SU lashes veer 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 CONTINUED OPPOSITION FORCES THE HEBREW 
 TRIBES TO UNITE AT LAST UNDER A SINGLE 
 KING 
 
 The Philistines to the west were pressing on into 
 the land, creeping over the Hebrew fields and for- 
 tresses like the incoming tide over the rocks on a 
 beach. And to add to the distress, an old foe, the 
 Ammonite people, began to sweep in upon them 
 from the desert to the east. The little Hebrew 
 people seemed about to be drowned in the sea of 
 its enemies. 
 
 Just in time, however, there arose a leader quick 
 and courageous enough to avert the doom. He was 
 a farmer named Saul, a fearless, quick-tempered 
 man who belonged to one of the northern tribes. 
 When the news reached him that the Ammonites 
 had captured a Hebrew stronghold on the east side 
 of the Jordan, he gathered the warriors of all the 
 tribes, and with a threat of cruel vengeance if they 
 refused to follow, went forth to repel the invader. 
 
 All night he marched eastward, and when dawn 
 came and the astounded Ammonites saw the united 
 Hebrew army pouring out of the dark to attack 
 them, they broke and fled in panic. Taken thus 
 completely unawares, the Ammonites could not 
 but go down to utter defeat. 
 
 Saul was the hero of the hour. With one accord 
 
44 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 the elders turned to him as their leader. And at a 
 holy place called Gilgal, high up in the hills of cen- 
 tral Canaan, amid sacrifices to Yahveh, Saul was 
 solemnly anointed King of the Hebrews. 
 
 2 
 
 Then began a new chapter in the struggle with the 
 Philistines. Saul gathered his forces and prepared 
 for attack. At first he was repulsed, and half his 
 followers deserted him in terror; but in a little while 
 he regained the offensive. Full at the enemy he 
 hurled his men, slashing right and left—and then 
 it was the Philistines who turned and fled. Back 
 they fled westward, over hill and down dale, until 
 at last they reached their own lands by the sea. 
 
 Thus was the Philistine menace overcome. 
 
 But still there was no peace. The Ammonites 
 and Moabites and Amalekites were still there on 
 the borders of Canaan, ready like hungry wolves 
 to pounce down on any unprotected village. And 
 the Philistines, for all that they had been so 
 thoroughly beaten, continued to raid and plunder 
 along the frontier. 
 
 King Saul’s only palace was a tent’; his scepter 
 was a sword; his courtiers were all hard-fighting 
 soldiers. His whole reign was one unending war 
 against his enemies. 
 
 3 
 
 Unfortunately, Saul was not so good a statesman 
 as he was a warrior, or he might have been rewarded 
 
A KINGDOM AT LAST © 45 
 
 with greater success. He could not deal well with 
 men. He had always had a violent temper, and as 
 the years passed he began to suffer more and more 
 from queer spells of moodiness. To make matters 
 worse, he assumed high and haughty airs. The 
 result was that in the end he broke with one of his 
 most powerful supporters, an old prophet and priest 
 named Samuel. 
 
 In those days there were to be found in all the 
 Hebrew tribes, bands of religious zealots who went 
 up and down the country shouting and singing 
 excitedly about the glories of their god, Yahveh. 
 (Nowadays the ‘‘Holy Rollers” and evangelists 
 in our country carry on in very much the same way.) 
 Those zealots were called in Hebrew neviim, which 
 came to be translated ‘‘prophets,” although in 
 the beginning it may have meant no more than 
 ‘“‘shouters.””? Most good Hebrew farmers probably 
 thought those ‘‘shouters” a little crazy, but never- 
 theless they stood in great awe of them. The 
 neviim were supposed to possess all sorts of magic 
 powers, and Samuel had great influence in the land 
 because he was recognized as the chief of them. 
 So it was a sorry day for Saul when he lost the old 
 priest’s friendship. 
 
 Nor was Samuel the only person whom the king an- 
 tagonized. A certain gifted young musician named 
 David had once been brought to cheer the king out of 
 one of his frightful spells of melancholy. The minstrel 
 succeeded, and so well that Saul asked him to remain 
 on in the camp. And later, when he discovered the 
 lad was as brave a soldier as he was a talented musi- 
 cian, Saul made him the royal armor-bearer. 
 
46 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 But as the months passed, and this David’s prow- 
 ess as a soldier came to be talked of among the 
 people, Saul grew almost insanely jealous. Several 
 times in his rage he even attempted to take the 
 young man’s life. 
 
 So David had to flee from the court. 
 
 He fled to his own home in the south, in the land 
 ’of Judah, and there he gathered his clansmen, and 
 set up in a cave as a robber chieftain. Saul and his 
 army pursued him, and after a series of flights 
 from one place to another, David was compelled 
 to take refuge finally with the Philistines. Of course, 
 the Philistines, still the bitter enemies of Saul, re- 
 ceived the outlaw with open arms. ‘They were de- 
 termined to wreak their vengeance on the man who 
 once had so utterly defeated them, and now they 
 thought the chance was theirs. By now Saul’s 
 insane temper had become very like a disease, and 
 it had robbed him of his bravest warriors. Many 
 of his old chieftains had deserted him, and those 
 fanatical Yahveh worshipers, the neviim, refused 
 any longer to rally the people to his support. 
 
 4 
 
 All hope and courage seeped out of the king’s 
 heart as he learned the Philistines were making 
 ready for a new attack. Even though he was se- 
 curely intrenched up on Mount Gilboa, Saul felt 
 himself beaten before the enemy came in sight. 
 And his troops, on seeing his despondency, also 
 lost all heart. Fiercely the Philistines attacked, 
 and the Hebrews crumbled under the blow. Desper- 
 ately Saul tried to hold his lines—but in vain. The 
 
A KINGDOM AT LAST 47 
 
 Hebrews flinched under the hail of arrows from the 
 Philistine archers. Their ranks wavered, broke; 
 and pellmell they fled before the enemy. 
 
 The rout was complete. The three sons of Saul 
 died fighting like lions, and the father, badly wounded, 
 took his own life to escape capture. The next day 
 the patrols of the Philistines, in their work of strip- 
 ping the bodies of the slain, came across the dead 
 king. They cut off his head and fastened the corpse 
 to the walls of the city of Bethshean. And there it 
 remained until certain Hebrews from the east side 
 of the Jordan, remembering how years earlier Saul 
 had delivered them from the Ammonite invaders, 
 went at the risk of their lives and rescued the mu- 
 tilated corpse. They brought it back to their own 
 village, and there reverently they buried it under 
 the village tree. 
 
 So ended the life of Saul, the first king of the 
 Hebrews. He had been a brave soldier and a loyal 
 follower of Yahveh—but unfortunately he had also 
 been just a bit unbalanced. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE SECOND KING, DAVID, LEADS THE TRIBES 
 TO VICTORY, AND WINS FOR THEM AN EMPIRE 
 
 As soon as the news was brought to the outlaw, 
 David, that Saul was dead, he took his men and 
 marched quickly up into Judah to make himself 
 the new king. But only the southern tribes would 
 take part in his coronation. The northern tribes 
 had all along felt themselves different from those 
 in the south, and they now set up a king of their 
 own, a son of Saul named Ishbaal.* 
 
 The Philistines must have been highly satisfied 
 with this arrangement, for they knew that so long 
 as the Hebrews were divided, they were helpless 
 prey. But David knew that too, and immediately 
 he set himself the task of winning over the northern 
 tribes to his standard. Full eight years passed before 
 that task was accomplished, eight years of spying 
 and bribing, of flattery and bloodshed. But finally 
 David attained his end. Ishbaal was assassinated 
 by two of his captains, and young David—he was 
 still only thirty years of age—was for the second 
 time crowned king. And not two now, but all 
 twelve of the Hebrew tribes took part in the coro- 
 nation. : 
 
 No sooner was David re-crowned, however, than 
 
 *See how popular the Canaanite god, Baal, had become 
 among the Hebrews. Even the king’s son was named after him! 
 
DAVID WINS AN EMPIRE 49 
 
 the Philistines became troublesome again. They had 
 had no fear of the young man so long as he was an 
 outlawed freebooter, or the leader of a few roving 
 clans; but now that he was king of all Israel, they 
 thought it well to snuff him out immediately. So 
 down marched a great army on him, and he was 
 forced to beat a retreat. But recklessly they pushed 
 on after him, and then of a sudden they discovered 
 themselves trapped. David had lured them into 
 a most unfavorable strategic position, and then 
 turned and attacked. Of a sudden he came 
 crashing back at them, and in utter bewilderment 
 they were forced to recoil. A second time his little 
 army struck them a smashing blow, routing them 
 completely. And then in terrible confusion the 
 Philistines fled back to their own lands. 
 
 2 
 
 David was too wise to repeat their mistake and 
 pursue his enemies. Instead he let them escape, 
 and addressed himself to making his own throne 
 completely safe. He realized that his first need 
 was a capital, but no city already in his possession 
 could possibly fill the need. Favoring one city 
 would certainly have aroused the jealously of all 
 the rest; establishing his throne within the land of 
 one tribe would immediately have brought him into 
 disfavor with all the others. There was anything 
 but a feeling of complete union among the Hebrew 
 clans, and the antagonism—especially between the 
 north and south—seemed ready to break out into 
 open dissension on the least provocation. 
 
 Early in the history of the United States a capital 
 
50 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 had to be chosen, and it was found necessary, in 
 order to avoid all jealousies, to build an entirely 
 new city: Washington. That was a recurrence 
 in a measure of David’s experience, except that the 
 Hebrew king did not build a city—he and his people 
 were altogether too poor for that—but captured 
 one. 
 
 In the midst of the kingdom lay a certain little 
 fortress which from the very beginning of the in- 
 vasion of Canaan had withstood all the attacks of 
 the Hebrews. It was called Jerusalem, which may 
 have meant ‘City of Peace,” or more probably 
 “City of Shalim,” a Canaanite god. It was built 
 high up on a spur, and for that reason was almost 
 unconquerable by ordinary methods of attack. 
 
 Only by climbing with his men up into the very 
 heart of the city through the huge stone water- 
 tunnel, was David able to get at its inhabitants 
 and force them to surrender. And this city, Jerusa- 
 lem, he made his capital. 
 
 3 
 
 With that matter attended to, David was now 
 free to turn on the ring of foes surrounding his 
 people. First he attacked the Philistines, marching 
 right through their lands and taking Gath, their chief 
 city. The Holy Ark of Yahveh which had been in 
 Philistine hands so many years, was at last retaken 
 and brought in triumph to the capital, Jerusalem. 
 And Yahveh was thus recognized officially and 
 formally as the god of the Hebrew Kingdom. 
 
 The Philistines quite thoroughly shown their 
 place, David next turned on the Moabites and 
 
e 
 : 
 e 
 e 
 e 
 e 
 ] 
 e 
 e 
 e 
 ° 
 e 
 e 
 
52 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 trampled them into harmlessness. (We are told 
 he slaughtered two out of every three men in all 
 the Moabite army!) Next the Ammonites were 
 assailed, and after they were decisively beaten in 
 battle, their soldiers were all condemned to captivity. 
 Then the Arameans, and a little later the Edomites, 
 and finally the Amalekites were all thoroughly 
 subdued. Only the Phoenicians on the north were 
 spared, for they had always been too busy as sea- 
 faring traders on the Mediterranean ever to trouble 
 the Hebrews. 
 
 4 
 
 David now felt in a position to devote himself 
 to internal affairs. First he undertook the task of 
 beautifying his capital, for his victorious wars had 
 filled his storehouses to overflowing with all manner 
 of precious booty. He had gold and silver and 
 brass and precious wood aplenty; also he had many 
 captives to slave in his labor-gangs as once his own 
 forefathers had slaved in the labor-gangs of the 
 Egyptians. All he lacked was a knowledge of what 
 and how to build. He and his people had always 
 been poor and struggling. Until very recently they 
 had lived in tents, and had eaten and slept and 
 worshiped like barbarians. 
 
 But now David wanted to bring a measure of 
 beauty and civilization into the life of his people. 
 He wanted to erect a great palace and a great temple, 
 and adorn them with all the treasures whereof he was 
 master. He wanted to show the world of his time— 
 and also his own followers—that he was no longer 
 a robber-chieftain but a rich and mighty monarch. 
 
 — 
 
DAVID WINS AN EMPIRE 53 
 
 It was to the Phoenicians, of course, that he had to 
 turn for help. They were men of the world, great 
 travelers who were well acquainted with the monu- 
 ments and palaces of distant emperors and princes. 
 They claimed to know all about architecture and 
 decoration, and were glad to sell their services to 
 this newly-rich neighbor of theirs. 
 
 Ds 
 
 When David took hold of Jerusalem, it must have 
 been much like any other Canaanite town. From 
 end to end its length was probably that of ten of our 
 city blocks, and surrounding it was a tremendously 
 high wall of stone. Between two massive towers 
 projecting from this wall was a narrow entrance 
 closed by a wooden portcullis. This entrance was 
 paved with uneven cobblestones, and spread like 
 a fan into a maze of crooked little lanes running 
 all through the town. The houses were flat-roofed, 
 one-story huts of stone plastered with mud; and 
 there was no furniture inside them. The people ate 
 and slept on the ground, and the animals ate and 
 slept there with them. Horrid smells filled every 
 corner of the town, for of course there were no sewers 
 and no street-cleaning department. Nasty in- 
 sects buzzed around everywhere, for refuse rotted 
 in front of every house. Savage, half-starved dogs 
 prowled about, and here and there dirty little chil- 
 dren, naked save for the good-luck charms hung 
 around their necks, with bellies swollen from drink- 
 ing foul water, and faces covered with sores and 
 sears, played amid the filth or ran errands. 
 
 Such was the Jerusalem that became the capital 
 
54 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 of David’s empire. There he establish his harem of 
 twenty or thirty wives—and right proud he must 
 have been of it, for in those days the might of a 
 monarch was largely judged by the size of his harem— 
 and there he served as high priest and chief justice 
 and king. There, too, his appetite grew and he 
 began to usurp more and more privileges and per- 
 quisites. He began to forget that he was king only 
 because his people had elected him to that office. 
 He began to make himself almost a tyrant, like the 
 kings of all the other peoples of the Orient. Once 
 he even stole away the wife of one of his soldiers, 
 and afterwards had the man killed to get him out of 
 his sight. His new-found glory went to his head, 
 and he grew lax in performing his duties as ruler. 
 
 6 
 
 The people in their turn grew restive and rebellious. 
 Absalom, one of David’s own sons, started a civil 
 war that almost swept the old man from his throne. 
 The whole country seethed with plots and con- 
 spiracies and rumors of revolution. Within the 
 capital there was constant whispering and spying, 
 for as the king aged, each of his many sons began 
 scheming to make himself the successor. The 
 unity among the tribes which David had managed 
 with such great effort to bring about, began rapidly 
 to break down again. And on all the borders the 
 ’ defeated and subject foes watched with vengeful 
 eyes for their chance to regain their freedom. 
 
 And just then, when the new and hastily built em- 
 pire seemed about to topple down and be destroyed 
 forever, David, its builder died. 
 
DAVID WINS AN EMPIRE 50 
 
 A romantic figure is this second king of Israel, a 
 man who could think quickly, fight courageously, 
 and love intensely. If he did not achieve more with 
 his tremendous talents, it was probably because to 
 his dying day he still retained the mind of—a 
 robber-chieftain. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE THIRD KING, SOLOMON, LOSES THE EMPIRE 
 THROUGH HIS EXTRAVAGANCE, AND BRINGS 
 RUIN TO HIS PEOPLE 
 
 There had really been two different Davids on the 
 throne of Israel: first the attractive young chieftain 
 struggling to win peace and security for his people, 
 and later the slack old king desirous of nothing so 
 much as pleasure and power for himself. Had his 
 successor chosen to follow the first David, much of 
 the sad history I am about to relate might never have 
 occurred. As it was, however, the successor chose 
 rather to emulate the second David, and ill-fortune 
 had to follow. 
 
 The successor was David’s favorite son, Solomon, 
 and to this day he is usually spoken of as a person 
 of surpassing wisdom. Judged by his life and work, 
 however, the real Solomon was rather a person of 
 unrestrained cruelty, thoughtlessness, and _self-in- 
 dulgence. There is no gainsaying that he was 
 clever; he could coin smart proverbs and solve 
 riddles. Nevertheless he was far from wise, for 
 his rule in Israel brought little to his people save 
 idolatry, corruption, misery, and debt. 
 
 The whole trouble, of course, ‘was that Solomon 
 desired only to imitate the extravagant, loose-living 
 Oriental monarchs around him. His dream was to 
 make his reign magnificent and splendid in that 
 
SOLOMON RUINS ALL 57 
 
 loud, garish, and despotic fashion toward which his 
 father had leaned in his latter days. But David 
 had been held back from going to extremes by his 
 fear of the neviim, or perhaps by an innate simplicity. 
 Try all he might, the robber-chieftain’s imitation 
 of a grand Oriental emperor could not be more than 
 a rather sorry and feeble failure. It took a man 
 born to the purple to show how far such imitation 
 could be carried. 
 
 2 
 
 One of the first things the young king decided on 
 having was a grand palace; and very soon tens of 
 thousands of slaves were at work, felling trees far 
 north in Lebanon, and quarrying limestone near 
 Jerusalem. Phoenicians were called in to serve as 
 architects, and to pay for their hire Solomon had to 
 provide their king annually with tremendous quan- 
 tities of grain and other food-stuffs. Throughout 
 the land there was a great bustle and turmoil and 
 confusion; in the fields, the forests, down in the 
 quarries, and up on the highroads, there was great 
 groaning because of the travail. Everywhere slaves 
 were writhing beneath the lash of Solomon’s task- 
 masters, and freemen were muttering because of the 
 demands of Solomon’s taxgatherers. But still the 
 work went on. 
 
 The subject peoples on the borders, seizing their 
 long-awaited chance, openly rebelled. The Edomites 
 broke away from the Hebrew empire and proclaimed 
 their independence; so did the Moabites and the 
 Arameans. And Solomon, who was anything but a 
 warrior, let them go. He realized their revolt meant 
 
58 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 a great loss in revenue to him, but rather than 
 attempt to recapture them, he preferred to crush 
 his own people more severely. First he forced all 
 the Canaanites still living in Palestine into slavery; 
 later he compelled even the Hebrew freemen to 
 become his slaves for one month out of every three. 
 And from every field that was harvested and every 
 flock that was sheared, a rich portion was taxed 
 away to fill the coffers of the ambitious king. 
 
 3 
 
 At last, after many years, the palace was com- 
 pleted. It stood on a hill hard-by the old fortress 
 of Jerusalem, and no doubt it appeared a thing of 
 almost incredible magnificence to the simple Hebrews. 
 Of course, compared with the tremendous palaces 
 of the emperors of Egypt and Babylon and India, 
 this one of Solomon’s was a rather tiny and tawdry 
 affair. It had been designed by men who were not 
 artists but merely mechanics trying vainly to imi- 
 tate artists; and all the realms of the monarch who 
 built it, could have been tucked away in the narrow- 
 est corner of a really full-sized empire. But to those 
 children of a primitive desert-folk that had lived 
 in goatskin tents throughout its history, the palace 
 on Mount Moriah must have seemed the most won- 
 drous thing ever built by men. 
 
 The palace consisted of several buildings: an 
 armory, an assembly hall, a throne room or court 
 of justice, and a harem large enough to house the 
 king’s many hundreds of wives. There was also a 
 temple, a small building only one hundred feet 
 long by about thirty feet wide, in which the Ark 
 
SOLOMON RUINS ALL 59 
 
 of Yahveh was housed. It is hardly possible that 
 this temple meant as much to Solomon as did the 
 palace, for he spent only half as much time building 
 it. Perhaps he looked on it more as a royal chapel 
 than anything else. 
 
 But as it happened, that temple, with the priests 
 it attracted, proved in after years to be the salvation 
 of Solomon’s dynasty; and during many centuries 
 the memory of it did more to perpetuate Israel on 
 earth than perhaps any other earthly thing. Un- 
 doubtedly that little temple, smaller by far than 
 any one of a hundred city synagogues in America 
 to-day, smaller even than many village churches 
 scattered in every corner of our world—that little 
 temple has proved infinitely the most significant 
 building ever erected by the hands of man. 
 
 t 
 
 Solomon lavished his people’s money on other 
 things also: roads for his chariots and horses, store- 
 depots, and fortresses. Once when he managed to 
 win the daughter of the mighty pharoah of Egypt 
 for one of his wives—she was a great ‘‘catch”’ for 
 Solomon!-—he built her a special villa on the highest 
 spot in the palace grounds. His expenses mounted 
 at a mad rate, and his people were ground down 
 until not another penny could be got out of them. 
 So the king took to ‘“‘trading,’’ which in those days 
 really meant piracy, and sent a fleet of ships to far 
 distant parts of his world in search of gold and silver. 
 
 Even then the income of the spendthrift king 
 could not keep pace with his outlay, and he had to 
 resort at last to borrowing. Hiram, the rich king 
 
60 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 of the Phoenician city of Tyre, after lending him 
 millions and millions, finally grew frightened and 
 suddenly demanded his money back. Solomon, 
 of course, was completely out of cash, and all he 
 could do was to offer Hiram twenty of his cities. 
 Hiram accepted, but when later he came to look 
 at those cities, he found he had been cheated. They 
 were not worth nearly the amount of money he had 
 advanced to Solomon. But Hiram had in his day 
 himself done a tidy bit of cheating, and he did not 
 dare to make much of a fuss. 
 
 5 
 
 And so, by tyranny and oppression, by piracy 
 and fraud, Solomon managed to carry out his am- 
 bitious schemes. Perhaps he thought he was suc- 
 ceeding admirably in winning the respect of the 
 great nations roundabout. But a more ruinous 
 success it would have been difficult to imagine. 
 The many foreign princesses he took into his harem 
 brought with them their strange gods and priests. 
 Yahveh was no longer the sole god of Israel; even 
 his own temple on Mount Moriah he had to share 
 with the foreign idols. And the religious practices 
 most in favor throughout the land were low and 
 lewd and unclean. Poverty and distress stalked 
 everywhere among the people, and only dread of 
 the harshness of that petty tyrant on the throne 
 kept thousands of embittered Hebrews from leaping 
 to arms. The neviim went up and down the land 
 seeking to stir the people to rebellion, but only 
 once was there an uprising, and Solomon crushed 
 that in an instant. 
 
THE DESERT 
 
 Wild Hebrew Shepherds 
 
 THE WILDERNESS 
 
 Where they wander many years 
 
 Invasion of S 
 
 Where RAN, gate 
 with the “native iribes 
 
 Hebrews feght 43 separate tribes 
 SAMSON, etc. ) 
 
 They unite al last undera King 
 
 They attain imperial power 
 
 SOLOMON They beyin to lose their power 
 Division of the Hingdom 
 
 JUDAH ISRAEL 
 Chart A. The Adventures of the Jews, Part I 
 
62 ~ STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 And thus in peace Solomon ruled and reveled, 
 and in peace Solomon died. But it was peace more 
 terrible by far than war. A thousand fierce hatreds 
 were pent up in the people, a thousand hatreds 
 ready at the first chance to break loose and blow 
 to fragments all that so long had smothered them. 
 It was peace, yes—but only the peace ever nearer 
 the breaking-point of war. And such was the reign 
 of the third king in Israel, the reign of that brilliant 
 fool whose name was Solomon. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 CIVIL WAR RENDS THE NATION INTO TWO KING- 
 DOMS, BOTH OF WHICH ARE SWALLOWED UP BY 
 THE NEIGHBORING EMPIRES 
 
 Revolution followed almost immediately. The 
 northern tribes sent to ask the new king what policy 
 he intended to pursue, and when the silly youth 
 boasted that he would rule with even greater despot- 
 ism than his father, the tribesmen murdered his 
 overseer and declared their independence. They 
 cut themselves loose from the south and took for 
 their king the heroic man who had led that one 
 attempt at revolution during Solomon’s reign. 
 
 And from then on for many years there were two 
 kings and two kingdoms in Palestine. There was 
 Israel on the north, and Judah on the south; and 
 rare indeed were the periods when they were not 
 at each other’s throats. 
 
 The division was not an even one, for the terri- 
 tory of Israel was three times as large as that of 
 Judah. More than that, it contained many rich 
 valleys and highroads, while the southern kingdom 
 was rocky, dry, and cut off from everything save 
 the raids of the desert savages. But the division, 
 uneven as it may have been, was largely a natural 
 one. The people of Israel inhabited a region so 
 different from that of the people of Judah that their 
 whole thought and life were different. The nor- 
 
64 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 therners were farmers or traders, and contact with 
 alien peoples and customs had influenced them enor- 
 mously. The southerners, on the other hand, were 
 shepherds, and in many respects were still very 
 like their ancestors who had roamed about in the 
 desert. Their worship of Yahveh had changed less 
 and been less corrupted than the worship in the 
 north; and their respect for those queer neviim was 
 greater. 
 
 2 
 
 But different as were the two kingdoms, their 
 histories for over two hundred years were very 
 similar. Like all the other little nations of the 
 East, they spent much of their time anointing and 
 assassinating their kings. Nadab, the second king 
 of Israel, reigned one year and was murdered by 
 his successor, Baasha; Baasha’s successor reigned 
 one year and was murdered by Zimri; Zimri reigned 
 seven days and was driven to suicide by Omri. . 
 And so it went on. Queen Athaliah of Judah seized 
 the throne and murdered her own grandchildren in 
 order to make her throne firm. But she in turn was 
 soon murdered—as was her successor, Joash, and 
 his successor, Amaziah. .. . Periods of peace and 
 prosperity did occur—but they were rare and never 
 lasted long. When the two kingdoms were not 
 fighting their common enemies, they were insanely 
 fighting each other. 
 
 And thus, quarreling, fighting, growing rich and 
 corrupt, or poor and desolate, intriguing with one 
 enemy to attack another and usually falling prey 
 to both, the two little Hebrew kingdoms went down 
 
THE HOUSE DIVIDED 65 
 
 to their doom. Even had they been united they 
 might not have been able to withstand the enemies 
 roundabout; but divided as they were, they had not 
 even a trace of a chance. 
 
 3 
 
 Palestine was the victim of almost incessant in- 
 vasion, because it was a frail bridge between two 
 continents, Asia and Africa. It was a tiny land, 
 and so far as natural resources went, hardly worth 
 conquering at all. But strategically, it was of the 
 very highest importance. Every great empire 
 builder and every ambitious trading king, had to 
 thunder across it on his way east or west. And 
 every great empire builder, and every ambitious 
 trading king, did thunder across it at one time or 
 another. | 
 
 Living there in peace was as impossible as picnick- 
 ing in peace in the middle of a crowded highway. 
 
 t 
 
 Egypt was the first to take advantage of the civil 
 war in the little land, and soon after the division 
 both North and South had to agree to recognize 
 the overlordship of the Egyptian empire. Then 
 came the Aramean suzerainty. Next, Assyria, the 
 ancient empire at the other end of the Fertile Cres- 
 cent, began to grow restive after its sleep of a cen- 
 tury. Slowly it began to stretch and feel its strength, 
 reaching out again and again to make a half-hearted 
 clutch at Palestine. And finally, after a hundred 
 and fifty years of such clumsy attempts, she came 
 hurtling down on the land in earnest. 
 
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THE HOUSE DIVIDED 67 
 
 5 
 
 Israel was the first to go under. The king of 
 Assyria, tired of the constant rebelliousness of the 
 Hebrews, marched across its boundaries and laid 
 siege to Samaria, the capital of the Northern King- 
 dom. The Israelites refused to surrender for three 
 long and ghastly years. The Assyrian king died and 
 his son succeeded him. But still the siege was con- 
 tinued. And at last, in the year 722 B. c., Samaria 
 fell and the kingdom of which it was the capital 
 was crushed never to rise again. All the wealthy 
 and the learned, twenty-seven thousand of the best 
 spirits in the ten northern tribes, were carried off 
 into captivity. They were distributed throughout 
 Assyria, and there gradually their identity was lost 
 as they became inextricably mixed with the people 
 around them. 
 
 To this day we still speak of them as the Lost 
 Ten Tribes, as though those thousands marched 
 off as one man and then lost themselves in the heart 
 of some far romantic land. Many an explorer com- 
 ing across some strange people in Central America 
 or Greenland or Tibet, has rushed forth to declare 
 that the Lost Ten Tribes have been found again. 
 
 But no explorer ever really found them, and no 
 explorer ever will. Those tribes did not wander 
 off together to any distant land, but simply dwin- 
 dled out of existence right where they were set 
 down by the Assyrians. Some few of them may 
 indeed have gone off to the far ends of the earth 
 on trading expeditions, and thus founded the little 
 colonies we hear of in Abyssinia and China. And 
 
68 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 many of them must have joined and become mingled 
 
 with the other two tribes of Hebrews. But it is 
 
 quite clear that most of the exiled Israelites simply 
 
 merged with the races dwelling in Assyria and 
 
 Medea, and there faded out of history’s picture. 
 And so ended the Northern Kingdom. 
 
 6 
 
 The Southern Kingdom, Judah, was spared for 
 a while. By diplomacy and intrigue, by submission 
 and bribery, it managed to drag out some extra 
 days of life. But hardly a generation after the fall 
 of Israel, Judah’s territory had so shrunk that the 
 Assyrians spoke of the kingdom as a mere “‘city.” 
 Gone was all the glory of David, and in the dust 
 was all the pomp of Solomon. Judah, like a dor- 
 mouse in a cage of fighting lions, was trampled on 
 no matter who else won or lost. Assyria went down 
 to destruction, but immediately Egypt laid its paw 
 on Palestine. When Egypt was overthrown, Baby- 
 lon began clawing the little land. 
 
 And then suddenly, in 597 B. c., Judah came to 
 an end. Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, angered 
 by an attempt at rebellion on the part of Judah, 
 came and laid siege to Jerusalem. After he had 
 emptied its treasury, and despoiled its Temple, he 
 wrecked the city utterly. All the better citizens, 
 the men of influence and the soldiers and the crafts- 
 men, were taken captive to Babylon. Only the 
 ne’er-do-wells and the shiftless were left to take 
 over the affairs of the city, a sorry lot of uneducated 
 and incompetent varlets. 
 
 For a while there was quiet in the land of Judah, 
 
THE HOUSE DIVIDED 69 
 
 but as the years passed and passion for freedom 
 began to go to their heads, even this riffraff tried 
 to rebel again. Down hastened Nebuchadnezzar 
 in another great fury, and once more the dread bat- 
 tering-rams were to be heard thundering against the 
 northern wall of Jerusalem. A whole year and a 
 half the rams pounded away before a breach could 
 be made—they were mighty walls around Jerusalem 
 in those days—and then in poured the raging enemy. 
 The wretched king of Judah was forced to look on 
 while his sons were slaughtered in cold blood; and 
 then his own eyes were gouged out. Seventy of the 
 leaders were executed, and almost the entire pop- 
 ulation of Jerusalem was taken captive to Babylon. 
 And so ended the Kingdom of Judah. 
 
 7 
 
 Almost five centuries had passed from the time the 
 Hebrew invaders of Canaan took unto themselves a 
 king, five centuries of war and intrigue, of tyranny 
 and corruption, of conquest and defeat. They were 
 not at all unlike the centuries through which all 
 the other little Oriental kingdoms had lived—except 
 in one respect. The Philistines and Edomites, the 
 Pheenicians and Moabites, had all of them experi- 
 enced much the same run of life and met the same 
 death. 
 
 But when those other peoples died, they died for- 
 ever; the Hebrews alone lived on after death. Those 
 other nations, great and small, are no more than 
 names to us now; but the sons of the ancient He- 
 brews form to this day a mighty people on earth. 
 
 There was a reason for this. 
 
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THE HOUSE DIVIDED 71 
 
 During all those five centuries in the history of 
 the Hebrews, a spirit was sprouting and flourishing 
 that was almost completely unknown to the peoples 
 roundabout. That one thing made those five cen- 
 turies in Palestine among the most extraordinary 
 in all human history. Outwardly the Hebrews went 
 the way of all the other nations, but inwardly they 
 went a way which even to this day we cannot quite 
 understand or explain. 
 
 And of that strange inward way I shall now have 
 to tell at some length. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE HEBREWS CONTINUE TO LIVE BECAUSE OF 
 THE SPIRIT THE PROPHETS HAD BREATHED 
 INTO THEM 
 
 The one element in those five centuries of Hebrew 
 kingship which really makes their history worth 
 telling, is the presence of the neviim, the “‘prophets.”’ 
 
 No one quite like the ancient Hebrew prophet 
 had ever before appeared among men. He was a 
 new type in human society, a strange creature whose 
 coming marked a revolution in the history of all 
 civilization. 
 
 In very early times the ‘“‘prophet”’ was apt to be 
 a somewhat half-crazed man, perhaps an epileptic, 
 who because of his queer actions was believed by 
 the people to be a wonder-worker. The primitive 
 Hebrews used to go to him whenever they were in 
 trouble, for they imagined they could learn from him 
 the mind of the god they worshiped. He was fortune- 
 teller, medicine-man, and priest all in one. He 
 would be consulted when a tribe thought of going 
 to battle, for he was supposed to be able to foretell 
 who would win. When the boy Saul was sent to 
 find his father’s asses, he went to the prophet-priest, 
 Samuel, to learn where they had strayed. 
 
 As we have already seen, in the time of Samuel 
 whole bands or guilds of these neviim began to 
 appear. They went up and down the land clad in 
 rough goatskins, and danced madly while they 
 
 NS Oe 
 
THE RISE OF THE PROPHETS 73 
 
 shouted out the might of their god, Yahveh. They 
 loathed the Baalim of the Canaanites, and their whole 
 aim seems to have been to keep the Hebrews true to 
 that covenant which their fathers had once made at 
 the Holy Mountain in the Wilderness. The fact 
 that the Hebrews did not become Canaanites and 
 lose their identity very soon after they reéntered the 
 Fertile Crescent, was due largely to these roving 
 agitators. They were frenzied patriots who were 
 constantly reminding the people that they belonged 
 to Yahveh, not to Baal. 
 
 2 
 
 As time went on, however, these neviim began 
 to change altogether in their character and func- 
 tion. When Solomon built the temple and a 
 horde of fussy, bustling priests began to minis- 
 ter there, the true prophets took very little part 
 in the services. So long as the Yahveh was wor- 
 shiped in a tent in the field, or on a rough stone 
 altar in the forest, the prophets were willing enough 
 to perform the work of priests. But they were too 
 wild and foot-loose a set of men to mess about for 
 long within the four walls of what they might have 
 described as a stuffy little ornamented temple. 
 They liked to meet their god in the open, where the 
 wind was sharp and all heaven was the roof above 
 their heads. They did not take to the new-fangled 
 ways which the Hebrews had learned from the city- 
 dwelling people around them. They cried out 
 constantly for a return to the stern, simple life of the 
 desert nomad. Constantly, they clamored for a 
 revival of the ‘‘old-time religion.” 
 
74 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 3 
 
 They were a courageous lot, those neviim. They 
 were not afraid even of the king. When David 
 grew drunk with power and stole another man’s 
 wife, the prophet Nathan went to the king and told 
 him to his face he was an accursed criminal. 
 
 It was a prophet, Ahijah, who stirred up the one 
 attempt at revolution when Solomon was on the 
 throne. 
 
 And when Ahab, king of Israel, married an ambi- 
 tious Phoenician princess named Jezebel, it was a 
 prophet, Elijah, who alone kept her from ruining her 
 husband’s race. Jezebel sought to make Israel 
 another Phoenicia, a land where vile practices and 
 child-burning formed part of the worship of Baal 
 Melkarth, and where the king was an unrestrained 
 despot. Again and again, Elijah, a wild man with 
 uncut hair and only a sheep-pelt to cover his naked- 
 ness, rushed out of the wilderness to decry her wicked- 
 ness and that of the king. He was called the ‘‘troubler 
 in Israel’”’—but it was desperately necessary trouble 
 that he made. His whole career was one impas- 
 sioned protest against the corruption, the luxury, 
 and the vice which were engulfing the land. He 
 championed the cause of justice against tyranny, 
 of the common man against the king; and the spark 
 of discontent he put into the people flared up a 
 generation later in a terrible and bloody revolution. 
 
 f 
 
 It was probably the neviim, too, who set down in 
 writing the first history of the Hebrew people, and 
 
THE RISE OF THE PROPHETS 75 
 
 thus laid the foundation of that monument of litera- 
 ture which we call the Bible. Some time in the 
 ninth century B. c. a group of writers in Judah 
 gathered together many of the old songs and tales 
 current among the people, and tried to arrange them 
 so that they would tell a connected story. The aim 
 of these writers was to prove that Yahveh, and Yah- 
 veh alone, had protected the Hebrews from the 
 beginning, and that he would continue to protect 
 them if they but kept his commandments. 
 
 Fragments of that ancient history are to be found 
 scattered through the first four books of the Bible, 
 and scholars after much travail have succeeded in 
 piecing them together. The resulting document re- 
 veals most strikingly just what the ancient Hebrews 
 thought of Yahveh: how he seemed to them a being 
 who walked and talked with man, and who came — 
 down to earth every now and again to see for him- 
 self just what was going on here. After all, those 
 ancient Hebrews were still a primitive people; 
 even their prophets were primitive. And _ their 
 ideas of a god could not but be primitive also. Yah- 
 veh to them was a god of war, a fiercely jealous 
 and tyrannical Lord of Hosts. Yet for all that, 
 this document of theirs registers a real advance in 
 human thinking. Yahveh is still a dread spirit 
 who greatly hungers for sacrifices and burnt-offer- 
 ings, but amazingly, he begins to show an interest in 
 something else as well—in morality. He commands 
 his worshipers not alone to bring him fatlings and 
 first fruits, but also to be hospitable to the stranger, 
 to be faithful to one’s human master, to respect the 
 marriage relation. 
 
76 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 Of course, this most ancient Hebrew document 
 contains many half-savage doctrines. Because it 
 was broken up and scattered here and there through- 
 out the Pentateuch, it serves to lower the tone of 
 much of the Old Testament. But when one re- 
 members how far more horrible were the doctrines of 
 the other peoples of the world in the ninth century 
 B. C., one realizes that this ‘‘Yahvist”’ history is 
 after all a most significant work. It marks a genuine 
 effort to drag man out of the bog of savagery in 
 which he had floundered for centuries. . . . 
 
 It was only one of the first of such efforts in the 
 life of the Hebrew people, and was quickly followed 
 by a second. Another history was compiled a 
 generation or two later, this time by the prophets of 
 the north, of the Kingdom of Israel. And it differed 
 in many striking ways from the earlier document 
 drawn up in the south. Its description of Yahveh 
 was less childlike, and its moral ideas were less 
 crude. Its code of commandments was more elabo- 
 rate and more humane.* Every seventh day was 
 to be given to the servants and the beasts of burden 
 as a holiday, and the crops every seventh year left 
 for the poor to harvest. It even commanded that 
 kindness be shown to one’s enemy! 
 
 Of course, it is hardly credible that the thinking 
 of the masses in Israel and Judah was mirrored in 
 this second history. Or even in the first. Both 
 
 * The law code belonging to the first, the “Yahvist,”’ history 
 is to be found in Exodus xxxiv. That of the second, the 
 “Flohist,”’ (called so because in it the deity is known by the 
 name of El, or Elohim) is to be found in Exodus xx, 22, to 
 Xxili, 19. 
 
THE RISE OF THE PROPHETS 77 
 
 documents must have been esteemed wildly radical 
 by the ordinary people of the day. And naturally 
 so—for both documents were the work of those 
 superb radicals, the neviim. 
 
 5 
 
 But not until the eighth century, with the coming 
 of Amos, do we see the neviim at what is almost 
 their highest. Now there is no longer any telling 
 of tales in order to win over the people, nor any 
 resort to tawdry miracles or fortune-telling in order 
 to awe them. The prophet is now neither a magi- 
 cian nor a medium, but simply a preacher who sees 
 the evil that is abroad in the land, and dares to 
 arise and denounce it openly in the name of god. 
 His tremendous earnestness alone is relied on to 
 win him a hearing. If he prophesies at all in his talk 
 of the future, he refers usually to the zmmediate fu- 
 ture. His keen insight into the life of his time tells 
 him what must soon happen. If he ever ventures 
 to speak of the distant future, he is evidently giving 
 utterance to a hope, a glowing dream, rather than 
 to a cold and reasoned conviction. 
 
 Amos is one of the most dramatic figures in all 
 this story of a most dramatic people. He was a simple 
 sheep-herder and lumberjack from Judah who was 
 driven by some quite unexplainable urge to go north 
 into Israel and denounce it for its sins. His sermons 
 form a little book in the Bible, and to this day they 
 are among the eternal wonders of literature. For 
 simplicity, for power, for beauty of word they are 
 altogether amazing. How any humble laborer was 
 ever able to conceive them, or ever made the resolve 
 
78 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 or mustered the courage to utter them, must ever 
 remain to us a bewildering mystery. 
 
 Israel just at that time was enjoying its last 
 gay flare before the endless night of its destruction. 
 The Arameans had been defeated, and the Assyrians 
 were still only half awake. The land was flush 
 with sudden prosperity, and evil was rampant 
 everywhere. A few rich and powerful nobles 
 and landowners were grinding the poor into the 
 dust, thinking to atone for all their misdeeds by 
 bringing fat offerings to the altars of Yahveh. At 
 the high festivals these wealthy ones gathered in 
 their temples amid great hilarity and drunkenness 
 to rejoice in their good fortune. It seemed to them 
 that Yahveh was pleased with them at last, for 
 not in centuries had there been so much spoil in 
 the land. They thought that they were living in 
 ‘‘God’s country,’ and that ill-fortune could not 
 possibly touch them. 
 
 And at one of those riotous festivals in the bediz- 
 ened temple at Beth-El, while the rich Israelites 
 were carousing and dancing around the altar, sud- 
 denly a strange voice was heard rising above the 
 din. It was the voice of an ill-clad, wild-eyed peas- 
 ant who somehow had forced his way into the 
 sanctuary and was now drowning out the festive 
 songs with a piercing cry of lamentation. He was 
 singing a funeral dirge! 
 
 “Fallen is the virgin which is Israel, 
 Nevermore shall she rise; 
 Forsaken is she upon her land, 
 There is none to raise her up.” 
 
THE RISE OF THE PROPHETS 79 
 
 Thus did the stranger ery mournfully in the midst 
 of the merriment. And then in a voice terrible to 
 hear he began to denounce the drunken throng. 
 Death was almost on them! All Israel was about 
 to be destroyed! None: would escape, for Yahveh, 
 the God of Justice, would mete out ruthless justice 
 to the wayward people. Even as he had wiped out 
 other nations for their sins, so also would he wipe 
 out Israel. He would not be lenient simply because 
 he had once chosen the Hebrews for his own. 
 Rather he would punish them the more. Sacrifices 
 by the thousand could not stay the judgment, 
 neither would festive offerings by the myriad bribe 
 the judge. 
 
 “‘T hate, I despise your feasts; and I will take no 
 delight in your sacred assemblies,” cried the ragged 
 stranger in the name of Yahveh. ‘‘Even though 
 you offer me your burnt-offerings and grain offerings, 
 I will not accept them; neither will I regard the 
 peace-offerings of your fat beasts. Take away from 
 me the noise of your songs; for I will not hearken 
 to the melody of your viols. BUT LET JUSTICE ROLL 
 DOWN AS THE WATERS, AND RIGHTEOUSNESS AS A 
 MIGHTY STREAM!” 
 
 So there was no escape, for in Israel there was 
 corruption, not justice, and evil, not righteousness. 
 The rich lolled on couches of ivory, smearing them- 
 selves with precious perfumes and cosmetics, and 
 drinking costly wines. They were lewd and low and 
 rotten to the heart. They cheated and robbed and 
 enslaved the poor. So ‘Prepare to meet thy God, 
 O Israel!” the prophet cried to them with awful 
 voice. A fearsome enemy would sweep down on 
 
80 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 the land, conquering and destroying, plundering 
 and burning. The rich and the mighty of the nation 
 would all be taken captive to a far place, and the 
 women would there be put to shame and the children 
 would be cut down. ‘‘Woe, for the end of my 
 people, Israel, is at hand. I can no longer forgive.” 
 
 Thus did Amos, that simple sheep-herder and 
 lumberjack from Judah, dare to address the drunken 
 lords and ladies in their temple at Beth-El. 
 
 But they would not harken. 
 
 And forty years later, Assyria came ravaging, 
 through the land, and Israel was utterly destroyed! 
 The words of Amos had come true. . . 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 THE IDEALS OF THE PROPHETS 
 
 Amos was but one of that grand array of prophets 
 whose life-work imparts the richest color to the 
 history of the Hebrew people. Sixteen whom we 
 know by name have their words preserved in our 
 Bible, but there must have been scores of others 
 whose utterances were written down and lost, or 
 were never written down at all. Were there but 
 space, I would write at length of all those whom we 
 know, for even the least of them played a dramatic 
 part in our story. Altogether there were forty 
 kings who sat on the thrones of Israel and Judah, 
 yet hardly even the mightiest of them so deserves 
 to be remembered as does the humblest of these 
 heroic preachers. 
 
 Every nation of old had its kings and priests— 
 but perhaps only the Hebrews had such prophets. 
 
 2 
 
 Some twenty-five years after the coming of Amos, 
 there suddenly appeared in Israel another prophet, 
 one named Hosea. He was a gentle, cultured man, 
 however, and the burthen of his preaching was far 
 less bitter to the taste than that of Amos. He too 
 could see the certainty of Israel’s doom if it per- 
 sisted in its evil course; but with it he could see the 
 possibility of repentance and forgiveness. For to 
 
82 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 this prophet Yahveh was not only a God of Justice, 
 but also a God of Love! .. . 
 
 And by the utterance of that thought, Hosea 
 blazed the path for all high religious thinking from 
 then on. Yahveh, who had been a cruel, capricious 
 despot to the bedraggled wanderer in the wilderness, 
 and a jealous little tribal deity to Elijah, and al- 
 together a stern, ruthless, avenging Judge to Amos— 
 this Yahveh became wondrously changed into a Lov- 
 ing Father and a God of Mercy to Hosea! 
 
 The span from the Yahveh of the nomad to the 
 Yahveh of Hosea is the whole distance between 
 barbarism and civilization. .. . 
 
 Very probably the people who heard Hosea, 
 laughed at him. It is easy to picture him as a mild 
 little man who had a way of mumbling to himself. 
 Ordinary people probably called him queer, and a 
 bit ‘‘cracked.” They could not understand what 
 he meant. Even eight hundred years later, when 
 another Jewish prophet gave utterance to just such 
 thoughts as did Hosea, the people still could not 
 understand. And that other prophet they crucified. 
 
 Even to-day, twenty-six hundred years later, 
 there are still exceeding few who understand. 
 
 3 
 
 Hosea was the last to preach in Israel, for in a 
 little while that kingdom was destroyed. The next 
 prophet, Isaiah, belonged to Judah—or perhaps it 
 might be truer to say that Judah belonged to him. 
 For he it was who saved his land from being engulfed 
 soon after the disappearance of Israel. It was his 
 
MORE ABOUT THE PROPHETS 83 
 
 statesmanship, his hawk-like watch over Judah’s 
 movements as it scurried about between the feet 
 of the lions, that made all the rest of this story pos- 
 sible. For had Judah gone down with Israel, then not 
 ten but all twelve tribes would have perished. And 
 our story would have ended with this paragraph. 
 
 Isaiah’s sermons constitute most of the first 
 thirty-nine chapters of the book that goes by his 
 name; and for splendor of language they are perhaps 
 unsurpassed in all the rest of the Bible. But to-day 
 they somehow have less meaning for us than, for 
 instance, the sermons of Hosea. 
 
 The trouble is that Isaiah’s great interest in the 
 political life of his little native country, his tremen- 
 dous excitement about its material future, rather 
 shortened his vision. He was perhaps too narrowly 
 a patriot. Yahveh to him was still the god who 
 ruled solely for the benefit of the Hebrews. 
 
 4 
 
 And Isaiah was an aristocrat. His greatest in- 
 fluence lay with kings and princes. He preached 
 brilliantly, learnedly—but it is hardly possible 
 that the plain people ever understood much of what 
 ‘he said. Not he, but another prophet, Micah, made 
 the simple folk understand. Micah was one of them 
 himself, for he came from a tiny village on the 
 border of Judah. In that, and in the bitterness 
 of his preaching, he was very like Amos, the sheep- 
 herder. He was the voice of the outraged masses, 
 the flaming protestant against the wickedness of 
 the rich and the hypocrisy of the priestly. 
 
84 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 There was little originality in what Micah said, 
 but there was genius in the way he said it. His 
 ideas he got from all the prophets before him, and es- 
 pecially from Isaiah whom he may have known well; 
 but he clothed those ideas with a simplicity and a 
 charm that were altogether his own. For instance, 
 see with what perfection he sums up the teachings 
 of Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah, in the one verse: 
 
 “Tt hath been shown thee, O man, what is good, 
 And what Yahveh doth demand of thee: 
 Only to do justice and to love mercy 
 And to walk humbly with thy God.” 
 
 Micah put things so that they could not but be 
 understood and remembered. To this day men 
 read with awe and wonder the words of that lowly 
 champion of the oppressed in ancient Judah. 
 
 And with his searing eloquence Micah touched 
 off a mighty train of reform. ‘The temple in Jeru- 
 salem, which had long been given over to the filth 
 of idolatry, was cleansed and rededicated to the 
 service of Yahveh alone. <A great Passover feast 
 was held in the capital, and after it the people in 
 great enthusiasm went away and tore down all the 
 brazen images and stone pillars and other heathen 
 symbols which had been worshiped on the hills 
 and in the forests. All the idolatry that the Canaan- 
 ite farmers and the Egyptian and Phcenician prin- 
 cesses had taught the Hebrews, was of a sudden 
 swept out of the land. At last the “‘old-time re- 
 ligion’’ was supreme once more. 
 
 And in large part all this was the work of Micah, 
 a peasant evangelist. 
 
 i ti 
 
MORE ABOUT THE PROPHETS 85 
 5 
 
 But the results of the sudden reform were soon 
 undone again. Fifteen years passed, and then all 
 the old idolatry came back. Indeed, things then 
 became worse than ever. The religion of the Assyr- 
 lans invaded Judah, and with it came all manner of 
 lewd and coarse practices. Vile things were done 
 to please the Phoenician god, Thammuz, and babies 
 were sacrificed to the bloody god, Moloch. And all 
 the reformers and the prophets of Yahveh were 
 slaughtered or driven to cover. 
 
 From being almost too good the people suddenly 
 relapsed into being unspeakably bad. 
 
 Perhaps that is the only way in which progress 
 can be achieved: by leaps and falls. Perhaps man 
 is a little like an infant in its struggle to climb a 
 flight of steps. With desperate effort it manages 
 to crawl up three steps; and then helplessly it slides 
 back two. It tries again, climbing three more, and 
 again falls down two. And so it goes on, straining 
 and clambering, lunging forward and _ slipping 
 back—but forever going on. 
 
 6 
 
 For almost half a century this spirit of heathenism 
 was rampant in Judah, and then another wave of 
 reform swept the country. Of course, this second 
 reform did not come of itself, and without prepara- 
 tion. Indeed, during all the years of reaction the 
 prophets were secretly girding their loins for the fresh 
 assault on idolatry. Hidden high in the hills or far 
 in the forests, they were intensely active. If they 
 
86 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 could not preach, at least they could write. They 
 gathered and edited the sermons of Amos, Hosea, 
 Isaiah, and Micah, preserving them on long parch- 
 ment scrolls. They even dared to begin a whole 
 new code of laws for Judah. It was a code based in 
 part on their prophetic ideals, and they dreamed of 
 putting it into effect so soon as they were once again 
 in power. The earlier collections of laws had all 
 been fragmentary, and had therefore been of little 
 value. Now for the first time was there drawn up a 
 code comprehensive enough to guide every act in 
 the daily life of the Hebrews. 
 
 So did the prophets labor in secret, patiently pre- 
 paring for the coming of the day of their deliverance. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 MORE ABOUT THE IDEALS OF THE PROPHETS, 
 AND THE STORY OF HOW THE PRIESTS TRIED 
 TO MAKE THEM PRACTICABLE 
 
 At last the great day of the prophets dawned. 
 A new king, Josiah, sat on the throne, a young man 
 who from childhood had probably been under the 
 influence of secret friends of the reformers. The 
 prophets cautiously emerged from their hiding 
 places and began to preach once more in the open. 
 Zephaniah, a cousin of the king, and Jeremiah, 
 a young man of an aristocratic family, were especially 
 prominent as agitators for a new wave of reform, 
 And strange to tell, the priests in Jerusalem were 
 also active in the movement. 
 
 A terrifying chapter in Oriental history had just 
 been written, and it served to hasten the coming of 
 the reform. Of a sudden out of the dark forests of 
 Europe, hordes of ravenous Scythians had poured 
 forth. Across the Caucasus Mountains, through 
 Asia Minor, down along the borders of Palestine 
 the savages had plunged, pillaging right and left, 
 and leaving a wide trail of blood and ashes behind 
 them. They very nearly got Jerusalem in their 
 claws, and even though the city escaped, the in- 
 habitants were left weak with terror. It had been 
 a frightfully narrow escape for them. 
 
 That gave the prophets their great chance. Up 
 
88 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 and down the land they went, calling on the people 
 to heed that dread warning. The awful Day of 
 Yahveh’s Judgment was at hand—‘‘the day of 
 wrath, of terror and distress, of wasting and deso- 
 lation, of darkness and gloom.” And there was but 
 one means of escape, declared the prophets: re- 
 pentance! ‘‘Return, O backsliding children!’ they 
 cried to the trembling people. ‘‘ Return unto Yahveh 
 or be destroyed!” 
 
 2 
 
 And the people did return. Led by the terrified 
 young king, they forswore utterly their past wicked- 
 ness. A mysterious code of laws was discovered in 
 the temple at Jerusalem, a scroll supposed to have 
 been written by Moses himself. In it was set down 
 in harrowing detail the curses that would fall upon 
 Judah if Yahveh’s law was not scrupulously obeyed. 
 And when Josiah, the young king, heard those curses, 
 he rent his clothes in fear. Hastily he summoned 
 all the free men of Judah to the temple in Jerusalem, 
 and there he arose and read to them the whole book. 
 And there and then the people vowed to make that 
 new-found book the law of the land. 
 
 That book is still existent to-day, though in a 
 greatly enlarged and altered form. Scholars say 
 it is part of what we now call Deuteronomy, the 
 fifth book in the Bible. Almost certainly it was 
 none other than that self-same code of laws which 
 the prophets had been secretly preparing all through 
 the preceding half-century of heathenism. Parts of 
 it—especially the repeated commands to worship 
 Yahveh and Yahveh alone, and the laws favoring 
 
 a ae 
 
PROPHETS AND PRIESTS 89 
 
 the unfortunate and the downtrodden—are un- 
 mistakably in the spirit of the zealous nevium. 
 
 But in that book there is also a spirit that is far 
 more priestly than prophetic. A great to-do is made 
 over the edict that in no sanctuary save the temple 
 built by Solomon may Yahveh be worshiped. That 
 meant that all the little village shrines of Yahveh 
 must be destroyed. As one result, all their priests 
 had to go to Jerusalem to find work as helpers in 
 the Temple there. (For the first time now we must 
 write the word with a capital T.) 
 
 Undoubtedly that was in one respect a wise ruling, 
 for those village shrines had always been the start- 
 ing points of corruption in the religious practices 
 of the land. The village priests were an ignorant 
 and superstitious lot, and seldom did they prevent 
 their altars from becoming the centers of the crudest 
 idolatry. With all religious observance centralized 
 in the Temple at Jerusalem, the likelihood was 
 greater that it could be guarded and kept uncor- 
 rupted. 
 
 3 
 
 But there was another side to this reform and one 
 not so promising. The confinement of religious 
 observance to one particular spot was destined to 
 cause great distress and concern in the years to 
 come. Perhaps the prophets foresaw this, but 
 allowed the law to go into the code in order to win 
 the support of the powerful Jerusalem priests. The 
 whole code, indeed, appears a compromise between 
 the high dreams of the prophets and the earthly de- 
 sires of the priests. And as is usually the case with 
 
90 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 compromises, the earthly desires gained most by the 
 deal. This code of laws made the religion of Yahveh 
 a fixed and very rigid thing, a business of bringing 
 proper sacrifices in a proper fashion at proper times, 
 and of handing them over to very proper—but 
 often low and greedy—priests. It took God, who 
 is a wondrous yearning in the heart of all man- 
 kind, a hunger as wide as the world and a joy as high 
 as the heavens, and tried to box Him up in a tiny 
 little house of stone and mortar. It took that mighty 
 spirit called Religion and tried to lock it in a stuffy 
 feeble thing called the Church. 
 
 4 
 
 It was in the year 621 B. c. that the code of laws 
 was ‘‘discovered”’ by one of the priests and shown 
 to the king. No doubt the prophets greatly re- 
 joiced over the acceptance of the code by all in 
 the land, and thought perhaps their work of saving 
 the soul of Judah was at last accomplished. But 
 that code did not save the soul of the nation. Per- 
 haps it helped save the body for a while—but only 
 the hope preached by the greater prophets saved its 
 soul. A code of laws is feared and obeyed; but a 
 hope is loved and clung to. The Temple and its 
 sacrifices were soon no more; but the hope voiced 
 by the prophets that some day the oppressed and 
 the lowly would find utter rest and peace—that hope 
 lived on forever. 
 
 At least one of the prophets of the period, Jere- 
 miah, shows that he felt this to be the case, for in 
 his sermons there flames a spirit utterly opposed to 
 the priestliness of the law book. Indeed, the whole 
 
PROPHETS AND PRIESTS 91 
 
 burthen of his preaching was that Yahveh would 
 Himself destroy the Temple, even though it had been 
 built to His glory. For Jeremiah’s insight told him 
 that Yahveh did not demand this elaborate and messy 
 business of sacrifice; He demanded only faith in the 
 inward heart. 
 
 Jeremiah had the courage to utter that thought 
 right inside the Temple at a time when the ideas 
 set down in the new-found code were accepted by 
 all the people. There were violent scenes in the 
 Temple Courts, and a great clamor arose for the 
 death of the daring prophet. Only with great 
 difficulty did he manage to escape. 
 
 But soon he returned again, once more to utter 
 what he felt was the word of the Lord. He was 
 put into stocks, beaten, flung into prison, lowered 
 into a miry pit and left to die—but still would he 
 not halt in his high work of godly mischief. 
 
 There is something tremendously attractive about 
 this man Jeremiah who forever spoke what was in 
 his mind, no matter whom he offended. A scroll 
 of his sermons was torn to pieces and burnt by King 
 Jehoiakim; and the prophet himself was hounded 
 from place to place. Nevertheless he did not falter. 
 He lived through the most trying years in the history 
 of Judah, years which saw it thrice invaded and 
 despoiled by Babylonian armies. And all through 
 that period he stood out for his own ideals against 
 every one of the hysterical follies committed by 
 the mob. When all the people were madly clamor- 
 ing for war, he stood out alone for peace. There was 
 in him nothing of that narrow patriotism that carried 
 away many of the other prophets of his time. His 
 
92 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 God was no possession of one little tribe, and did 
 not dwell in one little shrine. He was Master of 
 all the nations, Chieftain of all the tribes; and the 
 roof of His temple was the sky that covered all 
 the earth. 
 
 And when Jeremiah voiced these ideas, another 
 revolution occurred in human thinking. Yahveh 
 who once had been merely the equal of many other 
 gods, and then merely one stronger than those other 
 gods, became with Jeremiah the One and Only 
 Master of all the Universe. He was no longer Yah- 
 veh at all—! 
 
 He was God. 
 
 5 
 
 But little joy ever came to him who wrought the 
 revolution. When Jerusalem was destroyed by the 
 Babylonian host, in 586 B. c. Jeremiah was left 
 behind to keep peace among the rabble that had 
 not been deported. But the mad desire to break 
 away from the Babylonian Empire could not be 
 allayed. A band of fanatics assassinated the noble 
 Gedaliah who had been made ruler of the land, 
 and then in terror lest the Babylonians march 
 down again and avenge the murder, those fanatics 
 arose and fled into Egypt. And when they fled they 
 dragged Jeremiah with them. 
 
 But even in far-off Egypt the prophet would not 
 be silent. Bitter quarreling arose among the refugees, 
 and Jeremiah began once more to speak his mind. 
 But this time he did not escape, for according to 
 an old tradition an infuriated mob closed in on him 
 and stoned him to death. 
 
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94 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 That was the end of Jeremiah, a true Man of God. 
 In his own day he was despised and loathed as the 
 betrayer of his people; but we who now look back on 
 his deeds and re-read his words know him to have 
 been their only savior. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 HOW YAHVISM DIED AND JUDAISM WAS BORN 
 IN THE BABYLONIAN EXILE 
 
 Most of the ten tribes of Israel deported by the 
 Assyrians, probably merged in the course of time 
 with the strange races in the lands of their exile; 
 and their existence as a people ended forever. 
 
 One hundred and fifty years later, the two little 
 tribes of Judah were deported by the Babylonians, 
 but they, far from merging, became even more dis- 
 tinctively a separate people—and lived. And that 
 seems to have been altogether due to the prophets 
 of Judah who had preached and been persecuted 
 for their preaching. In those one hundred and fifty 
 years preceding the exile, they had managed to 
 breathe into the tiny people of Judah a spirit which, 
 unlike high walls and mighty fortresses, could never 
 be burnt down or destroyed. 
 
 It is important to realize just how tiny a people 
 this was, for then the miracle of its survival be- 
 comes even more impressive. After the catastrophe 
 that occurred in 586, the tribes of Judah were torn 
 apart into three main fragments. First, there was 
 a dispirited remnant left behind in Palestine—poor, 
 benighted peasants who were harried constantly by 
 wild tribes from the desert. Then there were the 
 fugitives who had congregated in scattered settle- 
 ments in Egypt. Finally there was the community 
 
96 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 of exiles in Babylon. But all three groups together 
 probably would not have sufficed to people an ordi- 
 nary fair-sized American city lke Paterson, New 
 Jersey, or Des Moines, Iowa. Their total number 
 could not have been much more than a hundred 
 and twenty-five or a hundred and fifty thousand— 
 about half as many Jews as there are to-day in 
 Chicago alone. 
 
 And yet that little nation, dispersed over all the 
 Orient, tossed about in the welter of empires like 
 a cork in a furious whirlpool, managed to live on 
 and come out triumphant! | 
 
 2 
 
 The story of that survival is largely the story of 
 the handful that was dragged off to Babylon. And 
 not even of all that handful, for many of them de- 
 serted and took to the gods of the conquerors. Baby- 
 lon was a mighty city whose outer wall was fifty 
 miles in length, and so thick that four chariots 
 could drive on it abreast. In it were mighty temples 
 adorned with jewels and precious metals, and vast 
 palaces brilliant with colored bricks and tiles. High 
 almost to the heavens reached the towers and gar- 
 den terraces; broad to the very horizon stretched 
 its parks and meadow lands. 
 
 To the bedraggled Judeans, destitute wanderers 
 from a backward little hill-country, the sight of all 
 the magnificence of Babylonia must have been 
 overwhelming. What was Judah compared with 
 this? And who was the defeated Yahveh compared 
 with the gods of such a land? How could one still 
 believe Jerusalem the Holy City, or still worship 
 
THE EXILE IN BABYLONIA 97 
 
 Yahveh as the mightiest of the gods? No, Babylon 
 —that was the true Zion! And Bel, the sun god— 
 he was the real Lord of Hosts! 
 
 So must many of the exiles have decided in their 
 despair. And as swiftly as that decision spread, 
 so swiftly did their old Yahveh die, and their old 
 religion perish. 
 
 But in that same hour a new Yahveh—the One 
 and Only Master of the Universe whom Jeremiah had 
 championed—He came into His own. Yahvism, the 
 old religion of the wild desert nomads who once 
 had taken Canaan and then had been driven out 
 again—that was no more. But now Judaism, a new 
 religion, was born. 
 
 For not all the exiles were swept off their feet 
 by the grandeur of Babylon and its gods. The 
 majority went the way of all majorities, but an 
 heroic minority stood its ground and refused to be 
 stampeded. That minority turned now not to the 
 living priests of Babylonia, but to the dead prophets 
 of Judah. 
 
 And out of the teachings of those dead prophets 
 the minority fashioned the newer and nobler faith. 
 
 3 
 
 There was prosperity and comfort for most of 
 the exiles in their new home. They were untroubled 
 by their conquerors, and allowed to manage their 
 private affairs as they pleased. Opportunities 
 aplenty were given to those who desired wealth and 
 station, for King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia— 
 who not undeservedly was called the Great—put 
 no cbstacle in their way. All he had wanted to do 
 
98 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 was to destroy the Kingdom of Judah, for its exist- 
 ence had made his hold on Palestine a highly un- 
 certain one. And he needed Palestine desperately, 
 for it was the bridge between his empire and the rest 
 of the world. Now, however, that he held it se- 
 curely, he wished the defeated and exiled men of 
 Judah all the good in the world. And rapidly many 
 of them began to get it. ... 
 
 But always there were the few who could not be 
 at ease in the strange land. Bread for their bellies 
 meant nothing to them; they wanted food for their 
 souls. So they sat by the waters of Babylon and 
 wept. (They were indeed a strange people!) They 
 hated the new land for it was not their own. 
 It was “unclean” to them. And longingly they 
 thought only of the little blue hills whence they had 
 been taken. In their minds those hills became 
 ineffably lovely, and the men who once trod them 
 seemed immeasurably great. Like beggars around 
 a fire, the exiles warmed their hearts with tales of 
 past glories, with glowing stories which they elab- 
 orated about Moses, and David, and Solomon. 
 
 And for fear those stories—which to them seemed 
 utterly true—might be forgotten in this foreign 
 land, these homeless souls wrote them down on 
 parchment scrolls. The two primitive histories 
 written three hundred years earlier, the ‘‘ Yahvist”’ 
 and ‘‘Elohist’”’ codes, were out of date. A crop of 
 new legends had sprung up, and new interpretations 
 of the old legends, and these were all set down in 
 writing during the exile in Babylonia. All the 
 stories in existence about their ancestors were writ- 
 ten on scrolls by Hebrew scribes. They patched 
 
THE EXILE IN BABYLONIA 99 
 
 together the ancient traditions that had come down 
 to them on old worn scraps of parchment or by 
 word of mouth. And of them they made a new 
 history. 
 
 That new history simply had to be written not 
 only for its own sake but also to keep the weak 
 among the exiles from drifting utterly away. Some 
 reason had to be given why Yahveh’s people had 
 been crushed; and the only good reason was the old 
 prophetic one that the people had been crushed 
 because of their sins. Yahveh had not been de- 
 feated when Israel and Judah were destroyed. Of 
 course not! On the contrary, it was Yahveh Him- 
 self who had brought about the destruction of His 
 people to punish them for their idolatrous ways! 
 Yahveh could not have been vanquished by other 
 gods, for there were no other gods to vanquish Him. 
 He alone was Lord of Heaven and all the Earth! 
 He alone was God! 
 
 And it was to establish this belief that the unhappy 
 souls in exile wrote the new history. 
 
 1 
 
 But the history was not the only work of the 
 ‘“‘seribes’”’ among the exiles. They not only gath- 
 ered together all the memories of their past; they 
 also began to prepare for the future. Never for a 
 moment would they admit they had reached the 
 end of their story. No, their story was but begin- 
 ning, they believed; for in a little while God would 
 of course take pity on them once more and restore 
 them to their own land. And then unheard-of 
 glories would be theirs, they told themselves. No 
 
100 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 more would there be wicked kings to bring idolatrous 
 princesses into the land, for God’s ‘‘ Anointed One”’ 
 would Himself then be King. The Temple would 
 be rebuilt and unnumbered priests would minister 
 at its altars. In that day, joy and peace would 
 reign throughout the land, and all would be well 
 with God’s children on earth forever! 
 
 It is curious to see how the dreams of the prophets 
 and the hard sense of the priests are commingled 
 in the air castles those exiles built. Perhaps it was 
 because one of the leaders among the exiles was a 
 prophet who happened to be the son of a priest. 
 His name was Ezekiel, and like every other ancient 
 prophet, exalted moments came to him when he 
 seemed face to face with God. He had strange 
 visions and afterward in frenzied words he told the 
 people what he had seen. Like every other ancient 
 prophet, he was what we call a mystic. 
 
 But with all his visions and almost insane enthu- 
 siasm, he was also a shrewd thinker. He knew the 
 importance of organization, and many of the laws 
 that were already being prepared for the future, 
 were directly inspired by him. And those laws were 
 altogether the laws of a priest. 
 
 It is not easy for us to feel any fondness for 
 priests or priestly ways. Much easier is it to favor 
 the prophets, who were in those days as leaven in 
 the bread of life. But the fact is clear that leaven 
 without grist would have made sorry bread indeed— 
 and grist then was the gift of the priest. He was the 
 organizer and the preserver; he was the man who 
 saw to things and ran them. That is why Ezekiel 
 must be counted one of the most important figures 
 
 gm 
 
 i oe 
 
 OE 
 
THE EXILE IN BABYLONIA 101 
 
 in this whole long story. His influence on the future 
 of his people proved tremendous. 
 
 For the children of those exiles did not outlive 
 Ezekiel’s priestly ideas for at least four hundred 
 years. Indeed, many have not outlived them to 
 this day. 
 
 5 
 
 But long before those ideas could be put into 
 effect, Ezekiel died and was buried. Then for a 
 generation no prophet arose to take the vacant 
 place in the little community. Many of the exiles 
 grew rich and powerful at the court of Babylon, 
 and forgot altogether the humble land whence they 
 had come. And the rest plodded along in aching 
 homesickness. They could not sacrifice to God, 
 for sacrifice in Babylon would have been a violation 
 of the Deuteronomic Code of Laws revealed to them 
 fifty years before. Jerusalem was still considered 
 the only proper place for sacrifice. 
 
 The best they could do was to devote one day of 
 the week, the Sabbath, to undivided thought of their 
 God. Perhaps they prayed and fasted on that day 
 in little synagogues (the word really means ‘‘meet- 
 ing-houses’”’), standing always with their faces turned 
 yearningly toward Jerusalem. And piteously they 
 begged there for the coming of the day of their re- 
 demption. 
 
 6 
 
 And at last that day seemed about to dawn. A 
 new empire was arising in the East, the empire of 
 Cyrus, a mighty Persian conqueror. Babylonia 
 
102 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 seemed certain to fall, for King Nebuchadnezzar 
 was long dead and a weakling sat on the throne. 
 Feverish whispering went on in the little settlement 
 of the exiles, and then loud and heroic agitation. 
 A great prophet arose, a man whose name we do 
 not even know, but whose wondrous orations form 
 the latter part of the Book of Isaiah. (That is why 
 modern scholars usually speak of him as Deutero- 
 Isaiah, which means the Second Isaiah.) In the 
 mind of this Great Unknown, it seemed evident 
 that Cyrus was the ‘‘Anointed of God,” a con- 
 queror divinely chosen to crush Babylonia and set 
 the Judeans free. 
 
 So this herald went about in the market places 
 and bazaars of the homesick exiles and cried, ‘‘Be 
 comforted, ye people, be comforted!’ The great 
 day of deliverance was at hand, he assured them. 
 Judah was about to be restored once more. But 
 not as a pampered nation, sipping sweet favors from 
 the fountain of God’s grace. The Chosen People of 
 God had a harder life than that in store for them. 
 They were to be a light unto the heathen, suffering 
 servants whose duty it was to bring the knowledge of 
 God to all the nations of the earth! ... 
 
 Perhaps our psychologists would call that idea 
 a “‘compensation for an inferiority complex.’ The 
 people among whom the Hebrews lived, talked con- 
 stantly of their world conquests; and though the 
 Hebrews themselves were only a handful of humil- 
 iated outcasts, they too wanted to talk in that way. 
 They too wanted to feel the pride and self-respect 
 felt by conquerors. But they knew only too well 
 how feeble was their military strength, so they had 
 
 She ly g 
 
THE EXILE IN BABYLONIA 103 
 
 to think up some new way of conquering. And that 
 new way was of course the way of the spirit. The 
 other nations might have chariots and battering 
 rams, but they, the Hebrews—so they now told 
 themselves—alone had Right. 
 
 Just what Right was, they hardly stopped to de- 
 fine—except perhaps that it meant the favor of the 
 God who commanded fair play to equals and mercy 
 to the weak. But whatever it was, they believed, 
 that by the grace of the God of Heaven and Earth, 
 they had it—and with it they believed they would 
 conquer. With it Babylonia would be humbled 
 and they themselves would be released. And with 
 it some day they would be triumphant in all the 
 earth: their spirit, their. ideals, their God, would 
 reign supreme. Jerusalem would become the center 
 of the world, and the Temple would become a house 
 of prayer for all the nations. They, the Jews, who 
 were now scattered and broken, who were being 
 spat upon and laughed at, they in the end would be 
 the mightest conquerors of all! 
 
 And in 588 B. c. Cyrus of Persia captured Babylon 
 and set the exiles free. They were free now to con- 
 quer the world—with Right. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE TRIALS AND DISAPPOINTMENTS AFTER THE 
 RETURN FROM BABYLONIA 
 
 The glorious conquest began most ingloriously. 
 Of all the exiles in Babylon only a very few took 
 advantage of Cyrus’s decree. The rest found it too 
 hard to tear themselves away from the shops and 
 homes they had established in the ‘‘unclean’’ land, 
 and remained behind. Perhaps some of them even 
 resented the decree, considering it a reflection on 
 their Babylonian citizenship. They refused to think 
 of themselves any more as Judeans; their boast was 
 that they were ‘‘one hundred per cent’”’ Babylonians. 
 Even most of those who still longed for the home- 
 land, those who admitted freely that they felt them- 
 selves spiritual strangers in Babylonia—even they did 
 not stir. Instead they gave money—and of course 
 much free moral encouragement—to the few daring 
 souls who did make ready to go back. 
 
 They were daring souls indeed. To get back to 
 the old homeland they had to journey three months 
 across the desert. And when they got back, only 
 shambles greeted their gaze. Disappointments and 
 hardships followed on each other’s heels from the 
 very start. Jerusalem was a heap of ruins, and the 
 fields roundabout were choked with wild growths 
 and weeds. Houses had to be put up and cisterns 
 dug; the fields had to be cleared and tilled. 
 
. 
 
 ype 
 
 Gane 
 NAAN 
 
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 SN 
 
 th 
 gee ay SS i\ q 
 
 When They Came Home 
 
 & 
 
106 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 There was no time to dream great dreams or build 
 glittering castles in the air. A rough stone altar was 
 ‘set up on Mount Moriah—and that was all. They 
 who had fondly hoped to build a house of prayer for 
 all the peoples on earth, were too busy trying to keep 
 alive to make a house of prayer even for themselves. 
 
 Seventeen years they struggled along in that 
 fashion, and then almost all the zeal and idealism 
 they had brought with them from Babylonia seeped 
 out of their wearied souls. They were discouraged 
 and miserable. Perhaps they cursed the day they 
 had ever left the prosperous lands of their exile. 
 
 2 
 
 And then once more the prophets reappeared. One 
 was an aged man named Haggai, who had played 
 in the streets of the old Jerusalem in his childhood. 
 He preached in simple homely words, and with a 
 fervor that recalls the preaching of Micah. The 
 other was a young man named Zachariah who had 
 been born in Babylonia and who cast his prophecies 
 in a new and rather artificial pattern. But though 
 so different in character and style, these two men 
 were altogether at one in their thought. A bitter 
 famine was sweeping across the land, and to both 
 Haggai and Zachariah it seemed that it had been 
 sent as a divine punishment. They believed it had 
 come because the people had neglected God’s Temple. 
 For themselves the people had provided stout houses, 
 but for God they had built naught save a rude altar. 
 
 (It is interesting to note how marked is the 
 priestly spirit of the Deuteronomie Code and Ezekiel 
 in the complaints of Haggai and Zachariah. A 
 
HOME AGAIN 107 
 
 hundred years earlier, living prophets would have 
 said that God’s anger had been aroused because the 
 people had not dealt justly or lived cleanly. But now 
 the great crime was only that they had not built a 
 sanctuary and sacrificed properly. Priestliness had 
 become an all-important thing in the minds even 
 of the prophets.) 
 
 Through all the streets of Jerusalem went those 
 two men, Haggai and Zachariah, with their bitter 
 complaints. They beseeched and cursed, they 
 pleaded and reviled, until at last they drove the 
 people into a frenzy of fear and agitation. Every 
 imaginable joy and glory was promised them if only 
 they rebuilt the Temple. The Jewish Messiah, 
 the ‘‘Anointed of God,”. would surely be sent to 
 rule over them, and all the nations of the earth would 
 come to pay homage in Jerusalem. The dream of 
 the Unknown Prophet of the Exile would immediately 
 be realized—if only the Holy of Holies was once more 
 erected. 
 
 3 
 
 So in a mad fever of anxiety the settlers now 
 began work on the long-ruined sanctuary. The unde- 
 ported Hebrew peasants who had stayed on in the 
 land, offered to share in the labor; but they were 
 spurned. The return exiles looked down on them as 
 an inferior lot. Those peasants, especially in the 
 north, in what once was the realm of Israel, had 
 intermarried with the heathens who had been settled 
 there by the Assyrians two hundred years before; 
 and they had become ignorant and debased. Even 
 those who had been left behind in the south, in Judah, 
 
108 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 had intermarried and lost caste. The folk just re- 
 turned from Babylonia acted very much like country 
 folk who after many years in the big city, return to 
 the village of their birth and snub the neighbors 
 among whom they were reared. 
 
 Alone, therefore, the returned exiles labored at 
 the rebuilding of the sanctuary, and with such tre- 
 mendous earnestness that in less than five years 
 their work was done. In size the new Temple was 
 much like that of Solomon; but of course it lacked 
 all decoration and ornament. The old, old men, 
 who still hazily remembered the first Temple, wept 
 with disappointment when they set eyes on the 
 second. It was so plain, so crude! 
 
 But still it was a Temple. Perhaps it had less 
 gold on its walls, fewer pillars in its courts, than 
 the first; but nevertheless it was a House of God. 
 And now that it was builded, the people sat back 
 in happy exhaustion and waited. Anxiously they 
 waited for the grand reward the prophets had prom- 
 ised them. Even those in far Babylonia caught 
 the fever of hope, and in haste they sent a heavy 
 golden crown to Jerusalem for the coronation of 
 the Messiah. It seemed but a matter of days now 
 before the whole world would be turned topsy- 
 turvy. Cyrus had died, and his empire seemed about 
 to crumble to pieces because of the wrangling among 
 his successors. Anarchy reigned throughout the 
 Orient. It seemed to them that to-morrow—the next 
 day at the very latest—the triumph of Right (and 
 Judah) would surely be realized. In a moment all 
 the kings in the world would be swept away, and 
 God’s ‘‘Anointed One” alone would reign at last. 
 
HOME AGAIN 109 
 
 Of course, those poor Jews, worn out after their 
 labors, were rather like the Jacobins after the first 
 flare of the French Revolution, and the Bolsheviki 
 after they first rode into power in Russia. They 
 expected all the world to accept their new ideas 
 immediately. 
 
 4 
 
 But the days passed—many days. Even years. 
 And nothing happened. A new conqueror arose 
 in Persia, a mighty man named Darius, who quickly 
 set the empire in order once more. The world revo- 
 lution which was to overturn all earthly kings and 
 make the Messiah alone supreme—that did not occur. 
 
 And then the hearts of the exhausted Jews in Jeru- 
 salem turned to gall. They lost all faith in God and 
 His prophets. God had fooled them, they thought. 
 His prophets had promised all manner of glories if 
 only His Temple were rebuilt—and He had not 
 kept His word. His prophets were all liars, and 
 God, therefore, was a fraud! The Messiah would 
 never come! Never! 
 
 So did those Jews grieve bitterly as they struggled 
 along in their wretched little land. Fifty years of 
 neglect had made the place a wilderness, and now 
 recurrent drought and famine made its redemption 
 unspeakably difficult. Enemies from every side came 
 raiding and plundering—Edomites from the south, 
 Philistines from the west, and worst of all, those 
 half-breed Israelite peasants, the Samaritans, from 
 the north. (They were called Samaritans because 
 their chief city was the old Israelite capital, Samaria.) 
 The whole land of Judah was no larger than a little 
 
110 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 county, but twenty miles from end to end! And 
 hatred and disgust filled the souls of its dejected 
 inhabitants. 
 
 5 
 
 Only a tiny minority—there has always been that 
 minority among the Wandering People—still clung 
 to God and His promise. They were called the 
 ‘“‘Pious,”’ and they refused to give up hope. While 
 the rest went astray, intermarrying with the heathens 
 around them, and breaking all the other laws that 
 had been given them, those pious ones kept the 
 faith. Even the priests became corrupt, sacrificing 
 unclean things on the altars of God. Cruelty and 
 injustice and vice were rampant throughout the 
 little land. And only a very few of the people, 
 the ‘‘Pious,”’ dared to protest. 
 
 The chief protestant was a prophet whom we 
 know as Malachi, and though priestly ideas had 
 taken fast hold on him, there was still much of the 
 old prophetic spirit ablaze in his preachment. 
 
 But in vain did he raise his voice, for the day had 
 almost passed when a prophet could command the 
 respect of the mob. The Word of God had lost its 
 power in Judah and only the word of some earthly 
 authority could carry any weight in the land now. 
 
 And just in time that word came. 
 
 Pia ae oe 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 THE PRIESTS COME INTO POWER 
 
 The word of authority came from Babylonia, 
 and it was brought by a high official in the Persian 
 court, a Jew named Nehemiah. Learning of the 
 desperate plight of his brethren in Judah, this 
 Nehemiah asked the king of Persia for permission 
 to go back as governor of his people’s homeland. 
 The permission was quickly granted, for the king— 
 like Cyrus long before him—well knew how impor- 
 tant it was that the bridge called Palestine be held 
 by a people who bore him good will. 
 
 So, armed with all the authority of the great 
 Persian emperor, Nehemiah started out on the three 
 months’ journey to Jerusalem. 
 
 His first undertaking, once he arrived in the 
 ruined city, was that of rebuilding the wall. He 
 realized that until the city was protected from its 
 enemies, the inhabitants could never be at rest. 
 Accordingly he drafted all the able-bodied Jews in 
 and around Jerusalem, and set them to work. It 
 was a difficult undertaking, chiefly because the 
 Samaritans would give the builders no rest. Two 
 divisions had to be organized: one to build and 
 another to fight. There was endless spying and con- 
 spiring and deception. Nehemiah hurried the work 
 with all his might, for the Samaritans had carried 
 their agitation against him as far as the court of 
 
112 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 Babylon, and he feared he might suddenly be re- 
 called. 
 
 Finally, though laboring most of the time under 
 fire, Nehemiah’s men completed the wall. It ex- 
 tended much further than the one it replaced, for 
 it inclosed not merely Jerusalem but also several 
 little nearby villages. It was high and thick and 
 strong. In effect it was the foundation of the re- 
 stored Jewish state. 
 
 2 
 
 The rebuilding of the city wall, however, was 
 but the beginning of Nehemiah’s work. Within 
 the community the morale was at its lowest ebb, 
 and to this the leader had to turn his attention next. 
 The poor, who had had to neglect their farms while 
 working on the wall, were now being crushed in 
 the fists of the money lenders. The priests were 
 lazy and dissolute; the laymen scoffed at God and 
 His worship. The Sabbath, which had attained 
 such importance in the Exile, was now neglected 
 and forgotten. The taking of heathen and _half- 
 breed women as wives, was common in every 
 family. Unless a complete and drastic reform was 
 brought about immediately, it was clear that the 
 career of the whole community would soon be 
 ended. 
 
 Nehemiah and another leader, a scribe named 
 Ezra, realized this and fell to work. The whole 
 people was assembled in Jerusalem and there a new 
 code of laws, one that had probably been drawn up 
 in Babylonia on the basis of Ezekiel’s ideas, was 
 forced upon them. All those who had taken heathen 
 
THE PRIEST TRIUMPHANT 113 
 
 wives into their homes were ordered to send them 
 away. Outstanding debts were canceled; the priest- 
 hood was purged; the Sabbath laws were strictly 
 enforced. From end to end the life of the community 
 was swept clean by the two reformers. From a 
 lawless, reckless, godless populace, the Jews were 
 suddenly transformed into a band of puritans. 
 
 And the community was saved—for a while. 
 
 3 
 
 Now for the first time those who had remained 
 in exile began to throng back to their homeland. 
 From Babylonia they came in a steady stream; 
 probably from Egypt and other lands too. Back 
 they came to the blue hills of Judea, once more to 
 take up life there. But it was a life far different 
 from that which their ancestors had known two 
 centuries earlier. The newcomers were filled with 
 a thousand new ideas gleaned from the foreign 
 peoples among whom they had sojourned. They 
 were no longer simple tribesmen with crude ‘‘small- 
 town’ ideas. They had traveled and seen the world. 
 They were ‘“‘civilized.”’ 
 
 Yet for all that they were ‘‘civilized’’—perhaps 
 because of it—their religion was hardly so vital, 
 so dramatic, as it had been in the days of Micah or 
 Jeremiah. It had become a religion of law rather 
 than a free play of the spirit. It laid stress on 
 showy externals, on essentially unimportant things— 
 not eating certain foods—bringing regular gifts 
 to the priest—observing certain festivals. 
 
 And the Exile was very largely to blame for this 
 ehange. Even before the destruction of the old 
 
114 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 Temple, the seeds of a religion of priestliness had 
 taken root in Palestine. But it had been unable 
 to flourish then because the greater prophets were 
 most strenuously opposed to it, and the people them- 
 selves had only feebly been attracted by it. Now, 
 however, that the Jews had seen the great temples 
 and had witnessed the gorgeous ceremonies of priest- 
 ridden peoples like the Babylonians, they took to 
 the imitation of that sort of thing with alacrity. 
 And gone were the rebels, the true prophets, who 
 might have stemmed the tide in its favor. 
 
 The change was a tremendous one. Before the 
 Exile the Jews had all transgressed their religion 
 because that religion, the work of the prophets, had 
 been too high for them. But now the Jews no 
 longer transgressed it—because at the hands of the 
 priests it had been brought low. 
 
 t 
 
 To what extent it had been brought low can be 
 learned from a study of the prophecies of the day. 
 There were still prophets in the land, but a tawdry, 
 time-serving lot they were. The style of their 
 preaching was stilted and forced. They did not ery 
 out with the thundering directness of an Amos or 
 a Jeremiah; they used strange symbols and spoke in 
 twisted and far-fetched allegories. And for the most 
 part the burthen of their preaching was a cheap 
 jingo nationalism. These prophets declared the 
 Jews were a pious and perfect people, all because they 
 brought sacrifices to the priests at Jerusalem in a 
 pious and perfect fashion. As for the other peoples 
 on earth, they were all unspeakably wicked and sin- 
 
THE PRIEST TRIUMPHANT 115 
 
 ful. Soon, these prophets declared, very soon, they 
 would be cut down. 
 
 The old yearning for the coming of the Reign of 
 Peace was despised now, and the new prophets 
 looked forward instead to the day when plow- 
 shares would be turned into swords, and pruning- 
 hooks would be made into spears. The old dream 
 of a Messiah who would bring justice and freedom 
 to all men, was perverted into an ache for a ruthless 
 conqueror, a war lord, who would wade in the blood 
 of every heathen who refused to bring sacrifices to 
 Jerusalem three times a year! The Jews alone were 
 considered blessed; the goyim, the Gentiles, were all 
 accursed. 
 
 It was a mean and loathsome doctrine. It was 
 very like the doctrine—only with the characters 
 completely reversed—which is still uttered to-day 
 by too many preachers in the world. 
 
 But it was a doctrine that did not go unchal- 
 lenged in that early time. There were some in the 
 land of Judea who did see the ugliness of it, and 
 even though they dared not openly preach against 
 it, they were not altogether silent. They voiced 
 their protest not in sermons but in stories, in light 
 bits of fiction which below the surface were freighted 
 heavily with meaning. For instance, someone wrote 
 the beautiful story which we call the Book of Ruth, 
 and someone else wrote the powerful novel which 
 we call the Book of Jonah. 
 
 5 
 
 The Book of Ruth is a veiled protest against the 
 laws of Ezra and Nehemiah prohibiting intermar- 
 
116 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 riage. It tries to show that even King David, who 
 by this time was thought to be the greatest monarch 
 that ever reigned, was himself descended from a 
 noble Gentile woman, a Moabitess named Ruth. 
 
 The Book of Jonah in a like fashion was a veiled 
 protest against the narrow nationalism of the new 
 prophets. Its main character, Jonah, is just such 
 a prophet: a man who thinks God cares only for 
 the Hebrews. When the divine call comes to him 
 to preach to the Gentile city of Nineveh, the age- 
 old foe of Jerusalem, he is highly displeased. Why 
 should he, a Hebrew prophet, trouble himself about 
 the sinful heathens? Let them perish in their sin! 
 
 So instead of obeying, the command, he tries to 
 escape God’s reach by snéaking off to a foreign land. 
 But soon he learns that God’s reach extends far 
 beyond the borders of little Palestine, for the boat 
 in which he hides is overtaken by a furious storm. 
 He is cast into the sea and is saved from death only 
 because God sends a whale to swallow him. 
 
 And then, when Jonah is once more on dry land 
 and the call to go to Nineveh is repeated, he is 
 overawed and obeys. He goes to that city, tells 
 the inhabitants that within forty days they will 
 all be destroyed, and then sits back righteously to 
 see his prophecy fulfilled. 
 
 But to his vexation he is totally disappointed. 
 Those goyim prove not nearly so wicked as he had 
 thought them, for they take his words to heart and 
 repent. And when Jonah bursts out in angry com- 
 plaint because the city is spared, God reasons with 
 him gently and explains His conduct. The picture 
 drawn of God is almost that of an old and wise man 
 
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 patting the disgruntled Jonah on the head and mur- 
 muring: ‘‘There, there now, don’t be a child! If 
 those Gentiles are wicked, it is not their fault. They 
 are ignorant as the dumb beasts in their stalls. I 
 must be compassionate and long-suffering; I must 
 forgive them, for they know not what they do.” 
 
 That in colloquial paraphrase is God’s message 
 to Jonah—and of course, it was meant for all Judea 
 to hear. It was the ery of some high-minded rebel 
 against the tribal bigotry of the day. It was the 
 ery that the prophet Malachi had raised years 
 earlier when he declared, ‘‘Have we not all one 
 Father? Hath not one God created us all? ”’ 
 
 But the day had passed when a prophet dared 
 utter that doctrine in the open. He had to cover 
 it up somewhat by putting it into the form of a novel. 
 
 The great day of the prophet was gone. 
 
 The reign of the priest had come. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE GREEK INVASION BRINGS ON THE FIRST 
 WAR FOR FREEDOM OF THOUGHT 
 
 Year by year the power of the priests grew mightier 
 among the Jews. Wealth rapidly accumulated in 
 their hands, for each season the plain people had to 
 take them the choicest portions of their flocks and 
 harvests. The old democratic ideal of the prophets 
 that all Jews were priests, was forgotten. Now only 
 those who were supposed to come of the tribe of 
 Levi were allowed to minister in the Temple; and 
 furthermore only those of the family of Aaron of the 
 tribe of Levi were considered holy enough actually 
 to perform the sacrifices; and still further, only one 
 directly descended from Solomon’s favorite priest, 
 Zadok, could possibly become the High Priest. 
 
 The High Priest was virtually the king of the 
 land, and the lesser priests were the princes. They 
 were no better, of course, than lay kings and princes. 
 They were forever conspiring among themselves, 
 cheating and murdering their way from one office 
 to another. But for all their corruption, they did 
 succeed in doing one thing: they kept the Jews 
 alive as a separate people. They walled them in 
 with their little rules and regulations, keeping them 
 rigorously segregated from all the other tribes and 
 peoples. Even the half-Jewish Samaritans were 
 
120 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 cut off completely and had to start a temple of their 
 own in northern Palestine.* 
 
 2 
 
 But, despite the efforts of the priests, foreign 
 influences did seep into the life of the people. Gradu- 
 ally their language was corrupted from pure Hebrew 
 to a jargon called Aramaic, so that after a few genera- 
 tions they could not understand even their own 
 Scriptures. In their synagogues each Sabbath— 
 for those ‘‘meeting-houses”’ they had created in the 
 Exile had become common now throughout Judea— 
 they had to read their Holy Writings through an 
 Aramaic translation called the Targum. 
 
 And many of their religious ideas changed too. 
 From the Persians they had learned of angels and 
 devils, and also of Another World. For the first 
 time in their history they began to believe in Satan, 
 and in hell and heaven. Before this time God had 
 seemed very near to the Jews; but now they began to 
 think of Him as very far away—so far that he had to 
 do His work through the agency of good or evil mes- 
 sengers. And at one time the Jews had thought that 
 all life was lived in this world, and that after death 
 both righteous and wicked simply descended to the 
 ‘‘Pit,” where they wandered about as lifeless ghosts. 
 But now that this world held but little joy in store 
 for them, they began vaguely to dream of a World 
 to Come which only the righteous would inherit. 
 
 * The Samaritans are still to be found ae to-day, at two 
 hundred of them in all—the last remnant of an ever-rejected 
 but never-daunted people. And still to-day they have their 
 high priest and their ancient worship! 
 
 yes ~~ 
 
ENTER THE GREEK 121 
 
 Outwardly no sign of this change in thought was 
 evident. None was there to hail it, and so none could 
 rise to decry it. With meek regularity the people 
 brought their offerings to the priests, and with 
 sanctimonious grace the priests accepted them. And 
 seemingly nothing was happening. 
 
 But then came the Greek, and all was made open. 
 
 3 
 
 In the fateful year 333 B. c. Alexander the Great 
 became master of the Persian Empire, and a year 
 later, on his march toward Egypt, he took possession 
 of Palestine. (The little land was still the one bridge 
 used by the Empire builders. . . .) But this Alex- 
 ander, a mere boy in years, was quite unlike the 
 ordinary world-conqueror. His aim seems to have 
 been not so much the gaining of power as the spread- 
 ing of culture. He dreamed of scattering through- 
 out the world the seeds of the high Greek civiliza- 
 tion. In every land he entered he tried to create a 
 center of Greek influence; and so well did he suc- 
 ceed that though he died at the age of thirty-three 
 his Greek colonies dotted all of the then-known 
 world. 
 
 Alexander’s effect on the Jews and their religion 
 was greater than that of any other non-Jew in 
 history. He was generous to them and gave them 
 every liberty; but at the same time he located 
 peaceful settlements of his own people throughout 
 Palestine. The result was a growing familiarity with 
 all things Greek. Jews began to affect the use of 
 Greek words in their conversation, and began to 
 give their children Greek names. Just as nowadays 
 
122 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 little Samuel is called Seymour and little Sarah is 
 named Thyra, so in those days little Jochanan 
 became John and little Shalomtziyon became Sa- 
 lome. The young Jews began to frequent the gymna- 
 siums and to idolize the Greek athletes. They 
 became ‘‘sports.”’ 
 
 Hellenism—the word comes from Hellas, meaning 
 
 RCM recom Ad eg ho a, Pere 
 i oF ea 7 L < aiming ta ein’ Taraite & 
 
 2 
 a 
 
 7 
 
 10.—Alexander’s Empire 
 
 Greece—began to make itself felt in every walk 
 of Jewish life, especially in the many Jewish settle- 
 ments outside of Palestine. Unfortunately, it was 
 not the Hellenism of classic Greece, the Hellenism 
 that flowered in the genius of Socrates, Plato, Soph- 
 ocles, and Phidias. Rather it was that Hellenism 
 debased and sullied through long-handling by 
 Macedonians and other lesser tribes. 
 
 But debased as it was, it nevertheless proved 
 attractive. HEven the priests in Jerusalem began to 
 
ENTER THE GREEK 123 
 
 take to it. Indeed, they were attracted to it even 
 more than the plain people. The story goes that 
 they actually left the sacrifices unburnt on the altars 
 in the Temple, and hurried off to the arenas to watch 
 the Greek athletes there. Greek manners—and 
 vices—became the great fashion of the day, for the 
 
 THE EMPIRES WA 
 
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 Sib THAN A CENTURY OF WAR 
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 11.—After Alexander 
 
 more a Jew aped them the better seemed his chances 
 of growing in power and station. 
 
 4 
 
 Of course, this change did not come about over- 
 night, but took three or four generations. After 
 Alexander died his empire was divided into three 
 kingdoms; and Palestine being the bridge between 
 two of them, it naturally became for over a hundred 
 years the scene of constant warfare. But finally, 
 
124 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 in 198 B. c., it was definitely made a part of the 
 kingdom of Syria, and for a while there was peace. 
 
 Perhaps because the Greeks made no attempt to 
 force its progress, Hellenism had continued seep- 
 ing steadily into Palestine during all that troubl- 
 ous century. In the course of time it would so 
 have flooded the land that Jewish life and thought 
 would probably have been drowned out completely. 
 But one day there arose in Syria a king named 
 Antiochus Epiphanus who by his headstrong impa- 
 tience wiped out all these gains of Greek culture. 
 It is difficult to understand just what was wrong 
 with this king. He seems to have been learned and 
 markedly clever—but also at moments quite in- 
 sane. He took great delight in poking fun at the 
 whole business of religion, and yet at the same time 
 he tried to build a religion around himself. That 
 is why he called himself Theos Epiphanes, which 
 means ‘‘The Evident God.” 
 
 Judea at the time was seething with unrest be- 
 cause the corrupt, Hellenized priests were at last 
 being brought to book by a few of the pious Jews. 
 It looked something like a political uprising to 
 Antiochus, and on his way home from a campaign 
 in Egypt he stopped in the middle of the ‘‘bridge”’ 
 to attend to the trouble. He looted the Temple 
 and then simply ordered Judaism to cease. Just 
 that! Evidently he thought it would be quite easy 
 for him to stamp out this obscure and, as he thought, 
 very odd little religion. His orders were that never 
 more should the Sabbath, or the rite of cireumci- 
 sion, or the difference between ‘‘clean”’ and ‘‘un- 
 clean”? food, be observed. Anyone found with a 
 
 Oe ee 
 
ENTER THE GREEK 125 
 
 Hebrew book in his possession was immediately 
 to be put to death. Henceforth if there was to be 
 any sacrificing it must be of swine’s flesh, and to 
 Antiochus as god. 
 
 5 
 
 For a while starkest horror swept the land as 
 the army of Antiochus began to put those orders 
 into effect. There was looting and murder, wailing 
 and shame. And then, like the breaking out of a 
 mad fire, the people blazed into rebellion. A pious 
 old priest named Mattathias began it when he ran 
 his sword through one of the Syrian officers. Fleeing 
 into the wilderness with his five sons, he there began 
 to gather a band of desperate zealots. Then up and 
 down the countryside they went, tipping over the 
 hated altars set up by the foreigners, and putting 
 to death the renegade Jews who had sacrificed on 
 them. 
 
 It was magnificent, but it seemed insane. The 
 tattered rebels were untrained, unequipped, un- 
 supported—a tiny band of priests and peons fighting 
 with little more than their bare fists. The great 
 hosts of Syria, armed, disciplined, and led by the 
 greatest generals of the day, outnumbered them 
 ten to one. It seemed sheer suicide! 
 
 But it was not. Old Mattathias died soon after 
 the beginning of the rebellion, but he was succeeded 
 by one of his sons, Judas, who proved altogether 
 a genius in warfare. Four tremendous armies 
 were sent against him—one accompanied by dealers 
 to buy the defeated Jews as slaves—and all four he 
 utterly routed. Judas Maccabeus, Judas the ‘‘Ham- 
 
126 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 merer,’’ he was called by his elated followers—and 
 deservedly. Stationing his little army in narrow 
 passes, or rushing them by night marches to make 
 sudden attacks at dawn, he harried and hacked and 
 hammered the Syrians until at last they fled from 
 before him. 
 
 There came a lull in the fighting. On December 
 25th, in the year 165 B. c. the Jews amid great re- 
 joicings, cleansed the Temple of its swinish filth 
 and rededicated it to God.* 
 
 6 
 
 And then they went on with the struggle. More 
 than twenty years they went on with it, losing 
 in the strife one after another of the five stalwart 
 sons of old Mattathias. And finally in 148 B. c., 
 they triumphed completely. The Syrian was driven 
 utterly from the land, and Judea at last was free. 
 
 Almost for the first time in history a war had 
 consciously been waged for a spiritual principle. 
 Not because of grinding taxation or political domina- 
 tion had the Jews leapt to arms, but solely because 
 of religious oppression. They had fought for that 
 holiest of all causes, Freedom of Thought. 
 
 And they had triumphed. 
 
 * To this day the Jews celebrate that great victory with their 
 annual Feast of Lights called Chanukah. 
 
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 NEHEMIAH Govenor, 444B¢. 
 Walls of Jerusalem rebut? 
 In viilidcion. of tke Priestly, Law 
 
 ive Books of *Moses” completed 
 
 (Reign of the Priesis’) 
 Ai eO ANDERS introduces Greek 
 
 enllure 
 
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 dgaingi ellentsm) 
 
 Chart B. The Adventures of the Jews, Part IT 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE ROMAN CONQUEST: SETS THE HELPLESS 
 LITTLE NATION YEARNING FOR A MESSIAH 
 TO DELIVER IT 
 
 But the triumph of the Jews had been too com- 
 plete. The war which had been waged at first only 
 for religious freedom, ended in winning also political 
 independence. And that added gain proved their 
 undoing. 
 
 Simon, the last of the five sons of Mattathias, 
 was succeeded on the throne by his son, the High 
 Priest, John Hyrcanus; and with him the tragedy 
 began. Drunk with his new-found power, he under- 
 took cruel and costly wars against his neighbors. 
 In pursuance of his dream of carving out a great 
 empire for himself, he hacked down the Samaritans 
 on the north and the Edomites on the south. And 
 not content merely with making those lands subject 
 to his rule, he even compelled their inhabitants to 
 accept his religion. Forcibly he converted them to 
 Judaism. The grandson of old Mattathias who 
 gave his life for the right to worship his own God in 
 his own way, was now spending all his days trying 
 to wrest that very right from others. 
 
 But very soon a group of protestants began to 
 make themselves heard in the land of Judea. They 
 were called the Pharisees, the ‘‘ Interpreters,’ prob- 
 ably because they were pious men who spent much 
 
IN THE TALONS OF ROME 129 
 
 of their time studying and interpreting the Holy 
 Scriptures.* ‘They cared not in the least for empire 
 or dominion; their whole interest was in the Holy 
 Law and its fulfillment. 
 
 Those who belonged to the party in power in 
 
 S SQ ee 
 WAN i, 7 
 / 
 
 12.—The Realm of the Maccabees 
 
 the land were called the Sadducees, because they all 
 sided with the supposed descendants of the ancient 
 High Priest, Zadok. They were Hellenized aristo- 
 
 * Pharisees does not mean “‘Separatists” as scholars long 
 
 thought. Probably it comes from the Hebrew word pharash, 
 which means “to make clear.” 
 
130 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 crats, for the most part priests; but they showed 
 but feeble interest in their religion. Essentially 
 they were politicians. Sacramental ward-bosses, 
 one might call them. 
 
 2 
 
 Day by day the Pharisees grew bolder in their 
 attacks on these Sadducees; but they were powerless 
 to effect any reforms. King followed king in troublous 
 succession, and the bootless wars went on. Within 
 
 the land there was continuous strife. The Phar- 
 
 isees went about, objecting and pleading, and were 
 butchered and imprisoned for their trouble. There 
 was endless intrigue in the Temple among the 
 priests, open bribery and shameless corruption. 
 Pretenders committed murder to crawl to the throne, 
 and then in turn were murdered. Royal sons plotted 
 against their own fathers, and princely brothers 
 made war on one another. 
 
 Not a hundred years had passed from the time 
 all Judea had blazed with a white passion for liberty 
 —and now the fire had sunk to a low play of smoky 
 flame around a petty little throne. As so often has 
 since happened in the world’s history, a glorious 
 revolution failed only because it succeeded. 
 
 The lawlessness in the land grew so flagrant finally 
 that the Pharisees could stand it no longer. In 
 despair they appealed for help to Rome, the great 
 world-power of the day. No doubt they realized 
 they would have to pay with their political indepen- 
 dence for Rome’s help; but that did not deter them. 
 What cared they who was master of their land, so 
 long as they were left masters of their religion? 
 
 a 
 
IN THE TALONS OF ROME 131 
 
 Pompey, the Roman general, answered the call 
 of the Pharisees; and after his conquest of the land 
 there was quiet for a while. Many of the Sadducees 
 were sent as prisoners to Rome, and the Pharisees 
 were left in peace to study their beloved law. 
 
 3 
 
 But soon trouble began again. Sadducee leaders 
 escaped from Rome and returned to foment rebel- 
 lion in Judea. One after another they appeared 
 in the land, raising little armies, terrorizing the 
 countryside, and then going down to quick and 
 bloody defeat. Finally the Romans began to lose 
 patience, and grew less tolerant toward the whole 
 people. The Temple was looted and the land again 
 and again pillaged by Roman armies. For more 
 than twenty years virtual anarchy prevailed in 
 Judea. Kings and pretenders, governors and high 
 priests, generals and bandits all clawed and fought 
 in the mad scramble for power. 
 
 For a while an Edomite half-Jew named Herod 
 managed to get control of the land. By conniving 
 with Rome he had himself made king of the Jews, 
 and then with unspeakable cruelty he battered his 
 people into submission. He murdered his own wife, 
 three of his sons, and many others of his family, 
 in striving to make his position firm. And then he 
 built a magnificent new Temple in belated effort 
 to win the favor of the Jews. 
 
 But it was to no avail. The splendor and pros- 
 perity which the king brought to the land meant 
 nothing to the people. They hated and loathed him, 
 and the moment he died they rebelled against the 
 
132 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 son who succeeded him. Three thousand Jews were 
 slaughtered right in the Temple courtyard, and the 
 rebellion was crushed. But in a little while another 
 started and flamed up. Again there were massacres, 
 and again the Temple was sacked. But the people 
 would not stay under control. They utterly refused 
 to be subject to the son of the hated Edomite, and 
 Rome finally had to transfer him from the land. 
 
 The last vestige of independence was gone. Judea 
 was now but a part of the Roman province of Syria. 
 
 Yet still no peace came to the unhappy little 
 land. The Roman governors proved a cruel and 
 rascally lot. They provoked the people in a thou- 
 sand ways, and all Judea seethed with unrest. Vio- 
 lent patriots arose, and they spread a reign of terror 
 against all who were supposed to sympathize with 
 Rome. The Zealots they were called, and night 
 after night they committed murders in the cities 
 and villages of Judea. There were riots and lynch- 
 ings; and in punishment, innumerable crucifixions. 
 Judea was gory with its own blood as it writhed in 
 the talons of Rome. 
 
 t 
 
 But dark as was the night—and never had it been 
 darker—still a hope gleamed for the people. It was 
 the old hope of the great prophets, the wild hope that 
 soon, very soon, the Messiah would come. Through 
 all those years—it was now fully four hundred years 
 since Haggai and Zachariah had promised that the 
 ‘‘Anointed One” would come if the Temple were 
 rebuilt—the hope had been kept alive in Judea. It 
 had been kept alive by many writers whose names 
 
IN THE TALONS OF ROME 133 
 
 we do not know, but whose books—called by us 
 the Apocalypses—are still extant. 
 
 Most of those Apocalypses were written secretly 
 and put in circulation as the works of various great 
 men of the past. Some were claimed to be the 
 work of Ezra, others of Jeremiah, of Solomon, of the 
 Patriarchs, even of Noah. The real authors had to 
 make such claims because otherwise their books 
 would not have been read at all. People thought 
 that only the great men of the past had known the 
 Truth, had been inspired by God. Therefore only 
 the very ancient writings seemed to them holy 
 enough to be read in their synagogues, and these 
 they called simply seforim, ‘‘Books.” (The Greek 
 for seforim is biblia, from which we get our word 
 Bible.) So the latter-day author in order to get 
 his own book included among these seforim, had 
 to say that he had discovered an hitherto unknown 
 production of some ancient worthy. 
 
 To us that may seem sheer dishonesty; but that 
 is only because our standards are different. An 
 author’s first desire is to get his book in the hands 
 of the people, and in those days, it was considered 
 no harm to resort to this trick to secure publication. * 
 
 * Sometimes an author not merely palmed off his own ideas 
 as the thought of some other and greater man; if he got the 
 chance he even inserted them bodily in that other man’s genuine 
 writings. That is one of the main reasons why so many contra- 
 dictions and bewildering inconsistencies deface most of the 
 books of the Bible. Those who copied them on new scrolls 
 year after year—for it was centuries before the invention of 
 printing—not merely made mistakes and carelessly skipped 
 words and lines, but also wrote in whole new chapters of their 
 own devising. 
 
134 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 5 
 
 In the horror of the Syrian and Roman perse- 
 cutions, the land was flooded with these books 
 bearing false titles. Almost all of them dealt with the 
 coming of the Messiah, and described in detail just 
 how and when this present world would be utterly 
 destroyed and the new one miraculously ushered 
 in. We can hardly understand most of them, now, 
 for they are written in a queer and incoherent style. 
 They are chock-full of strange visions and tortuous 
 calculations attempting to prove all the old prophe- 
 cies literally true. For instance, before the Exile 
 Jeremiah had promised that after seventy years 
 Judah would be restored to its own land to enjoy 
 the blessings of the Messianic kingdom. Probably 
 he had meant that to be taken as a round number. 
 It was like saying that ‘‘before very long” or ‘‘in 
 the lifetime of our children” these great wonders 
 would happen. 
 
 But the later writers took the numbers in those 
 prophecies literally, and since they knew that the 
 seventy years had long passed and no Messiah had 
 come, they began to juggle with the figures. At one 
 time, they said seventy years meant really seventy 
 weeks of years—in other words, four hundred and 
 ninety. That particular calculation was made when 
 about four hundred and eighty-eight of the four 
 hundred and ninety years had already passed, and 
 fierce terror and joy swept through the land at the 
 nearness of the Great Day. ... But the four 
 hundred and ninetieth year soon passed, and no 
 Messiah came—and more juggling had to be done. 
 
 =o 
 
 = nl watt 
 
 PS Gape ot ewe 
 
IN THE TALONS OF ROME 135 
 
 The number seventy somehow fascinated the 
 Jews of the time, and they twisted and tortured and 
 dragged out of it the most far-fetched and ridicu- 
 lous calculations. It was not that the people had 
 lost their heads—though the times were cruel enough 
 to make them do so. It was simply that these 
 Jews, with their tremendous will to live, knew 
 themselves to be on the verge of death. And they 
 would not die. Anything—any wild promise or 
 wilder distortion of a promise—anything was clutched 
 at in that terrible hour. They would not die! 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 JOSHUA OF NAZARETH, A YOUNG PROPHET, IS 
 HAILED AS THE MESSIAH BY THE JEWS, AND 
 IS CRUCIFIED BY THE ROMANS 
 
 There is something intensely pathetic in the sight 
 of tiny Judea bleeding to death in the claws of a 
 great empire, yet always, always, dreaming on of 
 release. But even more pathetic is the story of the 
 hysteria and excitement which that constant dream- 
 ing stirred up in the land. The more horrible the 
 persecutions and massacres, the nearer seemed the 
 advent of the ‘‘Anointed One.” Each day was 
 thought to be the very last, and every hour the 
 people pricked up their ears for the sound of the 
 Messiah’s trumpet. It was like being adrift at 
 night in an open boat—none knew when the cries for 
 help would be answered. 
 
 Frenzied mystics, many of them more than half- 
 mad, went up and down the land and cried in shrill, 
 hysterical voices: ‘‘Repent ye, for the kingdom of 
 Heaven is at hand!” Most of them belonged to 
 a secret fraternity of hermits called the Essenes, 
 and they believed that strict piety, charity, and 
 bathing in the streams—baptism as‘it was called in 
 Greek—would alone prepare the people for the com- 
 ing of the Messiah. 
 
 In some of these mystics the great spirit of the 
 ancient prophets seemed reborn, and they attracted 
 
JOSHUA OF NAZARETH 137 
 
 enormous followings. One of them, a Jew named 
 John, was especially influential in those days. He 
 was a wild-looking young man who took his stand 
 by the River Jordan and called on the people to 
 leap in and be cleansed of their sins. They called 
 him John the Baptist, and hundreds flocked to him. 
 But because he offended the cruel king Herod by 
 his open denunciations of the ruler’s wickedness, 
 he was imprisoned and later put to death. 
 
 Many others, however, arose to take John’s place: 
 young wild-eyed men who flayed the people with 
 bitter tongues and drove them to the verge of stark 
 madness, and gentle souls who tried to bring them 
 comfort, and only stirred them the more. 
 
 There was one preacher in particular, a youth 
 named Joshua—he who is known to us as Jesus of 
 Nazareth. 
 
 2 
 
 It is not easy to write of this man Joshua. To 
 some he has become altogether a god, and to others— 
 because so much evil has been done them in his 
 name—he seems very like a fiend. But if we are 
 to obtain any true knowledge or understanding of 
 him, he must be to us neither god nor fiend, but 
 simply an earnest young Jew who came to his people 
 in their night of terror and sought to bring them 
 light. 
 
 More has been said and written of this one man 
 than of any other in all history—but still we know 
 exceedingly little about him. All that is preserved 
 of his own words was set down years after his death 
 in a tongue he did not speak, and by men not nearly 
 
138 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 so great as to understand all he said. And even 
 that little was copied and recopied by scribe after 
 scribe until to-day much of it seems tortured out of 
 all likeness to what may have been the true words. 
 Save for what is set down in the New Testament, 
 we know not a thing about this prophet Joshua. 
 The Pharisees, who were writing whole volumes 
 at about the same time, make no mention of him 
 whatsoever. Nor have the Roman records any 
 light to throw on his life or death. This lack of any 
 reference to him in the writings of the day is very 
 perplexing. Perhaps preachers and prophets were 
 too common in the land then for extended comment 
 to be made about any one of them... . 
 
 While he lived, hundreds came eagerly to hear 
 him; but once he died he was soon forgotten—soon 
 forgotten by all save a few. But those few remem- 
 bered him well. 
 
 3 
 
 He was born in the north of Palestine, in Galilee, 
 and his father was a humble carpenter. He, too, 
 in his youth was a carpenter. He had little 
 learning, for in that region and among such poor 
 folk, learning was exceedingly rare. He spoke in 
 Aramaic, the jargon of the day, and perhaps he 
 could not even read Hebrew. But like most other 
 Jewish lads even of his lowly station, he did know 
 the words of the great prophets of old, and the 
 prayers which the pious Pharisees were wont to 
 recite in the synagogues. And what is far more 
 important, the God-hungry spirit of the Jew was 
 mighty in his bones. He saw the travail of his 
 
JOSHUA OF NAZARETH 139 
 
 people and it so stirred him that he could not abide 
 in peace in his village. He arose from among his 
 tools, and taking staff in hand he went forth to make 
 ready for the Day of the Messiah. 
 
 First he was one of them that followed that great 
 Jew, John the Baptist. Then, when John was 
 murdered by the king, young Joshua went forth 
 and preached by himself. 
 
 He preached in the villages of Galilee, and the 
 simple folk, the peasants and the fishermen with 
 their wives and little children, flocked to hear his 
 words. Sometimes he spoke in the synagogues, 
 for it seems any Jew who so desired could arise in 
 them and preach. But more often he preached on 
 the dusty highways, on the beach of the Sea of 
 Galilee, and in the fields. | 
 
 Of what Joshua looked like, we know nothing. 
 No doubt he was dark like all the other Jews then, 
 and probably he was thin and not very strong in 
 body. 
 
 He had no new gospel to bring to the people, but 
 only sought to have them understand and love that 
 which long before had been brought to them. He 
 told them, as had so many prophets before him, 
 that God was a Loving Father who would forgive 
 them all if they but repented. Also he told them 
 that soon, very soon, the Messiah would come, and 
 that then the Kingdom of Heaven would be seen 
 on earth. 
 
 He taught the people to recite simple and com- 
 forting prayers like the one beginning, ‘‘Our Father 
 which art in Heaven’? —prayers made up of verses 
 which the Pharisees in Jerusalem were wont to 
 
140 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 recite. And he reminded the people of certain laws 
 and commandments in the ancient seforim, the 
 Holy Scriptures. Especially he reminded them of 
 that highest law of all—that they should love one 
 another. Even their enemies should they love if 
 they would enter the Kingdom of Heaven. 
 
 + 
 
 But what must have attracted the people most 
 was the manner of this young prophet. A spirit 
 breathed through his preaching that rarely if ever 
 before had been known in the land. There was an 
 overwhelming warmth and kindliness, a tremendous 
 love in it all. With the exception of Hosea, the 
 other prophets seem to have been fierce and im- 
 patient men. Their words were like whetted swords 
 that cut down the sinners, that bruised and stabbed 
 and pierced them through. Or they were like knotted 
 whips that flayed them. 
 
 But this Joshua, save at rare moments, was all 
 tenderness and benignity. Not merely did he tell 
 of God’s great love; most earnestly he tried to 
 practice it. 
 
 And that was a day when not love but hate was 
 sovereign among men. The Romans crucified the 
 Zealots, the Zealots murdered the Sadducees, the 
 Sadducees loathed the Pharisees; and all of them 
 together despised the wretched folk in the slums 
 of the towns and on the farms of the land. 
 
 Perhaps that was why the young Galilean was 
 so followed and so devotedly believed. To a people 
 tired unto death of hate, he came with a word of love. 
 
 Especially to the cowed and broken, to the poor 
 
JOSHUA OF NAZARETH 141 
 
 and unlearned, he came with that word of love. He 
 told them that in God’s sight they were more pre- 
 cious even than the wealthiest and the most learned 
 in all the land. He went down to the sinners in 
 the places of shame, to the outcasts and the pari- 
 ahs, and told them that if they would but repent 
 they could not fail to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. 
 
 And they believed him. Desiring to believe, thirst- 
 ing for the certainty that they too might enter 
 the World to Come, the souls of the lowly went 
 out to this Joshua and his words as the parched 
 tongues of cattle reach out for the rain. 
 
 And they were grateful to him. They flung them- 
 selves to the ground and kissed his feet for his good- 
 - ness toward them. Indeed, they were too grateful 
 and praised him so that he had to chide them. Only 
 the good God, he declared, deserved such praise. 
 
 But he could not stay them from it. Never before 
 had so benign a prophet come among them; and 
 their adoration would suffer no curtailing. And as 
 the months passed and he continued preaching, 
 lo, he began to seem in their eyes even more than 
 a mortal being! They began to believe that he 
 could work miracles, that he could heal the halt and 
 blind—even that he could raise the dead. He seemed 
 too near perfection, too wondrous to be just a man 
 like themselves. He seemed the very Messiah! .. . 
 
 5 
 
 We cannot tell for certain whether Joshua him- 
 self ever became possessed of that idea. Perhaps 
 he did. With a great multitude hailing and wor- 
 shiping him as the “Anointed One,” the thought 
 
142 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 must have been nigh impossible to resist. But though 
 there is this uncertainty as to his own mind, there 
 can be none as to the mind of the people. To them 
 he was indeed the long-promised Messiah come at 
 last to usher in the Kingdom of Heaven. And 
 when after ministering three years in Galilee, the 
 prophet went down to keep the Passover in Jeru- 
 salem, his fame preceded him and he was greeted 
 there by ecstatic mobs as the awaited Deliverer. 
 
 But his triumphal entry into Jersualem proved 
 young Joshua’s undoing. Before five days had 
 passed, he knew his end was near. The Sadducees, 
 whom he had flaunted the very first day, were 
 feverishly busy, plotting evil against him. He had 
 driven their money changers out of the Temple 
 courts, and they could not forgive him for it. He 
 tried to escape beyond the city walls, but he was 
 pursued, betrayed, and taken prisoner to the house 
 of a high priest. There hastily he was tried by a 
 court of priests, and found guilty—though of what 
 crime we cannot now tell. Perhaps his very con- 
 demners could not have told either. They wanted 
 to put him out of the way, as centuries earlier they 
 had wanted to put Jeremiah out of the way. He 
 was their enemy, and they could have no thought of 
 mercy. 
 
 From the high priests’ house he was taken to the 
 palace of the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate. 
 Again was he questioned, this time. by the governor 
 alone. And then abruptly he was sentenced to 
 digest avi 
 
 There was no justice in it all. Pilate, a quick, 
 choleric official, could have had no real understanding 
 
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144 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 of what the young prophet had done, or had dreamed 
 of doing. He seems to have thought him but another 
 mad young patriot, a rebel against Rome, a pre- 
 tender to the throne of Judea. He considered the 
 strange man a troubler in the land—so he had to 
 put him to death. 
 
 6 
 
 And after the sun had risen the next day, the 
 Roman soldiers took that young Jew to the top of a 
 hill nearby, scourged him with fagots, crowned 
 him in derision with a wreath of thorns, and nailed 
 him to a cross. They nailed him to a cross between 
 two thieves, and over his head they carved the 
 mocking words, ‘‘ King of the Jews.’ And there in 
 mortal pain he hung for hours. Gone were the 
 huzzahing crowds; gone even were his own disciples. 
 Only a little knot of bewildered women and near 
 friends stood by to watch as he passed away. In 
 the city the Jews were busy preparing for the Pass- 
 over feast; in the fields the disciples were hiding, 
 too terrified to confess they had even known the 
 martyr. Deserted he hung there on that lone hill. 
 
 The sun began to redden the far horizon, and the 
 man Joshua could no longer endure the pangs. He 
 began to moan. Brokenly he moaned as the throes 
 of death came over him. ‘‘My God! my God! why 
 hast thou forsaken me?” he begged. 
 
 And then he died. 
 
 —_ ee 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 HOW A NEW RELIGION WAS CREATED AROUND 
 THE STORY OF THE CRUCIFIED PROPHET 
 
 Joshua of Nazareth died, and as far as Pontius 
 Pilate and the priests were concerned, that was the 
 end of that matter. 
 
 But it was not. Rather it was but the beginning. 
 
 The Jerusalem mob soon forgot the young man 
 who had been killed for preaching war with Rome 
 when he had only preached peace with God. They 
 forgot him because other preachers, perhaps many 
 others, came after him—and were also killed. 
 
 But among the fishermen and peasants of Galilee 
 there was no forgetting him. His prophecies had 
 become too much a part of their life for them ever 
 to forget him who had uttered them. And when 
 the bedraggled disciples came trudging home with 
 the news of the prophet’s death, great was the con- 
 sternation among those poor people. They were 
 utterly desolated. For if the Romans had been 
 able to kill this Messiah, then he could not have 
 been the real Messiah after all! He must have been 
 a charlatan and a fraud! 
 
 But that they could not believe. They who had 
 known the young man Joshua, they who had heard 
 him and followed him, could not possibly believe 
 he had deceived them. They could not even be- 
 lieve he was dead. To them it seemed incredible 
 
146 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 that a soul so wondrous and godlike as his could 
 have been snuffed out on a cross hard by Jerusalem’s 
 gate. 
 
 And soon there began a furtive whispering among 
 those scattered believers. It was said the body 
 of the Master was no longer in the tomb where it 
 had been buried. On the third day it had disap- 
 peared, so the rumor went. The body had gone 
 up to heaven—straight up to God—just as the 
 body of Elijah had gone up to God. People had seen 
 it go up. Solemnly they swore they had seen it 
 ascend into heaven. 
 
 And they that set those rumors afloat were not 
 consciously telling falsehoods. They themselves 
 believed them. They believed them because they 
 could not bear to think that he whom they had 
 looked on as their Messiah had perished. And they 
 that heard the rumors—and eagerly passed them on 
 —believed them for the same reason. ‘Those unhappy 
 folk, aching in every limb because of the travail 
 of the world that then was, would not without a 
 struggle give up their hope of the World to Come. 
 
 2 
 
 And thus was born a strange and obscure sect 
 called the Nazarenes. Its members were all Jews, 
 but Jews with a peculiar doctrine. They believed 
 that the Messiah had already come, and that he 
 was now in heaven watching over them with tender 
 but troubled eyes. If they lived the life he had 
 commanded them, if they loved one another and 
 shared their wealth and held no slaves in bondage, 
 and put away all lust and vain desire, then he would 
 
CHRISTIANITY IS BORN 147 
 
 be able to return to them. Swiftly he would re- 
 turn to them and this time he would surely usher 
 in the Kingdom of Heaven. 
 
 Perhaps there were five hundred in Galilee, per- 
 haps a thousand, who held to that doctrine. The 
 other Jews paid little or no attention to the sect, 
 for they knew its members were simple peasant 
 folk living in a region where new doctrines, and 
 fanaticisms, and sects arose almost daily. The 
 other Jews were too much occupied in their death 
 struggle with Rome to concern themselves with the 
 tiny movement. 
 
 3 
 
 And while the other Jews fought with governor 
 after governor, complaining, petitioning, rebelling, 
 and dying, that tiny movement grew. A certain 
 man named Saul or Paul, a Jew of Roman citizen- 
 ship, became its champion. He was not like the 
 other Nazarenes, for he was a man of the world, a 
 person of culture, a magnificent orator. Nor was 
 his doctrine at all as simple as theirs. He took the 
 one central thought, the belief in the Messiah—the 
 Christ as he called him in Greek—who had died on 
 the cross; but to it he added many other thoughts 
 gleaned by him in the market places of Asia Minor 
 and the isles of the sea. 
 
 Even in his day, however, the movement was 
 not yet considered a new religion, but still esteemed 
 a part of Judaism. And Paul preached it to Jews 
 in their synagogues scattered throughout the Med- 
 iterranean lands. Jewish colonies had long been 
 established in many of those foreign cities, but 
 
148 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 they were made up in large part of Gentiles who 
 had been converted to Judaism. Such conversions 
 had been common everywhere for so many years, 
 that there were many more Jews outside of Judea 
 than init. But the Jerusalem Pharisees looked upon 
 all those new Jewish converts as only half-Jews. 
 Most of them were uncircumcised; and they did 
 not keep all the laws set down in the seforim, the 
 Holy Scriptures. They still clung to many of their 
 old beliefs and superstitions. 
 
 It is difficult for us to understand just what was 
 going on in the civilized world at that time. <A great 
 hunger seems to have taken possession of all the 
 races, a hunger for faith, for religion. It was a 
 tired, a dying world—a world that had lost its best 
 blood in wasteful wars of conquests. And in its 
 last hours it gulped thirstily from every cup of faith 
 held to its lips, hoping wildly that some one of them 
 might contain the elixir of life. In the lands around 
 the Mediterranean there was almost an orgy of belief- 
 making in those years. All sorts of gods belonging to 
 all sorts of religions were fused together—even their 
 names were combined!—and sacrifices were offered 
 to them all at one time. Not having complete 
 faith in any one God, the people tried to make use 
 of them all. 
 
 For that reason, the strict orthodox Jews looked 
 with suspicion on the converts they were winning 
 day by day. The newcomers into the fold were 
 too hectic, too feverish. And they came with too 
 many of their old beliefs still strong in their hearts. 
 So they were received with reservations—with 
 severe reservations. 
 
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_ 150 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 4 
 
 But Paul was not nearly so strict, .so narrow. 
 He treated those converts as his equals, for he 
 claimed that now that the Messiah had come, all 
 of the old laws were no longer valid. Now Gentile 
 and Jew were one, and uncircumcised as well as 
 circumcised could enter the Kingdom of Heaven— 
 if they but believed in him who was crucified. 
 
 Paul was a shrewd man. He was willing to 
 compromise. 
 
 But the Pharisees, the strict Jews, were less 
 shrewd. They were willing to lose the world rather 
 than annul one jot or tittle of their law. With them 
 it was all or nothing. 
 
 Some say that was wrong of those Pharisees. 
 They say they should have been less stiff-necked 
 and uncompromising. Perhaps so. But when we 
 see what came of Paul’s leniency, how far his fol- 
 lowers strayed from the religion of him they called 
 their Christ, we can hardly censure the Pharisees. 
 Perhaps they were indeed bigoted to withdraw be- 
 hind their high stockade of Law. But they seem 
 to have sensed the fact that the hour was not yet 
 ripe for them to do otherwise. 
 
 It was all very well, thought the Pharisees, to 
 make God’s house a house of prayer for all people— 
 but first it had to be their God’s house. 
 
 And thus a new religion was born. While the 
 Pharisees in their self-righteousness hoarded what 
 was, after all, the religion of Jesus, Paul spread far 
 and wide what became the religion of the Christ. 
 
 And so did Christianity begin. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM BY THE ROMAN 
 LEGIONS, AND THE “END” IT BROUGHT TO THE 
 JEWISH NATION 
 
 In Judea the gory struggle between Roman and 
 Jew dragged on. Only for a brief moment was there 
 a respite when a grandson of Herod, a man favored 
 by Rome yet beloved by the Jews, was made king 
 of the land. But he died in the year 44 a. p. and 
 from then on there was unbroken turmoil. Seven 
 Roman governors followed each other in rapid 
 succession, each one more cruel than the other. 
 They drove the people to despair and madness by 
 their wanton violations of religious feeling. 
 
 Perhaps those governors were not altogether to 
 blame. They were at their wits’ end. They had 
 been able to handle all sorts of people in every part 
 of the then-known world—but these Jews were al- 
 together beyond them. They were the only people 
 on earth who would rather die than offer sacrifices 
 to the image of an emperor. They were willing to 
 give up everything, their wealth, their homes, their 
 land, their very lives—but they would not give up 
 their God. To the Roman officials they seemed a 
 spoiled, obstinate, half-demented people; and failing 
 to win them over with kind words, they tried their 
 swords. Thousands of Jews were put to death in 
 those ghastly years. They were burned and crucified 
 and massacred in droves. 
 
152 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 Finally, in the year 66, matters reached a climax. 
 The Jews could stand the tyranny no longer, and 
 openly rebelled. Roman legions were sent down 
 from Syria to quell the uprising, but to no avail. 
 The Jews fought like maddened lions, and could 
 not be subdued. Nero, the Roman emperor, realized 
 this was no ordinary little outbreak, and quickly 
 sent two of his ablest generals, Vespasian and Titus, 
 to the scene. Down through Galilee they marched, 
 fighting wildly a whole year before finally reducing 
 it to subjection. Then west of Jerusalem they 
 plowed a bloody furrow; then south; and then at 
 last up to the walls of the city itself. 
 
 2 
 
 It is chiefly from the writings of a Jewish general 
 named Josephus, a man who deserted his forces 
 and then tried to do penance by recounting the 
 heroism of those who stayed true, that we know 
 what happened during the siege. Jerusalem became 
 the scene of one of the most devastating contests 
 in all history. The besieged within the city were 
 divided into three camps, each wrangling with the 
 other over who should be leader and how the war 
 should be carried on. One held the lower city, another 
 the upper, and a third the Temple area in between. 
 Two of the factions began to quarrel over the pos- 
 session of the town granaries, and after repeated 
 raids and massacres, someone set fire to the whole 
 vast store so that it was completely destroyed. 
 There they were, a million or more Jews butchering 
 each other in an ancient, dirty, high-walled city 
 
THE FALL OF JERUSALEM 153 
 
 hardly a mile square in size; the food supplies gone; 
 and the dread Roman already at the gates! . . 
 
 And yet they would not surrender. 
 
 Vespasian had been called back to Rome to be 
 crowned as emperor, and Titus, his son, began the 
 siege. His artillery hurled great boulders a quarter 
 of a mile into the heart of the city. Great mounds 
 were built close against the north wall and on these 
 huge battering rams were placed. (Every tree 
 within ten miles of the city had been cut down to 
 make those rams.) And then, day and night the 
 thunder of the rams was to be heard. 
 
 Fifteen days the incessant pounding went on, and 
 at last a breach was made in the outer wall. Nine 
 days more, and the second wall fell. 
 
 At last the Romans were masters of the lower 
 city. 
 
 But still the Jews would not surrender. In the 
 upper city they huddled, starving and dying. There 
 was murder among them over scraps of meat or 
 bread. At night those who stole out to pick herbs 
 and roots in the fields were crucified by the Romans 
 who captured them—five hundred were crucified 
 in one day—or were slain and robbed when they 
 returned home. 
 
 Yet they would not surrender. 
 
 No, rather they became even more madly stubborn 
 as their terrors increased. They undermined the 
 Roman mounds so that the huge battering rams sud- 
 denly came crashing to the ground. Then out they 
 stormed like ravenous demons, flinging themselves 
 full tilt at the enemy, and clawing, slashing, biting 
 their way through. 
 
154 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 The great legions wavered—tottered—broke. And 
 Titus retreated. 
 
 But then came even greater horrors for the be- 
 sieged. Titus had a high wall of earth five miles 
 in length thrown all around the city—and sat down 
 to wait. The suffering of the Jews seemed beyond 
 bearing. Even Titus, a hard Roman not unused to 
 war, could not stand the sight of it. He begged the 
 mad zealots to surrender and have done with it all. 
 
 But no. No surrender. Never! 
 
 A month passed. Two. ‘The Romans returned 
 to the attack. One wall fell, but a second had been 
 raised by the Jews in the meantime. The second 
 fell. But still the heroes fought on. They were 
 taking their stand in the inner fortress now. The 
 narrow streets ran with blood. Sickening was the 
 stench of the dead bodies rotting in the hot summer 
 sun. Jews fought each other in the streets over 
 handfuls of the most loathsome food—filthy straw, 
 bits of old leather, even offal. The wife of the high 
 priest, who had been wont to have thick carpets 
 laid from her house to the Temple so that her sandals 
 might not be soiled, now staggered about in the 
 alleyways in search of crusts. The daily offerings 
 on the altars were no longer made because of the 
 lack of animals. .. . 
 
 But still no surrender. 
 
 Titus again offered to make terms, but again the 
 zealots refused to parley. They knew what terms 
 with the enemy would mean—giving over the city. 
 And they believed the city was God’s, not theirs, 
 to give. And so wondrous was their faith that at the 
 sight of it some of the Roman soldiers even deserted 
 
THE FALL OF JERUSALEM 155 
 
 their own legions and ran to throw in their lot with 
 the besieged. 
 
 The fortress walls were scaled, and the zealots 
 were forced to retreat to the Temple courts. For 
 six days the battering rams savagely pounded the 
 sacred walls, and then at last the inevitable end drew 
 near. ‘Titus ordered that the sanctuary be spared, 
 but his infuriated soldiers refused to listen. A burn- 
 ing torch was hurled through the Golden Window, 
 and immediately the wooden beams caught fire. 
 Into the Temple courts the soldiers dashed, mas- 
 sacring the thousands who had taken refuge there. 
 
 And then there was quiet for a moment. 
 
 But again the resistance blazed forth. The zealots 
 retreated to the upper city, to their last inch of 
 ground, and once more defied the enemy. Almost 
 a whole month they held out there before they 
 crumpled for good. They were starved out and 
 exhausted. Their strength was utterly spent. 
 
 The Romans came raging in, slaying until their 
 arms were tired. Every alley, and room, and corner 
 was choked with bleeding corpses. Then fire was 
 set to everything—houses, buildings, walls—and 
 the conquerors stood back to watch the flames. 
 
 And thus was old Jerusalem destroyed. 
 
 3 
 
 It is said that more than a million Jews died in 
 that siege. Of those who survived, ninety-seven 
 thousand were made slaves. They were deported 
 to labor in the mines of Egypt, or were forced to 
 fight wild beasts in the Roman arenas. ‘Titus him- 
 self took the noblest of the zealots away to march 
 
156 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 in his triumphal procession through the broad streets 
 of Rome. A great arch was built there to com- 
 memorate his ghastly triumph, an arch on which 
 were carved figures of his young captives carrying 
 the sacred vessels of the Temple. 
 
 The remains of that beauteous arch are still 
 standing in old Rome. And the ruins of the blood- 
 soaked wall still stand in old Jerusalem. Only 
 there are no Romans now to look on that arch and 
 rejoice in the triumph it commemorates. The Jews 
 alone are left, and they come to pray at their old 
 wall even to this day. The Romans have gone— 
 gone the way of the Egyptians and Assyrians and 
 Babylonians and Persians and Greeks. Only the 
 Jews still live. 
 
 In the year 70, with Jerusalem destroyed, it 
 seemed as if the Strange People, the Jews, had in- 
 deed reached their end. 
 
 But it was not their end. 
 
 It was but a new beginning. 
 
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 15.—The Terrible Dispersion of 70 A. D. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE TERRIBLE DISPERSION, AND HOW THE 
 RABBIS SAVED THE JEWISH FAITH 
 
 Even with the destruction of Jerusalem the war 
 did not end. Little bands of zealots fled to distant 
 fortresses and continued to defy Rome. And when 
 one after another they found they could not possibly 
 hold out, they preferred to destroy themselves rather 
 than surrender. 
 
 But even after all open resistance had been stamped 
 out, the unrest continued. The conqueror had pro- 
 claimed a new law taxing every Jew in the whole 
 Empire for the support of the pagan temple of 
 Jupiter in Rome. This was supposed to replace the 
 old half-shekel which the Jews everywhere had been 
 wont to pay toward the support of their Temple in 
 Jerusalem; and the attempts to collect the new tax 
 fanned the embers of revolt in the people. And 
 fanning them year after year, it not was long before 
 they burst into high flames again, and once more 
 human blood was spilled in the land. 
 
 The immediate cause of the new rebellion was the 
 folly of a Roman emperor named Hadrian. He 
 set out to win over the Jews by a proposal to build 
 a grand new temple in Jerusalem. It was to be a 
 temple dedicated, however, not to God but to 
 Jupiter! Hadrian in his Gentile mind, imagined the 
 Jews would be delighted with any sort of a temple, 
 
THE TERRIBLE DISPERSION 159 
 
 so long as its location was Mount Moriah in Jeru- 
 salem. And he was greatly enraged when he learnt 
 that they resented the very idea of his building such 
 a sanctuary. He gave up all hope then of winning 
 them over with kindness, and resorted to force. He 
 determined to put an end to the fanatical faith of 
 the Jews, no matter what the cost. He forbade the 
 observance of the Sabbath and the rite of circum- 
 cision. The study of the Holy Law he made a 
 capital crime. 
 
 2 
 
 But it was in vain. All that he accomplished was 
 a repetition of what happened three hundred years 
 earlier when Antiochus Epiphanes tried in a like 
 manner to crush Judaism. The Jews leaped up in 
 violent rebellion. 
 
 Their leader this time was a man who took the 
 name of Bar Kochba, meaning ‘‘Son of the Star.” 
 Evidently he was but another of those individuals 
 who were hailed as the Messiahs by the credulous 
 people; and his following was a tremendous one. 
 Even the great Rabbi Akiba, the most learned man 
 of the time, supported him. Coins were struck, 
 and on them Bar Kochba was described as ‘‘ Prince 
 of Israel.’’ 
 
 Three years the rebellion continued before Rome’s 
 greatest general could stamp it out. And then 
 there followed massacres even exceeding those 
 following the triumph of Titus. Akiba and many 
 other leaders were executed; thousands of other 
 rebels were sold into slavery. Part of the land was 
 distributed as loot to the Roman soldiers and the 
 
160 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 rest was auctioned off to the highest bidder. Jerusa- 
 lem was renamed AXlia Capitolina, and over its gate 
 was impaled a swine’s head. All Jews were ab- 
 solutely forbidden to enter the place ‘‘for all time 
 to come.” 
 
 Only on the ninth day of the month of Ab, the 
 anniversary of the destruction of the temple, were 
 the Jews permitted to approach Jerusalem. On that 
 one day in the year might they come to the wall, 
 and leaning against it, weep over its desolation. 
 Even then they had to bribe the sentries not to 
 molest them while they wept. They had to ‘‘buy 
 their tears,” as a great writer of the time puts it. 
 
 3 
 
 And thus, in the year 135, the contest between 
 tiny Judea and mighty Rome was ended. The 
 Golus, the great and dread Exile, had definitely 
 begun. The Jews as a people never again took up 
 arms in their own defense. Never in eighteen 
 hundred years. They became pacifists, not from 
 choice but from necessity. They did not dare again 
 to rebel against any foe. They were too few and 
 too scattered. 
 
 The scattering of the Jews through foreign lands— 
 the Diaspora as it is usually called—had already 
 been in process for many centuries before the fall 
 of Jerusalem. Perhaps as early as the days of 
 Solomon there were little colonies of Hebrew traders 
 in strange lands. Certainly there were many after 
 the destruction of the Northern Kingdom in 722 
 B. c., and still more after the destruction of the 
 Southern Kingdom in 586 B. c. Indeed, some 
 
THE TERRIBLE DISPERSION 161 
 
 scholars say that from that last date on, there were 
 always more Jews living outside the borders of 
 Palestine than within them. 
 
 In Alexandria, that wondrous city founded in 
 Egypt by Alexander the Great, there grew up a 
 Jewish community so powerful that it could boast 
 complete self-government. It lived in its own 
 section of the city, had its own laws and officers, 
 and produced its own very distinctive culture. 
 One of the greatest writers of the Hellenistic world 
 was an Alexandrian Jew named Philo, and his 
 work influenced the thought of all early Christian 
 scholars. 
 
 There were similar colonies in Rome, Antioch, 
 Athens, Babylon—indeed throughout the known 
 world of the time. 
 
 But until the fateful year 70, Jerusalem had been 
 recognized as the center of all these settlements. 
 It was in a way the capital of a vast spiritual em- 
 pire. To it the scattered Jews made regular pilgrim- 
 age—much as the Mohammedans make pilgrimage 
 to Mecca to-day. To it they paid the annual Temple 
 tax of half a shekel. And to it they looked for their 
 religious laws and regulations. It was a firm and 
 solid anchor to the Jews who sailed on pagan seas. 
 
 But with the Fall of Jerusalem all that was ended. 
 The anchor had parted, and all the scattered settle- 
 ments seemed to be loose and adrift. 
 
 4 
 
 Had the Jews been simply a nation, certainly 
 they would not have survived that hour. They 
 would have disappeared as did the Phoenicians and 
 
162 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 the Arameans. And had they been devoted to an 
 unchangeable priestly religion, certainly they could 
 never again have flourished.. A few devoted souls 
 would have huddled around the ruined Temple, 
 and there dwindled fast away. 
 
 But the Jews were more than a nation, and their 
 religion was more than a priestly cult. Indeed for 
 generations before the Destruction, it was neither 
 politics nor sacrifice that had been at the heart of 
 Jewish life, but a strange thing called the Holy Law. 
 
 The priests, as we have already seen, first came 
 into power by inducing the people to impose certain 
 laws upon themselves which they called the laws 
 of Moses. But so soon as the priests took too great 
 advantage of that power and became shamelessly 
 corrupt, the people began to grow restless. The 
 rebellious spirit of the old Prophets was awakened 
 in them, and they began to protest. But they had 
 to protest in a queer roundabout fashion. They did 
 not dare say openly that the priests were a bad lot 
 and ought to be driven from the land, for that 
 would have meant flying in the face of the Torah, 
 the ‘“‘Law of Moses.” Even by the third century 
 before the Destruction, this Torah had become too 
 well intrenched even to be covertly challenged. 
 So the only thing left was to say that the Torah 
 itself was perfect, but that the priests were not 
 properly interpreting it. 
 
 In this way, as we have seen, the Pharisees arose— 
 the ‘‘Interpreters’? who made it their business to 
 study the Law and discover just how far the priests 
 might go. 
 
 In the beginning the Pharisees had very little 
 
THE TERRIBLE DISPERSION 163 
 
 power, but as the years passed, the opposite be- 
 came true. Indeed, by the time the Temple fell, 
 the priesthood had come to occupy a position some- 
 what like that of ‘the royalty in England to-day. 
 It was all show. The real power had passed into 
 the hands of the Pharisee leaders—the Rabbis, 
 the ‘‘Teachers,”’ as they were called. They con- 
 trolled the Sanhedrin, or parliament, and they de- 
 cided all the religious questions of the day. 
 
 5 
 
 It was that shift in power and leadership from the 
 priests to the rabbis that saved Israel after the year 
 70. The Destruction of the Temple was a terrible 
 blow—but not a mortal one. Although the priests 
 and their sacrifices were no more, the Law which 
 had ordained them still existed. And because that 
 Law was intact—and learned rabbis survived to 
 reinterpret it—Israel survived. 
 
 Most people love to read of the mad zealots who 
 fought to death against Rome; but in the light of 
 history the truly great men of that ghastly hour were 
 those rabbis who did not fight. They were the true 
 saviors of the people, for they alone saved the faith. 
 
 Their leader was a man named Jochanan ben 
 (which means ‘“‘the son of’) Zakkai. He was a 
 disciple of a great Pharisee named Hillel, a man in 
 whose teaching there seemed to live anew all the 
 grand spirit of the Prophets. (Hillel it was who said 
 some thirty years before Joshua of Nazareth was 
 born, that the whole of the Law was included in 
 the one verse, ‘‘Do not unto thy neighbor that which 
 is hateful unto thee.) Jochanan himself reminds 
 
164 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 us a little of the prophet Jeremiah, for he too realized 
 the folly of warring with the sword against over- 
 whelming odds. When Rome laid siege to Jeru- 
 salem he fled from the city to the village of Jabneh 
 on the seacoast, and there he took charge of a little 
 ‘“‘house of learning.’”? He was quite willing to let 
 Rome have the capital and all the land—so long as 
 he could have his little school in Jabneh. 
 
 And he was right. 
 
 When Jerusalem was at last destroyed, Jabneh 
 was prepared to take its place. It became the new 
 center of the great Jewish Diaspora, the one light of 
 the Golus. There the rabbis gathered at the feet 
 of Jochanan ben Zakkai, and there a new Sanhe- 
 drin was created. The house of learning and the 
 synagogue became what the Temple had been, and 
 study and prayer took the place of the old sacrifices. 
 
 The day of the priest was over. The great day of 
 the rabbi had come. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 HOW THE RABBIS BUILT A WALL OF LAW 
 AROUND THE JEWS 
 
 There is something intensely dramatic about the 
 life and work of those rabbis of the early centuries. 
 Usually we think of them as very ancient and feeble 
 men with long white beards, and dreamy lack- 
 luster eyes. But they were nothing of the sort. 
 For the most part they were young or middle-aged 
 men, brawny fellows who worked hard all day as 
 craftsmen. They did not take to the study of the 
 Law because they had nothing else to do with their 
 time, for many of them had to earn a livelihood as 
 tentmakers, or blacksmiths, or carpenters. They 
 went to the house of learning only in their leisure 
 hours, and it was to them what the lodge-room and 
 the theater and the pool-hall are to the tired work- 
 ingmen of our own day. 
 
 But they passed the time in those houses of learn- 
 ing in a quite extraordinary way. They talked! 
 They argued and discoursed and quibbled at endless 
 length. And not only about strictly religious mat- 
 ters, but about everything else connected with life. 
 They discussed not merely what prayers should be 
 recited in the synagogues, and what writings were 
 holy enough to be read there, but also why Negroes 
 have flat feet, how the stars move in the heavens, 
 in what manner to set a broken bone, and just how 
 beautiful a girl was Ruth. 
 
166 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 All their free hours and days and years they spent 
 in those houses of learning, gravely worrying about 
 everything under the sun. Sport they frowned 
 upon, for by very temperament they could not 
 enjoy it. So instead of playing in the sun in their 
 spare time, instead of running races or throwing 
 javelins like the Romans, they withdrew into their 
 dark little schools and talked. 
 
 And thus a new type of man became their idol— 
 not the great athlete but the great scholar. And a 
 new sort of aristocracy arose among them—an aris- 
 tocracy not of birth or wealth but of learning. 
 
 2 
 
 Of course, in time this led to a marked evil. The 
 learned began to grow proud and snobbish. They 
 looked on the am ha-aretz, the ignorant man— 
 especially if he spoke with a Galilean accent—as 
 little better than a heathen. As early as the time 
 of Joshua of Nazareth this snobbishness was already 
 rampant among the Pharisee scholars, and that is 
 why the young preacher so bitterly denounced them. 
 
 And with the passing of the years that snobbish- 
 ness did not seem to decrease. 
 
 Among the learned themselves, however, there 
 was complete democracy. Wealth or parentage 
 made no difference among them, and legend has 
 it that several of the greatest rabbis spent their 
 boyhood in peasant huts. A learned man, even 
 though he was the son of the lowest woman of the 
 streets, was regarded as of nobler rank than an un- 
 learned high priest. 
 
 Houses of learning had long existed in most of 
 
THE REIGN OF THE RABBIS 167 
 
 the large Jewish settlements, and only the fame of 
 Jochanan ben Zakkai made the one in Jabneh chief 
 among them after the Destruction. Naturally 
 the most brilliant students went there to study under 
 Jochanan and thus made it possible for the Great 
 Sanhedrin of seventy-one scholars to reorganize itself 
 there. 
 
 But during the persecutions under Hadrian, when 
 all study was forbidden, Jabneh lost its leadership. 
 That, however, did not end the work that had be- 
 gun there. Though all study of the law was pro- 
 hibited on pain of death, study of it nevertheless con- 
 tinued. Rabbis were murdered day after day—but 
 with their last breaths they appointed their succes- 
 sors. And these successors fled to the north of Pales-— 
 tine, to Galilee, where the Roman soldiers could not 
 so easily catch them. And there in the city of Usha 
 they organized a new academy and a new Sanhedrin. 
 
 The center of Jewish learning, however, did not 
 long remain in Usha. It moved regularly to what- 
 ever town happened to be the home of the next in 
 the line of the great scholars. The brightest pupils 
 flocked there from all ends of the Diaspora; and there 
 the Sanhedrin had to be set up anew. From Usha 
 the center shifted to Shefaram; from Shefaram to 
 Beth Shearim; from Beth Shearim to Sepphoris; 
 from Sepphoris to Tiberius; and at last from Tibe- 
 rius right out of Palestine into Babylonia. . . 
 
 3 
 
 It was while the center was in Sepphoris that the 
 learned Rabbi Judah compiled what was called the 
 Mishna, the ‘‘ Repetition.”’ 
 
168 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 This Mishna is a work in six volumes, and was 
 intended to serve merely as a text-book of rabbinic 
 law. The old legislation in the first five books in the 
 Bible, the Torah, was no longer suited to the changed 
 circumstances of the people. The Jews in the year 
 200 a. p. had outgrown it almost as much as we in 
 modern times have outgrown the simple laws of 
 the Middle Ages. Steadily the Jews had been out- 
 erowing their old legislation, and just as steadily 
 they had been re-interpreting and adjusting it. 
 They had never conceded the old laws were wrong 
 and should be forgotten, but merely that they 
 needed a little ‘‘touching up.” So all those years 
 the scholars had been touching them up. 
 
 Thus did the Oral Law originate—the law handed 
 down from teacher to disciple by word of mouth. 
 
 But a new difficulty arose. No two great teachers 
 taught exactly the same Oral Law, and when the 
 disciples from different houses of learning came 
 together, often there were almost violent disagree- 
 ments. One said, ‘‘My master taught thus and 
 thus,’”? and another declared, ‘‘But my master 
 taught so and so.” For that reason several great 
 rabbis at different times tried to compile huge note- 
 books for the use of students everywhere. 
 
 On the basis of those earlier notebooks, Rabbi 
 Judah some time before the year 200 compiled his 
 Mishna. In it he gathered together about four 
 thousand legal decisions (the Torah contained only 
 six hundred and thirteen!) and these he divided into 
 different groups and sections. It was not supposed 
 to be a final code of law. It was merely another of 
 those notebooks. It did not say ‘‘thus and thus 
 
aR 
 If 
 wf 
 =] 
 
 SEPPUORs 
 
 BSW fy 
 16.—Where the Rabbis Fled 
 
170 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 is the law on this question,’’ but usually gave the 
 varying opinions of the leading rabbis of the past, 
 together with Rabbi Judah’s own opinions. 
 
 It was not long, however, before Rabbi Judah’s 
 pronouncements quoted in the Mishna came to be 
 looked upon as absolutely authoritative. The pass- 
 ing suggestions and hesitant opinions of a learned 
 but still imperfect mind, came to be regarded in 
 a little while as divine commands. 
 
 + 
 
 It is not difficult to explain why the Mishna so 
 soon became authoritative. It was probably due to 
 the bewildering conditions under which the Jews 
 lived in those centuries. Their country and their 
 Temple, the things that once had united them, were 
 gone. The Law was all that was left. And just 
 then the preachers of the new religion called Christi- 
 anity, were bitterly attacking that Law. They were 
 saying it was an evil thing, for it kept the Jews from 
 mingling with the rest of the world. 
 
 That was why the pious among the Jews so readily 
 accepted Rabbi Judah’s Mishna. It served as a 
 direct rebuke to those Christian preachers. It 
 showed the world that far from minimizing the Law, 
 faithful Jews intended to magnify it. Tenfold, a 
 hundredfold, they intended to magnify it... . And 
 do so they would just because it kept them apart 
 from the rest of the world. ... | 
 
 For the Jews could now see how the pagan world 
 lived, and what manner of gods it worshiped. They 
 could see the vice in the homes of the Romans, and 
 the bestiality in their temples. They could see all 
 
THE REIGN OF THE RABBIS 171 
 
 the moral leprosy that was eating into the heart of 
 the Empire and bringing it fast to its doom. 
 
 That explains why the Jews desired only to 
 keep away from the goyim, to avoid them as they 
 would loathsome lepers. Ever higher they built the 
 wall of Law around themselves, barricading them- 
 selves on all sides. The simple command not to eat 
 meat with non-Jews, was now extended to forbid 
 them from eating anything with them. Even the 
 bread prepared by non-Jews was considered ‘‘un- 
 clean.” 
 
 5 
 
 Some people swing back and forth between in- 
 credulity and contempt when they read certain of 
 the laws in the Mishna. They find it hard to believe 
 that the rabbis who passed them could possibly 
 have been sane. But they were very sane, those 
 rabbis. They saw how near their people were 
 to death, and they cast all scruples to the wind. 
 Panic-stricken they clutched at every imaginable 
 regulation that might keep Israel alive. They were 
 like men who pile up boulders and bricks and even 
 pebbles in frantic effort to build a dyke against a 
 rapidly encroaching sea. 
 
 Curiously, the laws developed and accepted by 
 those rabbis, dealt with and regulated not only the 
 life of their own time; even more minutely did they 
 deal with and re-order the chapters of Jewish life 
 that had passed into history. At endless length 
 they prescribed just how the ancient sacrifices should 
 be offered, and how the tithes should be paid to the 
 long-deposed priests. Perhaps three-quarters of the 
 
172 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 Mishna deals thus with a ritual that was utterly 
 destroyed a hundred and thirty years before the 
 Mishna was compiled. 
 
 There was a reason. The rabbis believed that all 
 that past life would be relived again in the future. 
 The wild dream of the coming of the Messiah was 
 still alive in their hearts. Despite all the evil that 
 had come to them—rather, on account of all that 
 evil—they still hoped for the Great Day of Redemp- 
 tion. Only now they no longer dreamed, as did the 
 old prophets, of redemption for all mankind. No, 
 now the dream was of redemption for themselves 
 alone. The iron of persecution had gone too far into 
 their souls for the Jews still to dream of saving the 
 world. They must have hated and loathed the 
 world. All they gave thought to, at any rate, was 
 their own sorry selves—their desolated land, their 
 ruined Temple, their scattered and broken nation. 
 
 It was not for lack of something better to do that 
 the rabbis developed their innumerable laws; nor 
 was it out of stupidity that the disciples accepted 
 them. It was out of sheer need—fearful, desperate 
 need. 
 
 Israel was being drowned in the sea of paganism. 
 And the Law alone could stem and hold back the 
 tide. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 THE MAKING OF THE TALMUD 
 
 Another century dragged by, and life for the Jews 
 grew to be no longer bearable in Palestine. The 
 Christians had become all powerful in the land, and 
 through their influence at Rome they caused the 
 Jews to be plagued most cruelly. The Emperor 
 Constantine himself became a Christian, and harsh 
 
 Tae Carisrian Crhurcdt 
 
 \i TERR AT 
 / / SEP EX 
 
 an 
 
 17.—The Church after Paul Died 
 
 indeed were the laws he passed against those who 
 clung to the older faiths. 
 
 The Jews therefore began to flee to other lands. 
 Chiefly they fled to the East, to Babylonia, which 
 was outside the empire of Rome. The vast Jewish 
 community which had flourished in that land from 
 the time of the Exile in 586 B. c., had helped not a 
 little in keeping Babylonia free from the Roman 
 
174 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 yoke. It had sent out regiment after regiment 
 to fight off the dread conqueror of the West. And 
 as a result it enjoyed almost complete freedom under 
 the Parthians who ruled the land. The Jews had 
 their synagogues and their primary schools and 
 their houses of learning. And they had their own 
 leader—Resh Galutha, ‘‘Prince of the Exile,’ he was 
 called—who was recognized by the government. 
 
 18.—The Church under Constantine 
 
 Until the Destruction of the Temple the Jews in 
 Babylonia had, of course, looked to Palestine as 
 their spiritual home. Even for two centuries after 
 that calamitous event they still sent their best 
 students to the rabbinical academies in Jabneh, 
 Sepphoris, and Tiberius. But from the beginning 
 of their exile, the Babylonian Jews had rather 
 resented the position of leadership which the Pales- 
 tinians enjoyed. Later generations of them somehow 
 felt that even though they had never gone back to 
 the homeland, they were nevertheless as good as, 
 
THE MAKING OF THE TALMUD 175 
 
 and perhaps even better than, those who had. 
 Probably the Babylonian Jews regarded their breth- 
 ren in Judea and Galilee much as American Jews 
 now regard their brethren in Poland and Russia—as 
 a more pious and orthodox, but a far less cultured lot. 
 
 2 
 
 But a time came when it was no longer necessary 
 for the Babylonian Jews to look up to their brethren 
 
 19.—Off to Babylonia 
 
 in Palestine. They began to develop great academies 
 of their own, and thus attracted the finest Palestinian 
 scholars. Just as in our own day the center of Jewish 
 life and learning has begun to move from Eastern 
 Europe to America, so seventeen hundred years ago 
 it began to move from Palestine to Babylonia. 
 
 It moved to Babylonia because of the persecution 
 in Palestine; but almost as soon as Babylonia be- 
 
176 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 came the center, persecutions began there also. 
 The fanatical Persians who had been driven from 
 power by the Parthians, succeeded in the year 226 
 in regaining that power. And immediately the 
 Jews began to suffer. Those Persians, in the first 
 flush of their triumph, started to celebrate by but- 
 chering all whom they considered ‘foreigners.’ 
 
 The Persians were fire-worshipers, and forbade 
 the burning of the lights during their ‘“‘Season of 
 Mourning” each winter. Naturally that prohibi- 
 tion brought the Jews great distress, for their Mishna 
 commanded that lights be burned in the Jewish 
 homes every Sabbath Eve, and all week long during 
 the mid-winter Festival of Chanukah. And the 
 keeping of these Mishnaic Laws caused so many 
 riots and massacres, that the new rabbis had to 
 advise their followers to hide their lights during the 
 winter months. Perhaps the peculiar custom still 
 observed among Jewish housewives, of hiding the 
 Sabbath lights with their hands when they bless 
 them, is a relic of -those fearful years when the 
 Persians, frenzied by the taste of triumph, massacred 
 the Jews for desecrating their ‘‘Season of Mourn- 
 ing.” 
 
 Of course, compared with the horrors which Jews 
 were suffering in Palestine and the rest of the 
 Roman Empire, these massacres in Babylonia were 
 hardly deserving of mention. I have spoken of them 
 only to show how they influenced the rabbis of the 
 time to modify the Mishnaic laws slightly. Such 
 modifications were being made constantly, as day 
 by day new problems arose. And naturally that 
 meant in time the need for a new notebook—one 
 
THE MAKING OF THE TALMUD 177 
 
 far completer and more up-to-date than the Mishna. 
 
 And when that new notebook was compiled (it 
 was a little before the year 500 A. D.) it was called 
 the Talmud, the ‘‘Teaching.”’ 
 
 3 
 
 There are two Talmuds: one that was developed 
 by the rabbis who struggled on in Palestine, and 
 the other developed by those who flourished in 
 Babylonia. Much of the Palestinian Talmud has 
 long been lost, but the fragments that still exist 
 make it obvious that it was far the inferior work. 
 So when we speak of the Talmud we usually mean 
 the one produced in Babylonia. 
 
 The Talmud is not a book; rather it is a vast, 
 rambling, loose-jointed encyclopedia. It is a great 
 wilderness of words in which can be read the whole 
 history of the Jewish mind during many centuries. 
 Everything the Jew thought about anything— 
 religion, philosophy, astronomy, art, law, biology, 
 history, botany, medicine, politics—is included in 
 that one great work. 
 
 Probably it set out to be merely another and larger 
 Mishna—a sixty-three volume index to the in- 
 numerable new laws that had been proposed, dis- 
 cussed, and accepted after Rabbi Judah finished 
 his modest six-volume index. But before it was 
 complete it became very much more. It gave not 
 merely the laws, but also great chunks of the ram- 
 bling discussion that preceded the acceptance of those 
 laws. The Mishna was a little like a well-swept 
 lumber yard in which trimmed logs had been neatly 
 arranged in six great stacks. But the Talmud was 
 
178 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 more like a clearing in which whole trees with all 
 their branches and foliage, their nettles and ivy- 
 growths, had been piled up in sixty-three wild and 
 sprawling heaps. If there was any order at all in 
 the whole big area, it was because down at the 
 bottom of each of the heaps lay some of the trimmed 
 logs of the Mishna. 
 
 4 
 
 There was a reason for the unkempt way in which 
 the trees had been left lying around in the Talmudic 
 clearing. In Rabbi Judah’s day the learned men 
 in Israel had been confident that the trimmed logs 
 alone would suffice to keep the fires of their re- 
 ligion burning, and so they had not been afraid to 
 lop off the branches and throw them away. But 
 that confidence was largely gone three hundred 
 years later in Babylonia. The new rabbis had seen 
 how quickly these fires could burn low in the fierce 
 wind of persecution, and they were afraid to throw 
 away even the least scrap of their fuel. 
 
 How those rabbis ever had the patience to as- 
 semble all those mountains of words, is bewildering 
 indeed. It all seems to have been done under the 
 supervision of two scholars named Rab Ashe and 
 Rabina; but any number of other scholars must have 
 assisted them. In our printed editions the Talmud 
 fills almost six thousand pages! The bare task of 
 gathering the material and writing it down must 
 have been a stupendous one. 
 
 But somehow it was done, and with it another 
 compromise was effected between the dreams of the 
 prophets and the common sense of the priests. 
 
THE MAKING OF THE TALMUD — 179 
 
 For though these rabbis had set out as heroic pro- 
 testants against the priests, they had after all these 
 centuries become very like priests themselves. 
 Their thought had come to run in what are essen- 
 tially priestly grooves. Laws, little rules and regula- 
 tions, had become everything to them. 
 
 Perhaps it was necessary for this to happen if 
 the Jews were to continue as a separate people. 
 The dreams of the prophets may have given the Jews a 
 reason for liuing—but it was the little laws of the 
 priest-rabbis that kept the Jews alive. 
 
 Naturally, there was great risk that those little 
 laws might smother the very dreams they were 
 supposed to keep aflame—that in the strain of 
 just keeping alive, the Jews might forget all good 
 reason for living. And that danger became very 
 teal as the years passed by. 
 
 Indeed, half of the rest of this story of the Jews 
 is Just the story of the struggle against that danger. 
 
Hellenism Grows 
 g 
 
 ANTIOCHUS tries to end JuDAIsA 
 ics MACCABE AN REVOLT 
 Judea 15 Free 
 
 JOHN tyneanus forcibly converls Lvonitrs 
 Pharisees v5. Staducees 
 
 «3 ROMANS CAPTURE JERUSALEM 
 Wild flunger for the Ness ith 
 
 JUST VAMOR BNAEZ ARs en 
 DAUL <— Beqining of GHRISTIANITY 
 
 DESTRUCTION OF Oe 
 
 SADE N 
 
 isz-195 Bar Kocnsa rebellion \y 
 0 
 
 PUBBINICAL Academies pert Se G >, 
 GALILEE 
 
 ‘shpna Compe led 
 RABBINICAL Academies movedto 
 
 DABYLONIA 
 - The Wall of Law 2 Buz/7 
 
 JUtws Ff persecuted 
 by PERSIANS 
 
 .-.JtWws” persecuted 
 by CHRISTIANS 
 
 _Aalestiniar Talmud compiled 
 Chart C. The Adventures of the Jews, Part III 
 
CHAPTER XXIT 
 THE CONTENTS OF THE TALMUD 
 
 So little is the Talmud known by most people, 
 and so much nonsense is therefore uttered about it, 
 that at least one more chapter ought to be devoted 
 to it here. 
 
 Perhaps a passage or two taken from the work 
 itself will throw most light on its character. For 
 instance, here is a bit picked almost at random from 
 the volume on the Sabbath laws: 
 
 A commandment in the Torah declares: ‘‘ Ye 
 shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations 
 upon the Sabbath day.”’ Now for centuries this was 
 understood and followed literally, and probably 
 the Jews all sat in the cold and dark from sunset 
 on Friday to sunset on Saturday. But then came 
 the early Pharisees with one of their new interpre- 
 tations. They said it was perfectly proper—and 
 indeed legally necessary—to have lights on the 
 Sabbath, so long as they were kindled before the 
 Sabbath began. But those lights must not be 
 touched again until after the Sabbath closed, other- 
 wise the commandment would be transgressed. And 
 thereafter, all sorts of new little regulations had to 
 be made to guard the people against accidentally 
 touching those lights. 
 
 For instance, the Mishna contains the regulation 
 that ‘‘one shall not read by the lamplight,’’— 
 
182 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 presumably because one might be tempted to snuff 
 the wick if the flame burnt low. In the Gemara, 
 which is the Talmudic law based on the Mishna, 
 this regulation is discussed at great length. 
 
 But let me quote for a moment—though with 
 many explanatory insertions, for the Talmud is 
 almost unreadably concise: 
 
 ‘Rabbah (a Babylonian scholar) said (that one 
 should not read by the lamp) even if it be placed 
 (far out of reach—say,) the height from the ground 
 of two men, or two stories, or even on top of ten 
 houses, one above the other. 
 
 “(That is) ‘one may not read.’ But it does not 
 say two may not read together, (for then one can 
 guard the other against snuffing the wick). Against 
 this supposition, however, there is a tradition that 
 ‘neither one nor two together’ (may read). 
 
 “Said Rabbi Elazar: ‘There is no contradiction 
 here. The Mishna allows (two people to read to- 
 gether) so long as they read the same subject. But 
 the tradition (forbids it only if) they are reading 
 different subjects.’ a 
 
 And in that manner the one alge is continued 
 on and on. 
 
 One rabbi declares that a sa i teacher may 
 read by the lamplight, for such a person would 
 hardly be so careless as to snuff the wick. To which 
 someone answers that Rabbi Ishmael ben Elisha, 
 who was a great person indeed, once read on Friday 
 night and actually caught himself in the act of snuff- 
 ing the wick. As proof of this fact, Rabbi Ishmael’s 
 diary is quoted, for there he confessed the crime and 
 vowed to bring a fat sin-offering to the Temple the 
 
THE CONTENTS OF THE TALMUD 183 
 
 moment it was rebuilt. (No doubt that vow was 
 made in all earnestness. The coming of the Messiah 
 and the rebuilding of the Temple were still momen- 
 tarily expected!) But some one else counters that 
 the case of Rabbi Ishmael is not a fair one, for though 
 that scholar was great at teaching laws, he was 
 notoriously lax in observing them! 
 
 Next the question arises as to whether a servant 
 may examine the cups and dishes by the Sabbath 
 lamplight, to see if they are clean. Here too there 
 is a dispute. One rabbi says yes and another says 
 no. Then a third tries to compromise by saying 
 that a regular servant may not examine the dishes, 
 for he, in his eagerness to hold his job, might be 
 tempted to snuff the wick in order to see better. 
 But a servant called in merely for the day, may ex- 
 amine the dishes, for he would probably not care 
 whether they were clean or not, and therefore would 
 not dream of snuffing the wick. That compromise, 
 however, is not found acceptable, and a fourth rabbi 
 suggests that even a regular servant may examine 
 the dishes by the Sabbath lamp so long as it burns 
 naphtha and not oil. For naphtha smells badly and 
 the fellow would hardly be tempted to come too near 
 it. And than a fifth rabbi offers still another sug- 
 gestion. ... 
 
 And so it goes on... . 
 
 2 
 
 This example is not at all extreme. Passages 
 might be cited from the Talmud which would seem 
 infinitely more ridiculous. There is, for instance, 
 a thrilling debate on whether an egg laid on the 
 
184 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 Sabbath may be eaten by a Jew, since the hen 
 probably broke the Sabbath rest in laying it! 
 
 Into every line of the Biblical law, into every 
 word, every letter, even every part of a letter, some 
 strange and far-fetched meaning was read by the 
 Talmud-makers. The priestly law declared that in 
 sacrificing a kid on the Temple altar it may not be 
 boiled in its own mother’s milk. Probably the pas- 
 sing of that law was due to the superstitious dread 
 that the udders of the mother animal would dry up 
 if such an act were committed. (There are savage 
 tribes in Africa to-day whose diet is still regulated 
 by that dread.) But the rabbis did not dream of 
 such an explanation. No, they believed the law 
 was of divine origin and had some divine though 
 mysterious reason back of it. And they elaborated 
 it so that it forbade the mixing of any meat and 
 any milk (or butter, or cheese) in any Jewish house- 
 hold. What was more, even the plates used for meat 
 might not be mixed with plates used for milk, and the 
 water and cloths used for cleansing the meat plates 
 might not be also used for cleasing the milk plates! 
 
 Nor was that the end of the matter, for the length 
 of time one should wait after eating meat before 
 being allowed to drink milk—and vice versa—had 
 to be thoroughly discussed and determined! 
 
 3 
 
 But it is important to remember that such little 
 laws, irrational as they may seem to us, nevertheless 
 all had a purpose. That purpose, however, was not, 
 as some people nowadays imagine—to preserve the 
 physical health of the Jews. (Whatever hygienic 
 
 ee 
 
THE CONTENTS OF THE TALMUD 185 
 
 value there may have been in the laws, was altogether 
 accidental.) No, their purpose was the preservation 
 of the spiritual health of the Jews. They helped to 
 wall in the Jew. They were part of the impregnable 
 dyke raised by him against the non-Jewish tide. 
 
 Moreover, it is also important to realize that not 
 all the laws in the Talmud were of so narrowly 
 ritualistic a sort. Many of them were of a high 
 ethical nature. The Jews had gone far since the 
 days when the laws in the Torah had been written. 
 Their whole outlook on life had grown less primitive. 
 As a natural result, their laws had to be changed so 
 that they were less primitive too. The law code is the 
 clock that tells what time it is in the civilization of 
 a people; and in the Talmud we see that the hands of 
 the clock had moved a great ways since the time of 
 Deuteronomy. Old laws had been tempered, modi- 
 fied, and robbed of their cruelty. For instance, the 
 barbaric command, ‘‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth 
 for a tooth,” had by re-interpretation come to mean 
 that the assailant must pay for his crime not with 
 his own eye or tooth, but with a heavy fine fixed 
 by law. Provision was made to administer an 
 extreme penalty like flogging in a humane manner 
 unknown to European law courts only a century 
 ago. And capital punishment was made practically 
 illegal. A court that had pronounced one sentence 
 of death in seventy years deserved, it was declared, 
 to be called a ‘“‘court of murderers! ”’ 
 
 t 
 
 It is altogether vain to try to pass judgment on the 
 Talmud, to try to declare whether it is good or bad, 
 
186 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 wise or foolish. It is like life—a higgledy-piggledy 
 mingling of both good and bad, of both wisdom and 
 folly. For it came directly out of life, directly out 
 of the hateful, exciting, hopeful, despairing, heroic 
 life of the Jewish people. It is rather like a moving- 
 picture film that has been mutilated and broken 
 in ten thousand places and then has been blindly 
 patched together again. It reveals everything that 
 came to hurt and heal the Jews in a thousand years 
 of incessant hurt and healing. And so it contains 
 very nearly everything. 
 
 There are in it myths and vagaries, idiotic su- 
 perstitions and unhappy thoughts, things that are 
 not merely irrational but .sometimes even quite 
 offensive. But there is also much profound wisdom 
 buried in it, and much lofty and generous thinking. 
 Not all the rabbis were bitter and hateful—though, 
 Heaven knows, they all had reason enough to be. 
 And not all of them were small-minded and bigoted. 
 Indeed, a strain of almost prophetic nobility runs 
 through much of the Talmud, and a clear note of 
 protest against the clannishness choking the people 
 behind the dyke. 
 
 For instance: ‘‘All men who do not worship idols 
 may be called Jews.’ Or again: ‘All who accept 
 merely the Ten Commandments may be considered 
 as though accepting the whole of the Law.” Or 
 still again: ‘‘The good men of all the Gentile races 
 will inherit the World to Come.” 
 
 Or in another vein: ‘‘Be thou the cursed, not he 
 who curses.”’? ‘‘Even the birds in the air despise 
 the miser.”’ ‘‘Honor the sons of the poor, for it 
 is they who advance science.” ‘‘Charity saves one 
 
THE CONTENTS OF THE TALMUD 187 
 
 from death.” ‘‘When the thief cannot steal he 
 thinks himself an honest man.”’ ‘‘The soldiers fight 
 and the kings are called the heroes.”’ ‘‘When the 
 ox is down, many are the butchers.”’ ‘‘The passions 
 are not all evil, for were it not for them, no one 
 would build a house, marry a wife, beget children, 
 or do any work.” ‘Drink not, and thou wilt not 
 sin.” ‘‘Even if the bull have his head deep in his 
 trough, hasten upon the roof, and drag up the lad- 
 der after thee.’ ‘‘Commit a sin twice, and thou 
 wilt think it quite allowable.” ... 
 
 All the rest of this book could easily be filled with 
 just such bits of Talmudic wisdom and irony and 
 high prophetic preachment. Not all of the volu- 
 minous work is given over to dry legal discussion. 
 Indeed fully a third of it consists of clever fables and 
 quaint legends and amusing proverbs. Granted 
 there is much chaff in the work, there are also ker- 
 nels of richest wheat. 
 
 And the fact that in bulk the chaff far exceeds 
 the wheat, should not be at all surprising. After 
 all, the Talmud is the product of an age when a 
 peculiar type of mind alone could thrive. Israel 
 was exhausted. The little dormouse in the cage of 
 mad lions seemed to be piteously breathing its 
 last feeble breath. It was too broken, too clawed 
 and mauled and wet with its own blood, to arise 
 and ery with the might of the prophets. It was too 
 near death to worry about why it should go on living; 
 it merely wanted to know how. 
 
 And the how it could learn only from the mouths 
 of the new priests, the rabbis. The how it could 
 discover only in such a work as the Talmud. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 HOW MOHAMMED BUILT A NEW RELIGION 
 AROUND THE JEWISH IDEA OF GOD 
 
 When the Jews fled from Palestine their whole 
 aim was to get as far as possible away from the 
 talons of Christian Rome. Many of them fled to 
 Babylonia, as we have already seen. Some ran 
 off to Gaul and the Teutonic lands, because the 
 people there were still barbarians, and had not yet 
 learnt the Christian hatred of Jews. Others fled 
 to India, and perhaps to China. And still others 
 retreated into the heart of Arabia, that barren land 
 from which their own ancestors had escaped more 
 than a thousand years earlier. 
 
 The fate that befell those Jews who fled to Arabia 
 is In certain ways much like that which befell their 
 brethren in all the rest of the Diaspora. Outwardly 
 they became just like the people among whom they 
 settled. They turned nomad, and formed them- 
 selves into warring desert tribes. In a little while 
 sheiks of their own led them in battle, and fortresses 
 of their own served them in retreat. Poets of their 
 own wrote them songs in Arabic, and minstrels of their 
 own sang to them. They took Arab names and wore 
 Arab garb. Just as certain butterflies protect them- 
 selves by folding their wings so that they look ex- 
 actly like the leaves of the trees among which they 
 flit—‘‘ protective coloration”? the scientists call it— 
 
MOHAMMEDANISM IS BORN 189 
 
 so these Jews preserved themselves by looking and 
 speaking and acting exactly like the people among 
 whom they dwelt. 
 
 Inwardly, however, they persisted in remaining 
 a separate folk. They cherished the Bible—that 
 was why their Arab neighbors called them AAl ul 
 Kitab, the ‘‘People of the Book’’—and they kept 
 what rabbinic laws they knew. Earnestly they tried 
 to remain faithful to their One True God. 
 
 2 
 
 With the passing of the years that inward differ- 
 ence began to be copied by some of the Arabs. 
 Their own desert religion was a low form of idolatry 
 rather like that which the ancestors of the Jews had 
 believed in before they struck out for the Fertile 
 Crescent. Those Arabs had some three hundred 
 little gods to worship, and one big one. (The idol 
 of the big one was a mysterious black stone called 
 the Kaaba, which rested in a shrine in the town of 
 Mecea and attracted pilgrims from all corners of 
 Arabia.) So it was not difficult for the Jews to make 
 converts among the more intelligent of the Arabs. 
 Indeed, we are told that whole tribes came over in 
 a body into the Jewish fold, and that a smattering 
 of Judaism was known throughout the Arab settle- 
 ments. 
 
 3 
 
 Now in the town of Mecca there lived an Arab mer- 
 chant named Mohammed, a strange black-bearded 
 fellow given to epileptic fits, who began to tell people 
 that he had been sent to preach a new religion. 
 
190 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 That religion turned out to be in many respects 
 remarkably like Judaism, for it proclaimed the 
 existence of but One God, and taught that the mem- 
 ory of all the great Jewish leaders from Abraham 
 to. Jesus of Nazareth should be revered. Just 
 where Mohammed had chanced upon this or that 
 particular element of his new faith we do not know. 
 Probably it was in the many market places in Arabia 
 and Syria to which he had journeyed as a trader. 
 
 Evidently Mohammed talked with intense con- 
 viction of his new faith, for soon he won over cer- 
 tain of his relatives and friends. Indeed his follow- 
 ing grew so large that the leading citizens of Mecca 
 began to get worried. This new-fangled religion 
 with its One God threatened to destroy the supreme 
 position of their city as possessor of that great idol, 
 the Kaaba. So they plotted to murder Mohammed, 
 and he had to flee to the rival town of Medina 
 to escape them. Now, in and around Medina there 
 lived several tribes of Jews, and for that reason the 
 populace there was better able to understand Mo- 
 hammed’s new religion. For years previously 
 they had been hearing something like his ideas 
 from the mouths of the Jews in their midst. 
 
 When Mohammed fled to Medina—it was in the 
 year 622—one of his dearest desires was to make 
 followers of the Jews there. With that end in view 
 he eagerly took over many of their customs—just 
 as Paul had taken over many of the customs of the 
 pagans whom he tried to win for Christianity. Thus 
 Mohammed accepted the Jewish Day of Atonement 
 as a fast day, and ordered his followers to turn 
 their faces toward Jerusalem when they prayed. He 
 
-MOHAMMEDANISM IS BORN 191 
 
 made friends of the rabbis in Medina, and not being 
 able to read or write, he employed a Jew as his scribe. 
 
 The Jews showed some interest at first in the 
 movement, for Mohammed claimed he had been 
 sent by their God, and they thought he might be 
 
192 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 the Messiah. (Oh yes, the Jews were still eagerly 
 awaiting the coming of the Messiah!) But when 
 they came to know Mohammed better and found 
 out how ignorant he was, and how much fonder he 
 seemed of pretty women than of what the Jews 
 considered godly ways, they refused to have any- 
 thing more to do with him. Their minstrels ridi- 
 culed him in sarcastic poems, and tried to make 
 him the laughing-stock of Medina. 
 
 The result was that as soon as enough Arabs 
 had gathered under his banner, Mohammed turned 
 on the Jews and butchered them without mercy. 
 He had made up his mind that the stubborn ‘‘ People 
 of the Book” could not possibly be converted, and 
 after decimating their ranks, he turned back to the 
 more promising task of converting the rest of his 
 own brethren. Particularly he wanted to win over 
 his blood kin in the stronghold of the old Kaaba 
 worship. With that end in view, he ordered his 
 followers to turn their faces toward Mecca and no 
 longer toward Jerusalem when they prayed. (Mo- 
 hammed, you see, was quite a shrewd man.) Also 
 he changed the time of the annual feast to the an- 
 cient Arabic season of Ramadhan instead of the 
 Jewish Day of Atonement. (Yes, Mohammed was 
 a very shrewd man... .) 
 
 4 
 
 And in time he won over his brethren not merely 
 in Mecca but in all the rest of Arabia also. The 
 triumph was not the product of gentle preaching, 
 however, but of bloody persecution. Mohammed 
 issued a declaration of Holy War against all who re- 
 
MOHAMMEDANISM IS BORN 193 
 
 fused to accept his faith. He told his followers that 
 the surest way for them to enter Heaven was by 
 dying, sword in hand, in the act of waging that 
 “Holy War.” And his followers believed him. 
 
 It would be foolish to revile Mohammed’s memory 
 for adopting this programme. It must be remem- 
 bered that after all he belonged to a people and a 
 time still largely barbaric. Indeed, when one con- 
 
 Me 
 
 siders from what low spiritual ancestry and en- 
 vironment this Mohammed sprang, one cannot but 
 acknowledge him, despite all his vices, a true genius 
 and a stupendously great man. 
 
 But though good temper counsels us to spare 
 Mohammed our ugly words, we cannot help de- 
 ploring the evil he set on foot. Though he himself 
 died, his doctrine lived on after him. Always thirsty 
 for war and blood, the Arabs now suddenly found 
 themselves with a holy excuse for slaking that thirst. 
 To fight was now the godliest work they could en- 
 gage In. 
 
194 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 So they fought. Against the whole world they 
 fought, for they were determined to win it all for 
 their One God, Allah, and for his One Prophet, 
 Mohammed. And they almost succeeded. 
 
 5 
 
 The tale of the great Mohammedan Conquests 
 is one that cannot be told here. It is a bewildering, 
 almost an incredible story. Twenty-five years after 
 Mohammed died, his wild Arab followers were mas- 
 ters of Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Babylonia, and Per- 
 sia. Another half-century, and all the northern coast 
 of Africa and almost all of Spain had been added to 
 their empire. Another decade saw them marching 
 up into France. All the Christian world trembled 
 as the terrible Arabs came sweeping on. 
 
 And thus a new chapter began in the history of 
 the Jews. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 THE REVOLT AGAINST THE TALMUD 
 
 From the fifth to the seventh century the Jews 
 were at rest in hardly a land in the world. In 
 Christian countries—especially in Spain—they were 
 hounded out of town after town, or were penned 
 in like lepers in a single foul little alley. Christian 
 kings and noblemen robbed them, Christian bishops 
 wrote books against them, and Christian ruffians 
 murdered them. | 
 
 Conditions in Babylonia or Persia were not much 
 better. In those countries, also, the Jews were 
 harried and massacred. One ‘“‘Prince of the Exile”’ 
 was hung, and another was crucified. 
 
 Early in the eighth century, however, the dawn of 
 a new day began to break. As the Mohammedans 
 drove the armies of Persia and the Christian nations 
 before them, the Jews began slowly to lift them- 
 selves out of the dust. For the Mohammedans 
 were now strangely tolerant to the Jews. Mohammed 
 himself had long been dead, and with him had died 
 his chagrin because the ‘‘People of the Book”’ 
 would not accept his Koran. His successors only 
 knew the Jews as a people who by race and reli- 
 gion were somewhat like themselves. Perhaps 
 they realized also that without Jews to serve as 
 scouts, they themselves would have been almost 
 helpless. For they could trust the Jews alone to 
 
196 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 show them their way about in the vast world beyond 
 the Desert. The Jews had traveled everywhere, 
 and seemed to know every language. Without 
 their aid the Arab invaders would have utterly lost 
 their bearings as they swept on through the great 
 countries to the right on the east and to the left in 
 the Mediterranean basin. 
 
 2 
 
 And under the tolerant rule of the Mohammedans, 
 the Jews began to prosper. They who had been 
 poor and bedraggled pedlars for centuries, now be- 
 came wealthy and powerful traders. They traveled 
 everywhere, from England to India, from Bohemia 
 to Egypt. 
 
 Their commonest merchandise in those days was 
 slaves. On every highroad and on every great river 
 and sea, these Jewish traders were to be found with 
 their gangs of shackled prisoners in convoy. Slave- 
 _ dealing seems irredeemably vile and hateful to us 
 to-day, but we must remember here again that 
 standards have changed. Only seventy-five years 
 ago it was considered altogether proper for the 
 very ‘‘best”’ people in our own land to buy and sell 
 human beings. In ancient times only the rarest 
 of souls—the ‘‘cranks,” as they must have been 
 called—saw any great wickedness in such a traffic. 
 And in the light of the customs of those times, the 
 slave-traffickers were actually doing almost a moral 
 work. They alone were keeping the conquering 
 armies from slaughtering every one of their defeated 
 foes after each battle. 
 
 And with the coming of prosperity to the Jews, 
 
UNDER THE CRESCENT 197 
 
 came also new life and vigor. Babylonia was still 
 the heart of the Diaspora, and the ‘‘Princes of the 
 Exile” now became powerful officials at the court of 
 Bagdad. The bearer of this title after the Arabs 
 conquered the land was actually given a daughter 
 of the defeated Persian king as his wife. 
 
 And the rabbinical academies began to flourish 
 once more. The president of the leading academy 
 in Babylonia was called the Gaon, the “‘ Illustrious 
 One,” and to him were submitted the religious 
 problems of the Jews throughout the Diaspora. He 
 decided what prayers should be recited in the syna- 
 gogues, and he licensed the rabbis—they were really 
 judges—to preside over the Jewish civil courts. 
 For in Babylonia and most other lands the Jews 
 still took their disputes and accusations to their own 
 Talmudic courts for settlement. 
 
 3 
 
 But despite the prosperity and outer freedom 
 that had come to the Jews, their inner life was be- 
 coming dry and choked. That high wall, the Tal- 
 mud, that had been built to lock out the non- 
 Jewish world, served also to lock in the Jewish soul. 
 Its frowning shadow was cast over every path in 
 Jewish life. It was no longer a means to the end of 
 self-preservation; it had become an end in itself. 
 It was no longer a thing to live by but to live for— 
 yes, and even to die for. The Jews lifted it to a 
 place of importance above the very Bible, and they 
 studied it far more diligently. They memorized it 
 from end to end—every one of its sixty-three enor- 
 mous divisions! 
 
198 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 All the Talmud was accepted literally. From 
 end to end it was universally assumed to be a true 
 and perfect development of the commandments 
 which Moses had taught the Hebrews at the Holy 
 Mountain of Yahveh. The new rabbis commented 
 on its every line and word, striving to make clear its 
 many muddy passages, and succeeding only in 
 making them muddier. And on these commentaries, 
 later rabbis wrote further commentaries, making the 
 already muddy passages still muddier. So they 
 went on, pathetically caressing their hoard of laws 
 as a miser caresses his coins. The Talmud was no 
 longer their servant; they had become its slaves. 
 
 And then came the protest. 
 
 It had been brewing for a long time, but not until 
 now had it been able to get itself heeded. The Jews 
 had been living in a sort of war-time hysteria during 
 all those centuries, and the few protestants that 
 spoke out had been given very little sympathy. 
 They had been gruffly told to “fall in or get out!” 
 And many of them, refusing to “‘fall in,”’ had indeed 
 gotten out. 
 
 But the protest had made itself felt nevertheless. 
 The stern spirit of the Essene hermits—that spirit 
 which had produced John the Baptist and also, in 
 a measure, Joshua of Nazareth—still lived in the 
 souls of some professing Jews. Prophets still ap- 
 peared from time to time in remote corners of the 
 Diaspora. Frenzied young Jews: they were, and 
 they cried to their brethren to cease entangling 
 themselves in all the petty rules of the rabbis, and 
 concentrate their thinking on the great commands 
 of God. (They were usually the sort of men who 
 
UNDER THE CRESCENT 199 
 
 objected to slave-dealing and the various other 
 “business” activities which the Jews were being 
 tempted to take up.) Generation after generation, 
 new self-made Messiahs appeared, rising and falling 
 like so many flaring rockets. Small Jewish sects 
 leapt up and died down again in wild and rampant 
 confusion. 
 
 Now, most of these obscure preachers and their 
 sects, though traveling along paths quite unin- 
 telligible to each other, were headed toward essenti- 
 ally one goal. They were striving to get back to 
 the basic truths of the ‘‘old-time religion.” They 
 were trying with all their might to get back to God. 
 
 That was why they were all opposed to that tre- 
 mendous wall of Law which the rabbis had erected. 
 They felt it was in their way. It had been built to 
 shut in the religion and preserve it, but these preach- 
 ers seemed to realize—though ever so vaguely— 
 that true religion never could stay shut in. So 
 they cried out at the top of their voices for an end 
 to the wall. 
 
 But the vast majority of their brethren, entangled 
 in their little rules and regulations, deafened as 
 it were by the clatter of their meat dishes and milk 
 dishes, did not heed that ery. Not until the coming 
 of Anan ben David did they heed it... . 
 
 + 
 
 Anan ben David was a learned Jew of high station 
 in Babylonia. Indeed he was the heir of the Prince 
 of the Exile. But about the year 762, when it came 
 his turn to succeed to that office, the rabbis of the 
 day elected his younger brother in his stead. (Prob- 
 
200 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 ably Anan had already let it be known that he 
 belonged to those who were not altogether satisfied 
 with the Talmud.) And when Anan found he had 
 been cheated out of what he considered his birth- 
 right, the commotion raised by him rocked the 
 whole Jewish world. 
 
 A new sect, almost a new religion, was founded 
 by him. Anan declared war on the Talmudic Law, 
 taxing it with being all false and ridiculous. And 
 hundreds flocked to support him. They joined 
 him on his march to Jerusalem, there to set up what 
 they considered a truly Jewish community—one 
 governed solely by Biblical Law. 
 
 But it did not take long for the followers of Anan 
 to discover how impossible of success was their 
 task. The ancient Biblical Law, well enough de- 
 veloped for the work it had to do in its own day, 
 was not adapted, by itself, to govern a more civilized 
 community in a later age. To make it at all ade- 
 quate, the Biblical Law had to be completely re- 
 vised. Just as the first rabbis, when they rebelled 
 against the tyranny of the priests, had to begin 
 “interpreting” the Law, so these later rebels found 
 that they had to begin ‘“‘interpreting”’ also. In fine, 
 the followers of Anan ended by doing just what they 
 had set out to undo. 
 
 And that of course meant the beginning of the 
 decline and fall. Anan ben David’s sect lived on, 
 but its high spirit of protest against legalism sick- 
 ened and rapidly died out. The new legalism of its 
 own that it developed was in many respects even 
 more rigid and unreasonable than that of the Tal- 
 mud. The heroic little band of rebels that had 
 
UNDER THE CRESCENT 201 
 
 set out to cast down the high wall of the rabbis, 
 succeeded only in building a higher wall of their 
 own. 5; 
 
 But despite this, the movement lived and grew. 
 Though its declaration of principles was only a crazy 
 quilt of queer doctrines and practices, it continued 
 to win converts from among the orthodox Jews. 
 Especially was this true in the century after Anan 
 died, for then it produced several distinguished 
 scholars who tried their best to correct many of 
 Anan’s mistakes. 
 
 The movement, which at first had been known as 
 Ananism, was now called Karaism, the ‘Religion 
 of the Bible.” Unfortunately our sources of in- 
 formation are very undependable, for most of our 
 reports come to us from the pens of its bitterest 
 opponents. At its height Karaism may have been 
 a valiant and earnest effort to establish a rather 
 generous creed—a Judaism that could accept both 
 Jesus and Mohammed as great teachers without 
 sacrificing its right to go seeking still greater ones. 
 
 But Karaism quickly toppled from that height. 
 It failed, as perhaps every such effort must fail, in 
 a world still choked with fears and stupidities. 
 
CHAPTER XXV 
 
 THE DAWN OF INTELLIGENCE IN BABYLONIA AND 
 SPAIN 
 
 But Karaism failed only in spirit. In body it 
 lived on and flourished. In the ninth century, 
 indeed, it bade fair to become dominant throughout 
 the Jewish world. The rabbis of the time were a 
 weak and slavish lot. They tried to ignore the 
 movement, largely perhaps because they lacked 
 spirit enough to wrestle with it. The Karaite 
 missionaries based all their work of conversion on 
 arguments from the Bible, and the rabbis of the 
 day hardly knew the Bible. All they knew was the 
 Talmud, and the pathetic trickery, the twisting of 
 phrases and wringing of words, by which it had been 
 foisted onto the Bible. So for over a century those 
 rabbis continued to bury their heads in their dry 
 and dusty commentaries, and tried to make them- 
 selves believe that nothing was happening. 
 
 But then Saadya came on the scene, a rabbi of a 
 new type—alert, intelligent, and unafraid. He was 
 born in Egypt, but so great was his learning and 
 fame that he was called at the early age of thirty- 
 six to be Gaon of the foremost academy in Babylonia. 
 Fourteen years later he was already dying, his health 
 broken by his intense labors and struggles. Never- 
 theless, in those few years of life he managed to 
 breathe a new spirit into Jewish learning. 
 
BABYLONIA 
 
 Jews ruled by 
 
 ‘Prince of Lxile 
 
 Daebhyloniqn | 
 l&lmuad compiled 
 
 ARABIA 
 
 624 Monammrp turns against 
 
 ---] MOHAMMEDAN CONQVESTS 
 
 Veurs grow in power 
 
 KHAZARS w 
 
 southern DRwasia converted 
 to UvDAIsSm 
 
 Revolt against 
 the Talmud--- 
 
 KARAITES 
 
 Grow in power ~~ 
 
 Knazar Kingdom SAADYA 
 destroyed Dawn of ...1 (892-942) 
 
 Vilelli perce” 
 Chart D. The Adventures of the Jews, Part IV 
 
204 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 2 
 
 Saadya was a man of amazing sensitiveness to 
 the thought of his time. His mind kept in closest 
 touch with the movements that were advancing 
 in the world, and was not afraid to go out to meet 
 them. The Arabs had rediscovered the wisdom of 
 the ancient Greeks, and their keen eager intellig- 
 ences were drinking freely of that wisdom. By 
 contrast, the Karaites had set out to rediscover 
 the ancient wisdom of the Jews, but their loose and 
 slow intelligences were drinking their own new 
 legal brew instead. So Saadya openly took over 
 many of the new Arab ideas, and just as openly 
 rejected the Karaite ones. 
 
 Saadya, therefore, saved Judaism from wandering 
 off into the blind Alley of Karaism, and first set its 
 feet on the broad road of Arabie science. From his 
 time on, Karaism began to wither away. Though 
 members of the sect still live to-day in Turkey and 
 Southern Russia, they are few in number and spirit- 
 ually not very significant. 
 
 But though Karaism withered so soon, it per- 
 formed a great service in its day. It pricked Juda- 
 ism out of deep sleep, and set it to thinking and 
 moving once more. In a very real sense it had a 
 part in producing Saadya, for it was by his writings 
 against the sect that he first attracted the attention 
 of the Babylonian Jews and wor for himself the 
 high office of Gaon. In as real a sense, therefore, 
 Karaism opened a new chapter in the intellectual 
 life of the Jews—one of the most brilliant chapters 
 in all this long story. 
 
DAWN IN BABYLONIA 205 
 
 Only the first paragraph of that new chapter was 
 written in Babylonia. A spirit of intolerance had 
 grown up among the Mohammedans there, and 
 it became impossible for the Jews to remain in the 
 land. Rapidly, therefore, they began to flock along 
 the caravan routes westward to Spain, taking with 
 them their scholars and their scrolls. The revival 
 of Jewish learning which Saadya had started, was 
 like the last flare before the guttering-out of a candle- 
 flame as far as Babylonia was concerned. Of the 
 Gaonim who succeeded Saadya, two were thrown 
 into prison by the Mohammedans, and the last was 
 executed. 
 
 And with that last Gaon the flame died down 
 completely—in Babylonia. 
 
 But a new flame was already alight and burning 
 —in Spain. And it was far stronger and brighter 
 than any Babylonia ever had known. Jews in 
 Spain had possessed wealth and power almost 
 from the time, three centuries earlier, when the 
 Mohammedan invaders drove the Christians from 
 the land. And with the passing of the years, that 
 wealth and power had materially increased. Even 
 after the Christians, hidden all this time in the 
 mountains, began warily to creep down again and 
 reoccupy the land, the position of the Jews did not 
 greatly change. Those Christians were still too 
 uncertain of their strength to dare antagonize the 
 powerful friends of the Moors. 
 
 Those were wondrous days for the Jews. They 
 wielded influence in every walk of life. Some were 
 active in the armies—so active, indeed, that in at 
 least one instance, both the Mohammedan and 
 
206 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 Christian generals are said to have declared a truce 
 for a day so that Jews on both sides might enjoy 
 their Sabbath rest! Others taught in the great 
 universities, and managed the royal treasuries. 
 They were the leading physicians and bankers and 
 merchants and diplomats of the time. 
 
 And that growth of Jewish wealth and influence 
 was accompanied by the growth of Jewish literature 
 and learning. For the first time since most of the 
 Psalms were written in the period of the Maccabees, 
 Hebrew poetry began once more to flourish. Much 
 of it, of course, was quite inferior stuff, for Hebrew 
 had ceased to be a living tongue. Prayers formed 
 part of this new poetry—piyyutim they were called— 
 which often were so stilted and involved in style that 
 perhaps not even their own authors could puzzle 
 out their meaning. On the other hand, there were 
 hymns and epics, even love-songs and drinking songs, 
 of amazing charm and beauty. 
 
 Every educated Spanish Jew at that time seems 
 to have tried his hand at poetizing, for it was the 
 fashionable thing to do. Letters of friendship, 
 books on grammar and astronomy and religion, 
 prayers, even business notes, were often written in 
 verse. A mere list of the men who distinguished 
 themselves in the art would fill the rest of this 
 chapter. We will only mention one here, the greatest 
 of the age, Judah Halevi. 
 
 3 
 
 Judah Halevi, born in Old Castile in 1086, began 
 writing poetry while still a youth. But to us there 
 is something almost alarming about that early 
 
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208 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 poetry of his. It was written in limpid, lovely 
 Hebrew; in a measure it had the ring of the ancient 
 Psalms. But that was all it had in common with 
 the Psalms, for it dealt not with sin and repentance, 
 but with passion and love. It sang not of the majesty 
 of the Lord, but of the warmth of a maiden’s ca- 
 resses. Or else it sang of the fragrant taste of wine, 
 and of the wisdom of frivolity and laughter. 
 
 Judah, it seems, was no end of a gay blade in his 
 youth; and when his elders rebuked him for it, his 
 retort was: 
 
 ‘“‘Shall I whose years scarce number twenty-four 
 Turn foe to pleasure and drink wine no more?” 
 
 As he grew older, however, his wildness left him. 
 He settled down into a sedate physician in the city 
 of Toledo, and spent his spare hours writing a 
 learned Arabic work on Judaism called ‘‘Al Kha- 
 zari.”’ But to the end he remained nevertheless 
 the poet: sensitive, ill-at-ease among men, and 
 forever dreaming dreams. His craving in early 
 youth for an impossibly beautiful maiden became 
 later on a yearning for an unspeakably glorious 
 Zion. And that yearning gave birth to poem after 
 poem of matchless tone and grandeur. Love for 
 Jerusalem became his one controlling passion. It 
 colored all his thinking, and made him wretched 
 in the land of his birth. 
 
 “Tn the East, in the East, is my heart, and I dwell at the end 
 of the West; 
 
 How shall I join in your feasting, how shall I share in your 
 jest? ” 
 
DAWN IN BABYLONIA 209 
 
 So did he mourn, and mourning so he died. Even 
 though in his last years he did go to Jerusalem, 
 still was he unable to join in feast or jest. For the 
 Jerusalem he found waiting for him was not the 
 Holy City he had imagined. Rather it was a dirty, 
 ul-smelling heap of débris wherein Crusader and 
 Mohammedan hacked at each other in unholy 
 madness. And legend has it that as the despondent 
 man stood by the ruined wall and wept, an Arab 
 horseman galloping out of the gate, stumbled over 
 him, and crushed him to death. .. . 
 
 4 
 
 In Judah Halevi is revealed, perhaps as well as in 
 any other man of his time, the new spirit that had 
 entered Jewish learning. The Talmud was no longer 
 considered the beginning and end of all wisdom; 
 nor was the writing of dry and spiritless commen- 
 taries still looked on as the only proper pursuit for 
 Jewish scholars. 
 
 At last the sun shone once more. At last the 
 gloomy shadows cast by the wall of Law, lifted for 
 a moment. At last there was Jewish laughter as 
 well as Jewish weeping on the earth—real relaxation 
 once more. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 THE “GOLDEN AGE” OF JEWISH LEARNING IN 
 SPAIN 
 
 It must not be imagined, however, that the 
 scholars of this brighter age did not do their share of 
 burrowing in the Talmud. They too wrote com- 
 mentaries and long-winded interpretations. But 
 to their credit be it said, they did other things as 
 well. They wrote poetry, as we have already seen; 
 and they studied the science of the day. 
 
 The field that seemed to attract and interest them 
 most was the science of medicine, and for centuries 
 all great sultans and kings had their Jewish physi- 
 cians. Even the popes sometimes used them. 
 
 The science of grammar was another favorite 
 subject. That study enlisted their zeal because it 
 helped them to understand the Bible; and the 
 Bible had to be understood if the Karaites were to 
 be refuted. As a consequence, there were many 
 great Hebrew grammarians during the ‘Golden 
 Age” in Spain, most of them supported by wealthy 
 patrons in the larger cities. The foremost of them 
 all was one, Abraham 7zbn (the Arabic for ben) 
 Ezra, who, however, did his best work beyond the 
 borders of Spain. He was a man of great wit and 
 wisdom and poverty. He was always meeting with 
 ill-fortune, and used to say that if he were to turn 
 shroud-maker, immediately mankind would cease 
 
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 23.—The Wanderings of Ibn Ezra 
 
212 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 to die. He was Spanish by birth, but before he died 
 he had wandered to Africa, Egypt, Palestine, Baby- 
 lonia, Italy, France, and England. In each he stayed 
 as long as his welcome or his patience lasted, living 
 off the bounty of some patron, lecturing to stu- 
 dents, and writing on any one of a dozen or more 
 subjects. 
 
 His most important work was a commentary on 
 the Bible, and the spirit in which it was written 
 may be said to mark the birth of an epoch. For Ibn 
 Ezra approached the Scriptures almost with our 
 modern critical attitude. He took no traditional 
 reading for granted, but tried on the basis of his 
 hard and fast rules of grammar to ferret out for 
 himself the meaning of each verse. And when he 
 came across passages in the Torah, the ‘‘ Five Books 
 of Moses,” which flatly contradicted each other, 
 he did not do the orthodox thing, and try desperately 
 to darn and patch them together. No, instead he 
 let them stand side by side in all their glaring con- 
 tradiction, and wrote with perhaps a sly wink: 
 ‘“‘And the wise man will no doubt have his explana- 
 tion for this puzzle.” 
 
 Now that was a high and holy act of scientific 
 daring. Even though Ibn Ezra did not enlarge 
 upon all he suspected, at least he did suspect. He 
 may not have said so openly what we to-day no 
 longer question—that the ‘‘Five Books of Moses” 
 are not really all the work of Moses, but a collection 
 of traditions and codes belonging to varied localities 
 and ages. But at least he seems to have thought it. 
 
 And the bare harboring of such a thought in that 
 early day, marks a tremendous advance. 
 
 es 
 
HIGH NOON IN SPAIN 213 
 
 2 
 
 Advances were also made by other Jewish scholars 
 in that age. As I have already said, Arabs had 
 stumbled upon buried scrolls of the ancient Greeks, 
 and being a quick and eager lot, they had not rested 
 until they had deciphered many of the old writings. 
 As a result, a whole vast world of learning was re- 
 opened. Mathematics, astronomy, chemistry, med- 
 icine, and philosophy began to flourish again for 
 the first time in perhaps a dozen centuries. It meant 
 the beginning of the end of the Dark Ages. 
 
 Naturally enough, the Jews, who were by long 
 training an intellectual folk, eagerly took to this 
 new world of wisdom. From Saadya’s time on, 
 they investigated its every corner, returning home 
 to their own Jewish studies with heads crammed 
 full of new ideas. 
 
 And thus, among other things, Jewish philosophy 
 was reborn. 
 
 3 
 
 Philosophy is the attempt to discover why things 
 have happened or are happening—just as science is 
 the attempt to discover how. Jewish philosophy, 
 therefore, attempted to discover the real reason why 
 Jews believe what they do—why they believe in God 
 and the Bible—indeed, why they remain Jews. 
 
 Many Jews of the ‘‘Golden Age” devoted them- 
 selves to this study, and curiously enough, for cen- 
 turies afterwards even the Christian scholars pored 
 over the books written by those Jews. That was 
 possible because the books were written in so inclu- 
 sive a spirit that often the followers of Christianity 
 
214 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 could find nothing in them with which to disagree. 
 Indeed, one such book called in Latin ‘‘Fons Vite,’ 
 the ‘‘ Living Fountain,”’ written by a Jew named Solo- 
 mon ibn Gabirol, was always regarded in the Euro- 
 pean universities as the work of a Christian scholar 
 named Avicebron. The true identity of the author 
 was not discovered until about seventy-five years ago! 
 
 Ibn Gabirol reminds one somewhat of Philo, the 
 great Jewish philosopher who lived in Alexandria 
 more than a thousand years earlier. Both of them 
 were ardent Jews, and yet both exercised their 
 greatest influence on the Christian mind. Philo 
 helped lay the philosophic foundation for primitive 
 Christianity, Just as Ibn Gabirol helped lay it for 
 medieval Christianity. 
 
 4 
 
 But the greatest Jewish thinker of this period 
 was Moses ben Maimon. He is usually referred to 
 as Maimonides, for the Latin suffix ides means 
 ‘‘son of.’’ (Had he lived in Germany he would have 
 been called Maimonsohn, in Poland, Maimonski, 
 and in Russia, Maimonovitch.) In his day—the 
 second half of the twelfth century—he was the 
 leading rabbi in the world. Officially he was merely 
 the physician to the Sultan of Egypt; but un- 
 officially he was King of the Jews. For Jews every- 
 where looked up to him as their supreme authority. 
 The misfortune and ill-health that dogged his steps 
 all his life, failed to prevent his working on almost 
 without interruption. He wrote voluminously on 
 any number of subjects: mathematics, astronomy, 
 medicine, law, as well as philosophy. 
 
HIGH NOON IN SPAIN 215 
 
 In particular, he wrote a great book on the Talmud 
 —not a mere commentary, but a monumental re- 
 arrangement that set all the stray and conflicting 
 laws in order. For seven hundred years the scholars 
 had crept and clambered in and out and over the 
 piles of lumber and underbrush in the Talmudic 
 yard; but not until the coming of Maimonides was 
 any attempt made to clean up the whole place. 
 
 And when that tremendous task was done, Mai- 
 monides undertook another even more difficult. 
 He tried to set down in clear and logical fashion 
 sound reasons for all the Jewish beliefs. The final 
 product was a volume entitled in Hebrew ‘‘ Moreh 
 Nevuchim,” the ‘‘Guide for the Perplexed’’—one 
 of the most significant books in all of Jewish liter- 
 ature. Casting aside the Talmudic arguments, 
 which were all based on dogma and authority— 
 (‘‘This is so because Rabbi Judah, or Ezra, or Moses, 
 or God, said so’’)—he substituted new ones based 
 on what he considered pure and scientific reasoning. 
 
 Of course, a great deal of what Maimonides con- 
 sidered pure reasoning seems to us decidedly impure. 
 But it was utterly impossible for a man in the twelfth 
 century to use only common sense and scientific 
 truth as the basis for all his arguments. The time 
 was not yet ripe for it. 
 
 Yet, as was true of Ibn Ezra’s work, its great 
 glory was that at least it made the attempt. 
 
 To try to show that science proves what faith 
 accepts without proof, is what we call Rationalism. 
 Essentially it is of little use, because faith always 
 comes out on top. If science will not agree with it, 
 then science is doctored so that it shall. As Prof. 
 
216 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 James Harvey Robinson puts it in his book, ‘‘ Mind 
 in the Making”’: if real reasons do not prove the 
 dogmas, then ‘‘good”’ reasons are manufactured and 
 used. 
 
 But Rationalism nevertheless represents an ad- 
 vance over the stupid and unquestioning acceptance 
 of dogma. At least it removes the dogmatic shackles 
 upon thinking. 
 
 Until the time of Saadya there had been exceed- 
 ingly little of such unshackled thinking among the 
 Jews. In the years between Saadya and Maimonides 
 it flamed with amazing brilliance. And after Mai- 
 monides it began to die down once more. 
 
 After Maimonides the ‘‘Golden Age”’ began fast 
 to turn to iron. 
 
 a 
 
CHAPTER XXVII 
 TWILIGHT IN THE CHRISTIAN LANDS IN EUROPE 
 
 Very little of the ease and freedom which the 
 Jews enjoyed in Mohammedan Spain was shared 
 by their brethren in the other lands of Europe. 
 Those other lands were Christian, and they boiled 
 with bigotry. The rulers themselves were more or 
 less tolerant, for they depended upon Jews as their 
 financiers. But the lower classes had no use for 
 them, and butchered them whenever a righteous 
 excuse could be found. . 
 
 And righteous excuses were never wanting. If a 
 plague broke out, of course the Jews had poisoned 
 the wells. If a war was lost, of course the Jews had 
 aided the enemy. Ifa boy mysteriously disappeared, 
 of course the Jews had murdered him to procure 
 blood for their Passover drink. ... And always 
 there was the standing excuse for persecution, that 
 the Jews were not Christians... . 
 
 That standing excuse was responsible for the 
 ghastliest massacres, especially during and after 
 the year 1096. In that year the First Crusade was 
 launched, and Europe went utterly out of its senses. 
 The thirst for the blood of the Mohammedans was 
 whetted first with the blood of Jews. Godfrey de 
 Bouillon and many of his fellow Crusaders swore 
 holy oaths that they would leave none of the hated 
 infidels alive in the land, and although Godfrey was 
 
218 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 bought off with heavy bribes, the other Crusaders 
 almost made their oaths good. 
 
 In Worms, eight hundred Jews—almost all in the 
 city—were butchered. Amid jeers the rabbi and 
 all his family were buried alive. One young Jewess, 
 Minna, daughter of the wealthiest of the martyrs, 
 was offered her freedom by friendly noblemen if 
 she would but turn Christian. Indignantly she 
 refused, and she too was put to death. 
 
 In Mayence, over a thousand Jews were massacred, 
 and many were forcibly baptized. Among these 
 unwilling converts were a father and two daughters 
 who soon after their baptism seem to have gone 
 mad with penitence. The father killed the two 
 girls in his own house, set fire to it, then set fire to 
 the nearby synagogue, and finally threw himself 
 into the flames. Almost all the city of Mayence 
 was destroyed before that fire could be put out! 
 
 In Cologne, the Jews escaped by the aid of a 
 merciful bishop and many of the burghers. After 
 three weeks of hiding in the nearby villages, however, 
 the mob of Crusaders discovered them and were 
 without pity. Many Jews took their own lives, 
 drowning themselves in the lakes and bogs rounda- 
 about. The pious Samuel ben Yechiel, standing in 
 the water and uttering a prayer, slew his own son 
 at his side. And as the victim moaned ‘‘ Amen” 
 to the old man’s prayer, all those looking on cried, 
 ‘‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord is One,” and let them- 
 selves drown in the waters. ... Three hundred 
 Jews trapped in one of the villages, selected five of 
 their number to slay the rest and then to slay them- 
 selves! 
 
220 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 So matters went in Regensburg, in Treves, in 
 Prague—blood and fire, murder and shame. 
 
 These events all happened while the hordes of 
 the First Crusade were marching their bloody way 
 through Europe in 1096. And when at last they 
 reached Jerusalem and captured it three years later, 
 they drove all the Jews into one of the synagogues 
 and burnt them alive! 
 
 2 
 
 And then there was the Second Crusade... . 
 And*thee (birdies: 
 
 3 
 
 No laughter was left on the lips of the Jews who 
 survived. Throughout Germany they went about 
 in sackcloth and ashes, mourning for the kedoshim, 
 the saints, who had perished. And throughout 
 Christendom the Jews turned gray with fear and 
 terror. Their only relief was their study; their only 
 refuge was their house of learning. But among them 
 there was none of that daring which marked the 
 study of their brethren who had been reared in 
 Spain. Philosophy and science were closed worlds 
 to them; only the Talmud was open. 
 
 Moreover, even in their wanderings through the 
 wilderness of the Talmud they were cautious and 
 timorous. The courageous and independent think- 
 ing of an Ibn Ezra or a Maimonides was altogether 
 foreign to them. The famous Rashi, their greatest 
 writer of commentaries, based his interpretations 
 not on the strict laws of grammar, but on the loose 
 fancy of tradition. He darned and patched all the 
 
TWILIGHT IN EUROPE 221 
 
 breaks in the text with the scarlet wool of myth and 
 legend. (That is why simple folk among the Jews 
 to this day prefer Rashi’s commentary to Ibn Ezra’s.) 
 And their most diligent students of the Talmud, 
 the French ‘‘Tosafists,’’ made no attempt to over- 
 haul the whole work and set it in something like 
 order. Rather did they add to its disorder by scrib- 
 bling worthless notes on its margins. 
 
 It was for all the world the same as it had been in 
 the darkest days in Babylonia. Jews everywhere 
 in England, France, and Germany, were in a panic. 
 They dared not cast away a single twig of all the un- 
 derbrush which their fathers had stored up for them, 
 lest the fires of their faith die out for lack of fuel. 
 
 And what was still more tragic, they turned in 
 rage on those who dared do otherwise. They bitterly 
 attacked Maimonides for presuming to revise all 
 the Talmud, and assailed him even more for writing 
 his philosophic ‘‘Guide for the Perplexed.’ For 
 years they reviled and cursed that free-thinking 
 ‘“‘Guide,” even going so far as to appeal finally to 
 the Catholic Church to have it burned. And it 
 was burned. Stupid priests joined with stupefied 
 rabbis to destroy the noblest product of the ‘‘Golden 
 Age.” 
 
 And as always happens when freedom of thought 
 is suppressed, a new interest in magic and mysti- 
 cism sprang up. Cabala, ‘Tradition,’ it was called, 
 because its secrets were supposed to have been 
 handed down from the most ancient times. It 
 was a pathetically earnest attempt to get at the 
 basic truths about God and the universe. But it 
 sought to get at them not by the straight and stony 
 
222 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 path of reason and science, but through the thick, 
 sprawling, tropical forest of imagination and mystery. 
 It talked of demons and angels, of strange words 
 and incantations, of hoary secrets hidden in un- 
 known books, and other such stuff and nonsense. 
 The little light there was in it was like the light of 
 fireflies skimming over a stagnant pool... . 
 
 f 
 
 Only in the south of France, in Provence, did a 
 gleam of reason and freedom still live on. A little 
 light from the learning of Moorish Spain had seeped 
 in there to dispel the fog. Jews taught in the univer- 
 sities of Provence, and served in the courts of the 
 barons. One great family of scholars, the Kimchis, 
 wrote grammars and dictionaries; and another, the 
 Tibbonides, translated Judeo-Arabic works of phi- 
 losophy. 
 
 But soon that solitary gleam of light was also 
 snuffed out. A new pope, Innocent III, began to 
 rule, and seeing the free spirit that reigned in Pro- 
 vence, his little soul was dismayed. Provence was 
 the seat of a powerful sect of heretical Christians 
 called the Albigenses, a sect of rationalists who 
 protested courageously against the riot of darkness 
 and corruption in the Catholic Church. If the 
 truth were fully known, probably it would be 
 found that the learned Jews in Provence were in 
 large part responsible for the existence of this free- 
 thinking sect. The doctrines which the Jews had 
 been spreading throughout the land for years could 
 not but have helped to undermine the Church’s 
 power. 
 
[souasaF] ayn 0} ywag— 9g 
 
 JO y3an3sd 3H” 
 
 et ieee ew etic | 
 YS ee ~ ai 
 
224 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 So against both the Albigenses and the Jews this 
 pope now directed all his fury. He issued a call 
 in the year 1207 for a crusade against them; and a 
 fanatical monk named Arnold of Citeaux, led the 
 assault. Count Raymond the Good, who had 
 always protected the heretics, was dragged naked 
 to church, whipped, and forced to swear among other 
 things never again to be tolerant to the Jews. The 
 beautiful city of Béziers was razed to the ground. 
 ‘We spared neither dignity, nor sex, nor age,” 
 writes the monk, Arnold, to his Holy Father, the 
 pope. ‘‘Nearly twenty thousand human beings 
 perished by the sword. And after the massacre 
 the town was plundered and burnt, and the revenge 
 of God seemed to rage over it in a wonderful manner.” 
 
 And so ended the freedom in Provence. 
 
 5 
 
 Next came Spain. A crusade was launched 
 against the infidel Moors there, and that same monk, 
 Arnold of Citeaux, was again a leading spirit. And 
 of course, the Jews suffered. The Christian kings in 
 Spain, until now markedly tolerant to the Jews, 
 were rapidly taught the error of that course. The 
 plight of the Wandering People in Christian Spain 
 from then on grew more terrible year by year. 
 
 And the Moors, who were crowded back by the 
 crusaders until they held only little Granada in the 
 far south of the peninsula, also gave the Jews no 
 rest. They had long ago ceased to exhibit the gen- 
 erosity which had marked them when in the hey- 
 dey of their power. Already in the time of Maimon- 
 ides they had become a fanatical lot, and the great 
 
TWILIGHT IN EUROPE 225 
 
 philosopher had been forced to flee from his birth- 
 place while a boy. And with the shrinking of their 
 realms, the Moors had grown even more intolerant. 
 So now there was no corner left in all Europe for 
 the Jews. The last gleam of day was gone. 
 It was Night... . 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII 
 THE TERRIBLE NIGHT OF PERSECUTION 
 
 A slow, senseless, pitiless crucifying of a people— 
 that is the whole tale of the night that now fell. 
 The Crusades had beaten the Jew to the ground, 
 and now for five hundred years Christian serfs and 
 priests, Christian kings and popes, took turns in 
 kicking his prostrate body. 
 
 Christianity was not to blame for that, but only 
 those sorry Christians. They did what they did 
 only because they were still brutes—poor, lustful, 
 stupid beasts just come up out of savagery. They 
 knew no better. 
 
 Even their leaders knew no better. There was 
 no conscious lie in their hearts when Christian 
 priests declared it was for the sake of the loving 
 Jesus that they crushed the skulls of gray-bearded 
 old Jews. They really believed it! Of course, we 
 know it was not at all for the sake of Jesus that they 
 committed those horrors. We know it was simply 
 to ease their own savage resentment at the sight of 
 strangers in their midst. But they knew nothing of 
 the sort. If they lied at all, it was only to them- 
 selves. 
 
 It is not difficult to see why the Jew was so stead- 
 ily preyed upon. In the eyes of the provincial- 
 minded Christians of medizval Europe, the Jew was 
 guilty of that most flagrant of all crimes: he was 
 
THE NIGHT - 227 
 
 different. And what was even worse, he seemed to 
 want to be different. No matter what pressure was 
 brought to bear on him, the Jew obstinately refused 
 to conform. 
 
 Now differentness is to stupid man what a red 
 rag is to a bull! Always he charges down on it 
 madly, determined to tear it to shreds. And if he 
 cannot tear and destroy it, he tries at least to stamp 
 it in the dust. For by so doing he assures his own 
 wretched little self that the person flaunting that 
 differentness is far, far inferior. 
 
 But the trouble with the Jew was that though he 
 was different, he yet did not admit himself—nor seem 
 —inferior. At least, not sufficiently so. And there- 
 fore the whole aim of the Christian world focused 
 itself on the task of finding ways and means of de- 
 meaning the Jew more thoroughly. 
 
 That was the real intent back of the invention 
 of the Jew-badge. A law was passed in 1215 by the 
 Catholic Church forbidding all Jews on pain of 
 death to appear on the streets without a colored 
 badge of a certain shape sewn to their clothing. 
 It was meant to be a brand of shame, an ever- 
 present, visible sign of inferiority. 
 
 2 
 
 The Jew-badge only too well realized the evil 
 intent of the Christians. Almost literally it broke 
 the back of the Jew. Cringing, and drooping his 
 shoulders, he went about the streets, a marked man, 
 a constant target for the stones and oaths of ruffians. 
 He lost his pride. Spat upon by everyone, pelted 
 with offal no matter where he turned, he soon learnt 
 
228 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 to trudge about in the foulest of ill-smelling rags. 
 His very speech ceased to be a language and became 
 a jargon; his lyric gift in prayer degenerated into 
 a pitiable whine. Even in his own eyes he almost 
 became what the Churchmen tried their hardest 
 to make him—a despicable and loathsome wretch. 
 
 Not unjustly do historians mark the year 1215 
 as the beginning of the Night. 
 
 But even though the Jew-badge broke his spirit, 
 yet it did not end his life. The Jew still lived, and 
 financially often had the name of prospering. He 
 had wealth—tremendous, uncounted wealth, so the 
 Christians believed. At least, when they had to 
 have money, the Jew was often ready to be the 
 money lender. 
 
 3 
 
 The Jews had become the money lenders of Eu- 
 rope for quite evident reasons. The Church sternly 
 forbade all Christians to engage in the pursuit. 
 And since money lending—or banking, as we now 
 call it—was indispensable to the well-being of com- 
 merce and government, the Jews simply had to 
 take it up. There was no one else in Europe free 
 to do it. 
 
 And with great eagerness did the Jews take to 
 money lending, for the occupation exactly suited 
 their circumstances. Living in constant dread of 
 riots, not knowing when they might have to flee, 
 the Jews had to engage in a business requiring no 
 bulky stock-in-trade. Farming would not do, for 
 fields and haystacks could hardly be thrown into 
 a chest and hidden in the ground, or carried off in 
 
THE NIGHT 229 
 
 the night. Coins and jewels and deeds were much 
 better. 
 
 So the Jews became the money lenders of Europe. 
 They developed a great shrewdness and cunning 
 in the one and only field of opportunity left open 
 to them. And with their shrewdness and cunning 
 they developed a certain cruelty and greed. That 
 was natural. The world was cruel to them, so when 
 the chance was theirs, they were cruel in return. 
 Their high ‘“‘overhead”’ drove them to become 
 usurers, and they charged all the interest on their 
 loans that they could possibly get.. There was no 
 other way for them to survive. So many borrowers 
 never repaid their loans, that those who did had to 
 make up for those who did not. 
 
 And by shrewdness and cunning, by usury and 
 thrift, the Jews managed to crawl and wriggle their 
 way through to wealth. So the Christian world de- 
 cided that its next task, now that the Jew had been 
 robbed of his pride, was to rob him also of his pelf. 
 
 4 
 
 Robbing the Jew was not a difficult task, for he 
 was altogether friendless in the Christian world. 
 He would not consent to be a member of the Church, 
 and therefore he was not allowed to be a member 
 of the State. Occasionally, for an adequate bribe, 
 a pope would protest against the more extravagant 
 tortures inflicted upon the Jews by minor princes 
 of the Church; but usually his protest was made 
 after those tortures had already been inflicted. It 
 is not unjust to say that the Catholic Church with 
 all its prelates and priests and friars was from first 
 
230 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 to last the Jew’s most implacable foe. Only on one 
 condition would it spare him—if he forsook the 
 faith of his fathers and turned Christian. 
 
 Nor was the State and its kings and princes much 
 better. If the secular rulers spared the Jew at all, 
 it was only because they could not easily get along 
 without him. Somehow or other, the Jew always 
 seemed able to get money. Even though he was 
 robbed of his wealth one year, he seemed to find a 
 way to get at least part of it back the next. And 
 for that reason the rulers spared the Jew somewhat. 
 He was a never-failing source of revenue. 
 
 To extort this revenue became almost an art with 
 the rulers of medieval Europe. The simplest and 
 quickest method, of course, was to murder the 
 money lender. But this method had its drawback, 
 for it killed the goose that laid the golden eggs. So 
 more usually the king had his own officers rob the 
 money lender’s house, and if the treasure had been 
 removed and hidden where the robbers could not 
 find it, the money lender was tortured to reveal the 
 hiding place. King John of England is said to have 
 ordered a tooth drawn every day from the mouth 
 of one of ‘“‘his” Jews in order to learn the where- 
 abouts of such a hiding place. 
 
 But even this practice was not always satisfactory, 
 for the size of the haul secured from a reputedly 
 wealthy Jew was often far less than had been antic- 
 ipated. So it was found more profitable to rob whole 
 communities of Jews at one time. And this was 
 frequently done. Charges of one sort or another 
 were trumped up against the Jews of a particular 
 town or country, their property was confiscated, 
 
Bt \ 
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 LM ff ' 7 Sei 
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 27.2 * 9 29,6 a rearre 2 
 a ees pe ae ED bee Lhe ES 
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232 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 and then they themselves were ordered out. And in 
 a few years, after they were permitted back again, 
 the devilish game was repeated. 
 
 In that manner the Jews were expelled from 
 France in 1182, and then permitted to return in 
 1198. They were expelled a second time in 1306, and 
 a second time permitted to return in 1315. 
 
 And so it went. Year after year without rest, 
 the hunted Jews had to drag their weary feet 
 from pillar to post. They were ordered out of 
 Vienna, Cologne, Wittenberg, Hamburg, Bruenn, and 
 Olmuetz. And out of Trent, Nuremberg, Ulm, and 
 Magdeburg. From one town after another they 
 were hounded without mercy, finding rest only in 
 the grave. 
 
 Yet they would not surrender. Stubbornly they 
 carried on, true to the faith of their fathers. Obsti- 
 nately they persisted, still a strange, a different 
 people. 
 
 5 
 
 Finally signs multiplied that the Jews were be- 
 ginning to exhaust the patience of their persecutors. 
 Expulsions grew more frequent, and permits to 
 return more rare. The Catholic Church yielded 
 at last—though only unofficially—to the demand 
 for Christian usurers, and the Jews gradually be- 
 came no longer indispensable. Good Catholics 
 who were friends of the pope, were permitted to 
 loan money to the kings of Europe; and thus the 
 Jews in Europe lost the one function that so long 
 had saved them from expulsion. In previous years 
 a king sometimes arrested them merely to keep 
 
THE NIGHT 233 
 
 them from leaving his country; or he invited them 
 back soon after they had been robbed or expelled. 
 He had not been able to get along without them then. 
 
 But now all that was changed, and it became far 
 more usual for him to drive out the Jews and tell 
 them to stay out. 
 
 In the year 1290 every professing Jew in all 
 
234 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 England was ordered out of the country ‘‘forever.”’ 
 Between sixteen and seventeen thousand of them 
 had to flee, and none dared to return until almost 
 four hundred years afterward. William Shakespeare 
 wrote his ‘‘Merchant of Venice’? probably without 
 ever having seen a real Jew. . . 
 
 In the year 1394 the Jews of France were also 
 expelled—this time in earnest. ‘To prevent their 
 return, a law was passed making it a capital crime 
 for any Christian to shield or even converse with 
 a Jew. 
 
 A similar fate befell many of the Jews of Ger- 
 many, though it was not the land as a unit, but 
 certain individual towns that expelled them. 
 
 6 
 
 And finally it came Spain’s turn. Persecution had 
 occurred there on and off for over a century, and, 
 after 1391, became almost incessant. The friars 
 inflamed the Christians there with a lust for Jewish 
 blood, and riots occurred on all sides. For the Jews 
 it was simply a choice between baptism and death, 
 and many of them submitted to baptism. One 
 friar, Vincente Ferrer, is reported to have converted 
 no less than thirty-five thousand of them. 
 
 But almost always conversion on these terms was 
 only outward and false. Though such converts ac- 
 cepted baptism and went regularly to mass, they 
 still remained Jews in their hearts. They were 
 called Maranos, ‘‘Accursed Ones,”’ and there were 
 perhaps a hundred thousand of them in the land. 
 Often they possessed enormous wealth. Their 
 daughters married into the noblest families, even 
 
THE NIGHT 235 
 
 into the blood royal; and their sons sometimes 
 entered the Church and rose to the highest offices. 
 It is said that even one of the popes was of this 
 Marano stock. 
 
 Fanatical churchmen were frantic with pent-up 
 rage. Throughout Spain they saw men and women 
 who called themselves Christians, enjoyed all the 
 privileges of Christians, and yet still remained Jews. 
 The monks who had labored so frenziedly to con- 
 vert them, felt that they had been fooled and cheated. 
 And in their anger they instituted the unspeakable 
 Inquisition. 
 
 7 
 
 The Inquisition was a court to try, condemn, and 
 punish those suspected of religious heresies. It was 
 established in 1480 and continued its murderous 
 work for many hundreds of years. Its broadsides 
 at first were not directed against professing Jews— 
 they were left to the mercies of the mob—but against 
 professing Christians who secretly or openly doubted 
 any of the Church dogmas. For many years the 
 vast majority of its victims, of course, were the 
 Maranos. The Church was determined to get rid 
 of them, for they were like a canker eating at its 
 very heart. And incidentally, Ferdinand and Isa- 
 bella, the King and Queen of Spain, desired to kill 
 them off in order to get hold of their enormous wealth. 
 
 Three years after the establishment of the In- 
 quisition a fiend named Torquemada was put at 
 its head. On the slightest fragment of gossip 
 dropped by a Christian servant-girl in confessional, 
 her Marano master and mistress were dragged before 
 
236 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 the Inquisition, tortured till they confessed their 
 secret Jewishness, and then burnt at the stake. An 
 auto-da-fé, an ‘‘act of faith,’’ such a public burning 
 was called; and it was a great sporting event for the 
 Christians. They attended it in all their gayest 
 raiment, and witnessed the death agonies of the 
 condemned with songs and jeers. 
 
 But the Inquisition soon found itself incapable 
 of handling all the suspects. There proved to be 
 too many of them. The blame for this naturally 
 fell on the Jews who had remained openly loyal to 
 their faith even in name. It was common knowledge 
 that they held secret prayer meetings to bolster the 
 faith in the Maranos, and used other ways to keep 
 the old religion alive among them. There was no 
 help for it, therefore, but to turn on those uncon- 
 verted Jews. For it was now plain that they were 
 the real menace to the Church. 
 
 And so it happened that in the year 1492 all the 
 unconverted Jews in the realm of Spain were driven 
 out. They were more than two hundred thousand 
 in number, and they were compelled to leave all 
 their gold and silver and jewels behind them. A 
 single word—just one gesture—to show they were 
 willing to surrender their faith, and any one of them 
 would have been spared. 
 
 But no. Rather would they all sacrifice their 
 homes and their wealth, than forsake their religion. 
 So off into the night they went, outcasts and fugi- 
 tives. Off they wandered in utter bewilderment to 
 seek a new home. 
 
CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 HOW THE JEWS FLED FROM WESTERN EUROPE TO 
 POLAND AND TURKEY 
 
 So once more we find the Jews cast out and wan- 
 dering in search of a new resting place. Further 
 west it was impossible for them to go, for the New 
 World had not yet been discovered. Of necessity, 
 therefore, they had to go back east again. 
 
 And by now things had changed for the better 
 in the East, and they found a ready welcome there. 
 Jews from the northern half of Western Europe— 
 the ‘‘Ashkenazim”’ as they were called, because the 
 Hebrew for Germany is Ashkenaz—wandered off 
 to Poland. Probably there already were scattered 
 communities of Jews in Poland to welcome the ref- 
 ugees from the west. We are told of a large tribe 
 of Tartars called the Khazars, who in the eighth 
 century were converted to Judaism and established 
 a Jewish kingdom in southern Russia.* Although 
 that kingdom was destroyed by the Russians in 
 the tenth century, no doubt many of the descend- 
 ants of the Khazars were still living in the region. 
 
 * Judah Halevi, the poet of the “Golden Age,” made this 
 conversion the central incident in his famous book called “Al 
 Khazari.’”’ In it he gives the arguments used by the rabbi who 
 won over the king of the Khazars. But Halevi wrote the book 
 four hundred years after the event, and was of course drawing 
 altogether on his imagination. Just how the Khazars really 
 came to accept Judaism we do not at all know. 
 
238 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 And no doubt they readily greeted their brethren as 
 they came flocking in from Germany. 
 
 The kings of Poland did not at all oppose the 
 vast immigration of Jews. Their land was still 
 sparsely settled, and almost barbaric. There was 
 little commerce in it, for there were exceedingly 
 few towns or villages. So the Jews, who were now 
 
 3B 
 
 28.—The Home of the Khazars 
 
 known to be primarily a commercial people, were 
 welcomed by the shrewd kings. Wherever a Jew 
 settled, there a store and a market place arose; 
 and wherever a store and market place arose, there 
 the Polish peasants began to stake out farms and 
 build their hovels. Thus gradually many villages 
 and towns began to appear in the land. 
 
 But many years had to pass before the Jews 
 began to feel at home in the new environment. 
 
psomysoy 146 AY. L—'6é 
 
 4 
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240 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 The unrefined life of the barbaric serfs around them 
 made them look back with longing to the civilized 
 land from which they had been driven. They still 
 spoke German—though with the passing of the 
 generations that German changed to the speech 
 now known to us as Yiddish. And they still called 
 each other by the names of the German cities from 
 which they had been expelled. 
 
 2 
 
 Exactly the same thing happened to the Jews 
 who were driven from Spain—the ‘‘Sephardim,”’ 
 as they were called, because the Hebrew word for 
 Spain is Sepharad. They wandered off to Turkey 
 and to other Mohammedan lands; and the sultans 
 received them with no little delight. But those 
 Jews, too, felt themselves in a lower grade environ- 
 ment, and they never gave up their old speech. Just 
 as the Ashkenazim in the north developed Yiddish, 
 so the Sephardim in the south developed Ladino, 
 a dialect also written in Hebrew characters, but 
 made up principally of sixteenth-century Spanish 
 interspersed with many Hebrew words. 
 
 3 
 
 Not all the Jews wandered off to Poland and 
 Turkey, however. The many hundreds of thou- 
 sands not courageous enough to uproot themselves 
 and leave their old homes and the graves of their 
 forefathers, remained behind. In Germany, Italy, 
 and Austria they managed to drag out a pitiable 
 existence in the comparatively few towns which 
 had not absolutely expelled their race; and in Spain 
 
THE FLIGHT EASTWARD 241 
 
 and Portugal they lived on, despite the Inquisition, 
 as Maranos. 
 
 In each of those German and Italian towns they 
 were forced to live in what was called a Ghetto. The 
 first of them in Italy was created in Venice, and 
 was located in a foul corner of the town near the 
 “‘Gietto,” the gun factory. And probably that is 
 how we get the word. 
 
 From the very beginning of the Exile the Jews 
 had been inclined to live together in little groups. 
 Even before the Talmud became their law they pre- 
 ferred to keep to themselves, for after all, they were 
 a ‘different’ people. And the Talmud, with its 
 innumerable minute regulations, only intensified 
 that preference. No matter where the town, the 
 Jews almost instinctively drifted toward one partic- 
 ular street or section in it. Thus in London be- 
 fore their expulsion most of them lived on a narrow 
 lane which to this day is know as Old Jewry. 
 
 But in those earlier years it was always a matter of 
 desire, not of duress. There was no law forbidding 
 them to live wherever they pleased in a city. Only 
 in the towns of early Spain, before the Mohammedans 
 conquered the land, was any attempt made to re- 
 strict Jewish dwellings to certain streets. 
 
 But in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries such 
 restrictions began to be made and enforced also 
 in the German cities, and in the fourteenth century 
 in the Sicilian cities. And gradually the evil custom 
 spread to other parts of Europe. By the sixteenth 
 century few indeed were the West-European Jews 
 who were not forced to live in these segregated 
 districts. 
 
242 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 4 
 
 Almost always the ghetto was situated in the 
 foulest part of the town. In Rome, for instance, a 
 few vile alleys down in the lower end of the city 
 sheltered the Jews. Year after year the River Tiber 
 in flood sent its ill-smelling waters through those 
 alleys, leaving behind thick layers of oozy mud that 
 steamed with malaria and other diseases. 
 
 Almost always, too, the ghettos grew fearfully 
 overcrowded. Though the Jews rapidly increased 
 in numbers, bearing children and children’s children, 
 the ghettos were rarely if ever enlarged. In Frank- 
 fort-on-the-Main, for instance, four thousand souls 
 were packed into fewer than two hundred houses 
 in a gloomy street too narrow for a wagon to turn 
 in! Two and three families had to live in one and 
 the same room. Even the cemeteries became so 
 choked that the tombstones were often piled almost 
 on top of each other. 
 
 It was impossible to keep the ghettos clean. 
 Refuse was littered everywhere, and huge rats 
 scuttled about in the cellars and walls. If a fever 
 broke out, hardly a family escaped; if a fire was 
 started, not a house could be saved. 
 
 Nor was this all. High walls surrounded the 
 ghettos, and their gates could be closed and locked. 
 At first this was looked on as an advantage by the 
 Jews, for their thought was that the walls would 
 protect them from the murderous mobs. Every 
 night they locked the gate in the belief that it safe- 
 guarded them from attack. But later they dis- 
 covered that the gate shut them in far more effect- 
 
THE FLIGHT EASTWARD 243 
 
 ively than it shut the Christians out. The ghetto 
 became a prison yard, and when lustful mobs wanted 
 their Jews, they knew just where to find them. 
 Once the gate was battered down, the Jews were 
 trapped in their narrow alleys and were lost. 
 
 And there was still another evil. Life in the ghetto 
 with its imprisoning walls, its dilapidated houses, 
 its open sewers in every street, came to affect the 
 Jew for evil much the same as did the badge he was 
 forced to wear. It not merely stunted his body, 
 but it also warped his soul. It condemned him to 
 skulk like a criminal or a leper behind bars. All his 
 social life had to be lived in its close air. If he was 
 caught outside the ghetto gates after dark, he was 
 arrested and perhaps put to death. 
 
 Even during the day, when he was free to roam 
 through the city, he could seldom make friends. 
 The Jew-badge sewn to his ragged clothing, marked 
 him off as low and despicable. Very rarely, now, 
 was he able to carry on the business of money lending 
 save on a petty scale. He could not be a craftsman 
 of any sort because the guilds, the trade unions of 
 medieval times, rigidly excluded him from member- 
 ship. Even as a trader he was restricted, for in many 
 lands a law forbade him to sell any but second- 
 hand goods. He had to eke out a livelihood as a 
 rag-peddler or a haggling pawnbroker. Deeper and 
 deeper he was ground into the dust. 
 
 5 
 
 But there was still one place left on earth where he 
 was noble and free—and that place was his home. 
 Even though it may have been but a corner of some 
 
244 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 foul cellar, still he was king there. All the love in 
 his being, dammed in by the outside world, was 
 lavished on his wife and children. The home became 
 his temple, and the family table his holy altar. 
 As often as the Sabbath came, he would throw off 
 his rags, bathe, dress in his finest raiment, and feel 
 himself once more the Chosen of God. The Sabbath 
 table would be spread with its white linen, its bright 
 lamps, its mountainous twisted loaves. The little 
 wine cup would be drained to the glory of God and 
 the Holy Days. Prayers would be offered and even 
 merry songs would be sung. All the thousand woes 
 of daily life would be utterly forgotten. And with 
 that old hope that had never quite been crushed, 
 the Jew would dream again of his Messiah. 
 
 That is the miracle of the Ghetto—and the miracle 
 of the Jew. All the hideous degradations that a 
 stupidly hostile world could heap on him, could not 
 rob him of that solace. The frenzied words of the 
 Prophets of ancient Judea still lived on in his heart. 
 Through the week they flickered low in the wind of 
 hatred, but on the Sabbath day in his own home they 
 burst into triumphant flame. He would sézll be 
 redeemed, he believed! Some day, some day, the 
 God he had served all through that terrible night, 
 would bring on the dawn again! Some day his 
 Messiah would come!.. . 
 
CHAPTER XXX 
 
 HOW THE JEWS HELPED TO BRING ABOUT THE 
 PROTESTANT REFORMATION 
 
 The hostility of the Catholic Church to Judaism 
 is simply explained. The foundation of that Church 
 was the naive claim that it alone knew and treasured 
 the whole Truth. It would not admit that there 
 might be ‘‘my” belief and ‘‘yours,”’ but insisted 
 that there could only be the ‘‘true”’ belief and the 
 ‘false.’ All who belonged to the Church enjoyed 
 the safety of the ‘‘true” belief; while all who were 
 so foolish as to remain outside the Church, shared 
 in the unvarying deadly harm of the ‘‘false.”’ 
 
 It was an altogether absurd, a pathetically stupid 
 claim—but nevertheless it was insisted on. And 
 because the Synagogue frankly refused to accept it, 
 the Church was as frankly relentless in its perse- 
 cution. For no matter how battered and crippled 
 and small it may have been, the Synagogue still 
 constituted a living challenge. It was the one un- 
 mistakable, ever-flaming protest against the pre- 
 sumption of the Church. It was more than a thorn. 
 Scattered as it was throughout the lands of Christen- 
 dom, the Synagogue operated on every side rather 
 like a network of tiny rapiers that bled the sense of 
 self-sufficiency in the Church. 
 
 That explains why the Church would give the Jew 
 no rest. He was its most dangerous enemy, for 
 
246 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 wherever he migrated he encouraged heresies. He 
 did not do it by active agitation; he did not have to. 
 His very presence in a community was enough. For 
 his very presence proved it was possible to remain 
 outside the Church, to be unorthodox, and still 
 live and face death peacefully. ° 
 
 One cannot doubt, therefore, that it was this pres- 
 ence of the Jew in Christian Europe, and the spirit 
 of protest which he kept alive, that helped bring on 
 the great Protestant Reformation. 
 
 2 
 
 It is significant that the first skirmish in that Ref- 
 ormation sprang out of an attack on the Jews. A 
 certain baptized Jew named Pfefferkorn, eager to 
 show how good a Christian he had become, per- 
 suaded the Emperor of Germany in 1590 to order 
 the burning of all the Hebrew books in the hands of 
 the Jews of Frankfort and Cologne. Such burnings, 
 especially of copies of the Talmud, had already 
 occurred several times before in Europe; for it was 
 charged that those books contained wicked attacks 
 on Christianity. The Jews had always protested, 
 but never with success. 
 
 This time, however, they had better fortune. 
 The Emperor, desiring to be just, called in a famous 
 Christian named Reuchlin to give an opinion on the 
 ease. Like many other great scholars of that day— 
 the Humanists, as they were calléd—Reuchlin was 
 well versed in Hebrew literature. He had studied 
 in Rome under Jews, and had written on Hebrew 
 _ grammar and Cabala. His report was favorable 
 to the Jews, declaring that their books were useful 
 
THE RENDING OF THE CHURCH 247 
 
 for theology and science, and contained no heresy 
 whatsoever. And as a result of that report the 
 Emperor rescinded his order. 
 
 Immediately Pfefforkorn, with the aid of the 
 Dominican friars whose tool he was, launched an 
 attack on Reuchlin. But the humanist was a man 
 of courage as well as learning, and he fought back. 
 And the conflict that ensued helped to clear the 
 way for Martin Luther and his Reformation. It 
 opened the eyes of the more intelligent Christians 
 to the corruption and the ignorance of the Church. 
 
 3 
 
 A new spirit had already gathered momentum 
 in Europe—a spirit that came to be called the 
 Renaissance, the ‘“‘Rebirth.” For the first time in 
 centuries man dared to give his mind freer play, 
 and dared again to ask questions. This generation 
 was no longer content to accept all that the church- 
 men told it, but began to go back to the Hebrew 
 and Greek writings from which those churchmen 
 claimed to have derived their authority. Those 
 writings were only available because of the activity 
 of the Jews and the Arabs during the ‘‘Golden 
 Age.”’ It was Jews and Arabs who had translated 
 and interpreted the Holy Scriptures of the ancient 
 Hebrews, and the scientific works of the ancient 
 Greeks, so that Christian scholars—now that they 
 were interested—at last could see what those books 
 contained. 
 
 -Of course, the result was devastating to the pres- 
 tige of the Church. Its religion was discovered to 
 be grossly unlike the religion of the Hebrews and 
 
248 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 Jesus; and its science, when compared with the science 
 of the Greeks, was found to be altogether false. 
 
 Martin Luther, although himself a priest at the 
 time, was one of those who saw how extreme was 
 the difference between the religion of the Church 
 and the religion of the Scriptures. He had studied 
 Hebrew under Reuchlin and was able to read those 
 Scriptures in the original tongue. And having read 
 them diligently, he finally made public what he had 
 discovered. On Hallowe’en Day in the year 1517, he 
 nailed a statement of certain of his beliefs to the door 
 of his little church in Wittenberg, in Germany. And 
 with that courageous act, Protestantism was born. 
 
 Luther insisted that not the Pope but the Holy 
 Scriptures were the final religious authority to 
 which every man should bow. For that reason he 
 made it one of his first tasks to translate the Bible 
 into German, so that every man might be able to 
 consult it for and by himself. In making that trans- 
 lation, he relied considerably on the commentary 
 written by the Jewish scholar named Rashi who 
 lived in France in the eleventh century. But save in 
 that indirect fashion, Jews exercised little influence 
 on the development of the new movement. By their 
 long and heroic struggle against the Church they 
 had pointed the way for Protestantism. By their 
 very presence in Europe they had helped to bring the 
 heresy into being. But once it was born, they let 
 it severely alone. 
 
 4 
 
 It is curious how Luther acted toward the Jews. 
 At first they were highly in favor with him, and he 
 
THE RENDING OF THE CHURCH 249 
 
 had nothing but praise for their age-old resistance 
 to the Church. In an essay entitled ‘“‘Jesus Was 
 Born a Jew,” he wrote: ‘‘ They (the Jews) are blood- 
 relations of our Lord; and if it were proper to boast 
 of flesh and blood, the Jews belong to Christ more 
 than we. ... Therefore it is my advice that we 
 treat them kindly. . . . We must exercise not the 
 law of the Pope, but that of Christian love, and 
 show them a friendly spirit. . . .” 
 
 But later it became evident that Luther had not 
 written those words out of a desire to be fair to the 
 Jews, but out of a desire to convert them. For as 
 he grew older and saw that the Jews could not be 
 converted, his whole attitude changed. With a 
 rancor and bitterness hard to account for, he sud- 
 denly began condemning the Jews. He accused 
 them now of all those fictitious crimes which had 
 made Europe such a hell for them. He, too, now 
 claimed that they poisoned the wells used by Chris- 
 tians, assassinated their Christian patients, and 
 murdered Christian children to procure blood for 
 the Passover. He called on the princes and rulers to 
 persecute them mercilessly, and commanded the 
 preachers to set the mobs on them. He declared 
 that if the power were his, he would take all the 
 leaders of the Jews and tear their tongues out by the 
 
 roots! 
 
 5 
 
 The story of the earlier and later attitude of 
 Luther toward the Jews of Germany strangely par- 
 allels that of Mohammed toward the Jews of Arabia. 
 And just as Mohammedanism in the beginning 
 
250 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 brought the unconvertible folk exceedingly little 
 benefit, just so Protestantism brought them no 
 good. On the contrary, Luther’s movement in 
 those years caused the Jews even more distress— 
 if that was possible—than they had known while 
 in the talons of the undivided Church. For soon 
 a reaction set in, and the Church with mad des- 
 peration tried to win back its old power. The laxity 
 that had crept into its government, and that had 
 made it possible for the Jews to live at all, was now 
 suddenly checked. 
 
 All the harshest canons and regulations were now 
 put in force again. The Talmud and other Hebrew 
 works were ordered to be destroyed in the Papal 
 States—and now no Reuchlin was permitted to 
 intercede. Jews were compelled to support schools 
 for their own conversion. They were not allowed 
 to own real estate. Wherever they went, the men 
 had to wear green caps, and the women green veils. 
 The physicians among them were absolutely for- 
 bidden to attend Christian patients. . . . The Jews 
 were expelled from Lower Austria, and twice within 
 twenty years from Bohemia. . . . Even in Poland, 
 where they had been left at peace until now, the 
 Jesuit missionaries of the Church brought misery 
 and death to the Jews. 
 
 Dawn had come to the Christian world, and the 
 darkness that had reigned for thirteen hundred 
 years, was at last being dispelled. . 
 
 But for the Jews there was still no dawn. For 
 them it was still unbroken Night. 
 
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 Chart E. The Adventures of the Jews, Part V 
 
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 f 
 
CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 PERSECUTION COMPELS THE JEWS TO RE-INFORCE 
 THE WALL OF LAW AROUND THEMSELVES 
 
 And because darkness still reigned supreme in the 
 world’s attitude toward the Jew, darkness reigned 
 also in the Jew’s attitude toward his own religion. 
 The clear light that had flamed in Jewish learning 
 during the ‘“‘Golden Age,’ burned lower and lower 
 till at last only a spark was left alive. As we have 
 already seen, Maimonides’ ‘‘Guide for the Perplexed” 
 was publicly burned only forty years after its great 
 author died. All philosophy was branded a dangerous 
 study, and only the Talmud and Cabala were rec- 
 ommended by the rabbis. 
 
 The light, however, could not be entirely snuffed 
 out at once. Philosophy still was studied by the 
 more courageous of the scholars, and several learned 
 works—largely imitations of the ‘‘Guide’’—were 
 produced in the century that followed. 
 
 Science, too, still had its devotees among the Jews. 
 Scholars like Jacob Anatoli translated important 
 scientific works from Arabic and Hebrew into Latin. 
 Others, like Levi ben Gershom, Abraham Zacuto, 
 and Jaffuda Cresques, created the astronomical 
 instruments, the mathematical tables, and the maps 
 which made possible the voyages of Columbus and 
 the other world explorers. Still others went on those 
 voyages themselves. Several Jews were with Co- 
 
THE WALL OF JEWISH LAW 253 
 
 lumbus on his expeditions to America, and the first 
 white man to set foot on the continent was his inter- 
 preter, a Jew named Luis de Torres.* 
 
 2 
 
 Neither did the lively Hebrew literature of the 
 ‘“‘Golden Age” disappear all at once. Immanuel 
 of Rome, a friend of Dante, wrote clever poetry 
 that was rather shocking. And another, Kalonymus 
 ben Kalonymus, dared to produce and circulate an 
 amusing ‘‘take-off”’ on the Talmud. 
 
 The ferment of new ideas in Christian Europe 
 which is called the Renaissance, did not pass by and 
 leave the Jews unaffected. They themselves had 
 helped to give the ferment a start, for Jews had been 
 foremost among the teachers of the Humanists. 
 Naturally, therefore, they themselves were influ- 
 enced by its rise. 
 
 _ For instance, a Jew named Elijah Levita, who had 
 
 taught Hebrew to many famous Christians, made 
 at least one bold discovery concerning the text of 
 the Scriptures. He became convinced that the 
 vowel points in the Hebrew Bible had not been put 
 in by Moses or Ezra, as people firmly believed, but 
 by certain unknown scholars living long after the 
 Talmud had been completed. His announcement 
 bewildered the Jews and then aroused them to great 
 anger. lLevita’s discovery meant that the text of 
 the Bible in use among them was of relatively late 
 origin! 
 
 Then there was a frail and withered scholar named — 
 
 * This same Luis de Torres is reputed to have been the man 
 who first discovered the use of tobacco. 
 
254 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 Azariah dei Rossi, one of those amazing Jews who 
 had wandered everywhere and seemed to know 
 everything. He wrote voluminously on Jewish 
 history and science, and always with fine daring. 
 Whenever a real contradiction arose between reason 
 and a time-honored belief, he sided completely with 
 reason. And he was the first Jewish scholar with 
 sufficient daring to declare openly that on matters 
 of science the whole Talmud was unreliable! 
 
 But such scholars received no sympathy or en- 
 couragement from the run of their fellow Jews. 
 On the contrary, their works were reviled and their 
 lives were plagued. The poetry of Immanuel of 
 Rome was rabbinically condemned. Elijah Levita 
 found his brethren so hostile, that most of his life 
 was spent solely with Christian associates. And 
 Azariah dei Rossi narrowly escaped excommunica- 
 tion. 
 
 So it went with all the other scholars who dared 
 to display independence and courage in their think- 
 ing. In the eyes of the orthodox rabbis of the day, 
 they were ‘“‘destructive critics.”” And in the judg- 
 ment of those rabbis all destructive criticism—indeed, 
 criticism of any sort—seemed fearful and dangerous. 
 They insisted that there be no prying or doubting, 
 but only dumb belief. Very much like the priests of 
 the Church, the rabbis of the Synagogue could only 
 tolerate unqualified orthodoxy. 
 
 For they were frightened. They- knew that once 
 more Israel stood in danger of destruction. It had 
 been all very well in the ‘‘Golden Age”’ to lower the 
 wall around the Jew and let in a little light. In the 
 ‘“‘Golden Age” the sea outside the wall had been 
 
THE WALL OF JEWISH LAW 255 
 
 calm and still. But now that the sea again raged 
 with fury, even those breaches that had already 
 been made, needed to be quickly closed against the 
 flood. 
 
 3 
 
 So in the very century when light was streaming 
 into the Church, the breaches in the walls of the 
 Synagogue were being filled and all light was being 
 shut out. The very age that saw the rise of pro- 
 phetic reformers in Christendom, saw the rise of 
 priestly rabbis in Israel. 
 
 The laws of the Talmud recovered their old im- 
 portance, and along with them, myriads of new 
 little laws that had been devised by later rabbis. 
 New notebooks or digests were compiled to make 
 those laws better known to the people. As early as 
 ‘the eleventh century one of these digests was com- 
 piled by a rabbi named Alfasi. In the fourteenth 
 century, Asher ben Yechiel made another. His 
 son, Jacob ben Asher, followed with a third. And 
 there were also many others of lesser importance. 
 
 But not until the sixteenth century were the 
 Jews ready to make a new gospel of such a law code, 
 and then a rabbi named Joseph Karo compiled a 
 work called the Shulchan Aruch. 
 
 t 
 
 Joseph Karo was a Spanish Jew who settled in 
 Safed, in Galilee, and became chief rabbi there. 
 (The rule of the Turks had grown tolerant again, 
 and Palestine had once more become an important 
 Jewish center.) He was one of those scholars who 
 
256 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 thought all worldly wisdom was confined to the 
 Talmud, and he pored over it till he knew it almost 
 by heart. He seems to have been a true product 
 of his surroundings: a gadgrind with a marvelous 
 memory but no originality, a vast capacity for work 
 but no genius. His imagination was of the sort that 
 trailed its wings in the stagnant waters of magic 
 and superstition. And his courage was of the sort 
 that essayed huge tasks rather than adventurous 
 ones. His whole intelligence was typically that 
 of the ultra-priest—slow, safe, and soggy. 
 Practically all his life was devoted to the one 
 monumental undertaking, the compiling of his 
 Shulehan Aruch. The book was an exhaustive 
 digest of the laws and customs regulating the life 
 of the Jew; and it covered everything, from a rul- 
 ing as to which shoe should be put on first when 
 dressing, to how love should be made, and how 
 children should be reared. It clamped the Jew in 
 an iron mold, and forced all his life and thought to 
 become rigid and unchangeable. And soon after 
 it was first printed (1564), the Shulchan Aruch 
 was accepted as the highest authority in the legal 
 literature of Israel. It gained acceptance in all 
 the lands of the Diaspora, for although Karo him- 
 self had included in it only the regulations honored 
 by the Sephardic Jews, a Polish Talmudist named 
 Moses Isserles hastily added the many other regu- 
 lations honored by the Ashkenazim. From then on 
 succeeding scholars began to write commentaries on it 
 as their predecessors had written commentaries on the 
 Bible and the Talmud. They are still writing com- 
 mentaries on it to this day, in Eastern Europe. .. . 
 
THE WALL OF JEWISH LAW 257 
 
 And thus did the Jews take unto themselves a 
 veritable ‘‘printed pope.” 
 
 It was inevitable, of course, that this should 
 happen. Persecution forced the Jews to build up 
 their wall of law or else drown in the sea of oppres- 
 sion. It was but a repetition of what had happened 
 in Palestine after the Destruction of Jersualem, and 
 in Babylonia after the Dispersion, and in Northern 
 Europe during the Crusades. Death had the Jews 
 almost in its talons—and they would not die. 
 
 Even among the Jews themselves, there are many 
 to-day who look on the triumph of the priestly 
 Shulchan Aruch as one of the tragic incidents in 
 this history. But perhaps there would not have 
 been a to-day for the Jews if in the sixteenth century 
 there had been no Shulchan Aruch. .. . 
 
 This code may have condemned them to im- 
 prisonment for life, but at least it saved them from 
 death. 
 
CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 THE GLOOM BEHIND THE WALL OF LAW GIVES 
 RISE TO THE CABALA AND THE FALSE MES- 
 SIAHS 
 
 If there was any light behind the gloomy wall of 
 Law which the Jews had built around themselves, 
 it was but the phosphorescent glow cast by the 
 Cabala. As far back as Bible times there had been 
 a trace of that glow in Jewish life. It increased 
 somewhat in Talmudic times, probably through 
 association with the Persians. In Gaonic times it 
 grew brighter still. Rabbis bored to desperation 
 with sifting the dead ashes of the Law, eagerly 
 took to playing with the flame of magic. It died 
 down again while the sun of reason shone among the 
 philosophers of the ‘“‘Golden Age.” But as soon 
 as that sun set, the eerie gleam of the Cabala ap- 
 peared again. 
 
 And then the real age of the Cabala followed. 
 It received its first impetus from a book called the 
 Zohar (the ‘‘Splendor’’), late in the thirteenth cen- 
 tury. This Zohar contained a Cabalistic explana- 
 tion of the Torah that purported to reveal all the 
 ‘“‘secret meanings”’ underlying the peculiar phrases 
 and words of the holy text. A Spanish Jew named 
 Moses de Leon, who sponsored the book, claimed it 
 had been conceived and written by a wonder-working 
 rabbi eleven hundred years earlier, and that the 
 
THE FALSE MESSIAHS 259 
 
 manuscript had lain hidden away all the intervening 
 years in a mysterious cave. In all probability, how- 
 ever, he had compiled it himself from stolen ma- 
 terial lifted by him from Hindu, Persian, and Hebrew 
 writings. 
 
 The popularity of the book in the Jewish world 
 was amazing. Though it had set out to be merely 
 a commentary on the Torah, it soon became, indeed, 
 a Torah in itself. In every corner of every land of 
 the Diaspora Jews pored over it and wrote com- 
 mentaries on it. Contemporary Jewish philosophers 
 and scientists attacked it to no avail, for its hold 
 on the imagination of the people was too firm. For 
 five hundred years stunted souls reveled in its mys- 
 teries with all the abandon of rickety slum-children 
 playing in a mud puddle. 
 
 2 
 
 It is difficult for a modern mind to extract much 
 sense from the Zohar or any of the other Cabalistic 
 works. They all seem filled to the brim with diseased 
 and pathetic nonsense. We can well understand 
 and, indeed, admire the underlying hunger behind 
 them, the sweeping sense of wonder at the unutterable 
 mystery of all life. But our minds are offended by the 
 way in which those works seek to allay the hunger. 
 
 Nothing is more reasonable than the conviction 
 that veiled powers throng the universe; and nothing 
 is more honorable than the desire to unveil them. 
 But there are varied ways of attempting to satisfy 
 that desire. There is the way of the scientist who 
 by experimentation and invention tries courageously 
 to tear the veils apart. There is the way of the re- 
 
260 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 ligious mystic who by piety and meditation tries 
 humbly to pray them apart. There is the way of 
 the artist who by yielding to inspiration somehow 
 stares them apart. Then there is the way of the 
 Cabalist, who by mumbling incantations and boiling 
 magic broths, tries almost treacherously to sneak 
 them apart. 
 
 And of all four ways, the most popular has ever 
 been that of the Cabalist. 
 
 Especially was it popular among the Jews between 
 the thirteenth and the eighteenth centuries—and 
 for a very valid reason. To the sorry creatures 
 ‘ languishing behind the physical wall of the Ghetto 
 and the spiritual wall of the Law, it came as a boon 
 from Heaven. The Ghetto bound their feet, and 
 the Law shackled their hands; but the Cabala 
 let their minds run loose and wild. 
 
 That explains the rapid spread of the Cabala 
 in the Jewish world. The Law was still studied and 
 observed, more out of duty, however, than love. 
 The Cabala alone was wooed with free-hearted 
 passion. For the Law, though it did keep the Jews 
 alive, yet did not make their life worth living. The 
 Cabala alone seemed able to do that for them. 
 For the Cabala put heart into them by its assurance 
 that their individual souls were all-important and 
 holy—that the whole universe revolved about them. 
 The Cabala taught every man not merely that he 
 was created in the image of God, but that he was 
 actually a part of Him. All could taste the ecstasy 
 of union with God, of meeting, and embracing, 
 and being embraced by Him, if they but knew the 
 secret way that led into His presence. 
 
THE FALSE MESSIAHS 261 
 
 All of which was admirable and beyond reproach. 
 
 But Cabala went further and tried to tell how 
 that union with God could be attained—and that 
 was where it fell into pathetic error. It took to 
 mumbling about imps and demons, about magic 
 words and magic numbers, about lucky stars and 
 guardian angels, about secret books and mystic 
 seals. All the truck and imbecility of magic, all the 
 nonsense about spells, amulets, evil eyes, and lucky 
 stones, became part of Cabalistic lore. 
 _It was a delusion and a snare, plunging and en- 
 tangling the people in the crudest superstition. And 
 generation after generation it bred False Messiahs. 
 
 3 
 
 To tell of all the Cabalists who set themselves up 
 as Messiahs, would take many more pages than we 
 can afford here. Of most of them it is enough to 
 say that they suddenly appeared, preached, excited 
 the people, and then disappeared. Many of them 
 fell a prey to the civil authorities, and-were either 
 forcibly baptized or put to death. Some of them 
 may have been plain impostors, and deserving of 
 that fate. But the majority of them seem to have 
 been poor, half-insane fellows who were fully as 
 deluded as their followers. Long brooding over the 
 woes of the Jewish people, coupled with years of 
 staring into the glare of the Cabala, had hypnotized 
 them into really believing themselves the ‘‘ Anointed 
 of God.” Typical of their faith in themselves is the 
 instance of one of them who actually asked to 
 be beheaded so that he might prove that he could 
 come to life again! 
 
262 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 Their daring was almost incredible. For in- 
 stance, a swarthy, emaciated, quick-witted adven- 
 turer named David Reubeni, managed to convince 
 both the Pope at Rome, and the King of Portugal, 
 of his pretensions. So great was the enthusiasm 
 he aroused, that many Maranos in Portugal were 
 suddenly impelled to declare themselves Jews once 
 more. One of them was a handsome youth named 
 Diogo Pires, who was royal secretary in one of the 
 high courts. He cast aside all his honors, had him- 
 self circumcised, took the Hebrew name of Solomon 
 Molko, and started off impetuously to meet the 
 Great Day. He ran away to Syria, and became a 
 leader among the Cabalists there. (Even Joseph 
 Karo, the dry legalist who wrote the Schulchan 
 Aruch, became one of Molko’s disciples.) And then 
 he went to Italy to proclaim to the world the im- 
 mediate coming of the Messiah. 
 
 What adventures Molko had in Italy, how he was 
 befriended by ambassadors and cardinals, was 
 secretly smuggled out of his death-cell by the Pope, 
 met David Reubeni once more and went off with 
 him to convert the Emperor, and how finally he 
 was burned at the stake, provide an abundance of 
 material for a thrilling novel. 
 
 + 
 
 But even more fascinating is the story of Sabbatai 
 Zevi, the greatest of all the False Messiahs. 
 
 Sabbatai was born in Turkey, and early distin- 
 guished himself as a pious Cabalist. He was known 
 as a queer young fellow—queer enough, at least, 
 to deny himself all pleasures, fast day after day, 
 
THE FALSE MESSIAHS 263 
 
 and bathe in the sea even in winter. These prac- 
 tices were the fashion among the extreme Cabalists: 
 they starved and froze their bodies until they be- 
 came delirious with the pain. And while in that 
 delirium they believed they tasted the ecstasy of 
 union with God. 
 
 Sabbatai was born into a world that was all 
 a-tremble with panic and excitement. The year 
 1666 was approaching, and because of some curious 
 manipulations of a verse in the New Testament 
 Book of Revelation, 1666 was looked forward to by 
 many Christians as the year of the coming of the 
 Messiah. The Jews, too, had a calculation that 
 pointed to his coming at about that time. The fact 
 that for the Christians it was the Second Coming, 
 and for the Jews the first, made very little difference. 
 The exciting point was that He was coming! 
 
 With much of the world thus nervously awaiting 
 the miraculous appearance, it was neither strange 
 nor difficult for a youth like Sabbatai to get a fixed 
 idea into his head that he himself was the one to 
 appear. Neither was it difficult for him to get 
 others to accept the idea, too. In Turkey and 
 Syria, where the Cabala had been sapping the in- | 
 telligence of the Jews for generations, he was very 
 soon accepted with mad acclaim. In Poland, 
 where the ghastliest massacres were just then dec- 
 imating the Jews, he was just as eagerly hailed. 
 Even in Germany, Holland, and France the Jews 
 took him at his word. Their spirits had been so 
 broken by long-continued suffering and unremitting 
 torture throughout the world, that they were ready 
 to believe in anyone promising early release. Pil- 
 
264 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 grims came to Sabbatai from all corners of the Di- 
 aspora, bearing rich gifts from their communities. 
 Great rabbis in far distant lands, on hearing rumors 
 of the ‘‘Messiah’s’”’ appearance, wrote to each other 
 in bewilderment, not knowing what to believe or do. 
 
 Sabbatai himself was undoubtedly deluded and 
 somewhat insane; but he directed his campaign 
 with rare shrewdness. He did everything possible 
 to win the allegiance of the people, from distributing 
 candy among the children of the town, to giving 
 himself solemnly in marriage to the Torah. He 
 scourged his body publicly, sang mystical songs, 
 distributed printed accounts of his visions, and sent 
 messengers everywhere proclaiming his messiah- 
 ship. 
 
 Finally, the Turkish officials took a hand, for 
 the Sabbataian movement had begun to take on the 
 semblance of a political revolt. But they did not 
 exert themselves. After they had imprisoned Sab- 
 batai they let his prison be turned almost into a 
 throne-room by his frenzied admirers. The syna- 
 gogues throughout Europe were decorated with his 
 initials, ‘‘S. Z.’? In many communities, houses were 
 unroofed and other preparations made for a new 
 Exodus. Prayers were offered in Sabbatai’s name, 
 and good-luck charms were engraved with his initials. 
 Pictures were drawn of the holy Sabbatai astride a 
 lion crunching a seven-headed dragon in its jaws, 
 leading the Twelve Tribes on their way back to the 
 Holy Land. Even some Christians caught the fever, 
 and thought they sighted mysterious vessels off the 
 coast of Scotland with silken sails bearing Hebrew 
 inscriptions. 
 
SaBBATAI ZeEvi 
 WAS ONE OF THE 
 MANY “FALSE 
 MESSIAHS” WHO 
 
 tHE Jews cene- Ae sii 4 | 
 RATION AFTER _Wy pl 
 GENERATION y 
 
 EXxciteD THEM re 
 
 With WILD AND o/ H 
 
 - IMPOSS'IBLAB 
 
 HOPES, AND 
 THEN CAME TO 
 Some BAD END. 
 
 30.—The Wanderings of Sabbatai Zevi 
 
266 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 5 
 
 And then of a sudden the whole mad boom col- 
 lapsed. A rival “Messiah”? suddenly came out of 
 Poland, and failing to come to terms with Sabbatai, 
 denounced him to the Sultan. Sabbatai was taken 
 from the prison in which bribed officials had per- 
 mitted him to do as he pleased, and was dragged 
 to Adrianople. There he immediately perceived 
 that his end was approaching, for the government 
 had lost its patience. Frantically he looked about 
 for a means of escape, and found it—in conversion. 
 When he was brought for judgment before the mighty 
 Sultan he simply cast off his Jewish head-dress and 
 put on a Turkish turban. 
 
 Awful was the consternation in all Israel when 
 the news spread that the holy Sabbatai had turned 
 Mohammedan. Great rabbis and scholars who had 
 been deceived by the impostor, hung their heads 
 in shame; and everywhere great sport was made of 
 the Jews by their enemies. The Sultan, who might 
 just as easily have been among the duped, now pre- 
 tended great disgust with the credulous Jews. Seri- 
 ously he spoke of converting or exterminating all 
 of the hundreds of thousands in his realm; and only 
 narrowly was the attempt averted. 
 
 But the marvel of it was that even then the belief 
 in Sabbatai did not cease entirely. Jews by the hun- 
 dred persisted in regarding him as the long-awaited 
 Messiah. They told themselves that his conversion 
 was but a part of the Messianic programme, and 
 they quoted from the Prophets to prove it. And 
 they, too, became Mohammedans with him. 
 
THE FALSE MESSIAHS 267 
 
 Sabbatai himself encouraged these simpletons 
 by telling them that God had commanded him in 
 a vision to change his religion outwardly. He kept 
 up a continuous agitation, lying and playing traitor 
 to both Jews and Turks. Finally he was trapped 
 at his deceitful game and exiled to a lone village in 
 Albania. And there in shame and poverty he died. 
 
 6 
 
 But the storm Sabbatai Zevi had aroused did not 
 die with him. A century later, great rabbis in Po- 
 land and Germany were still squabbling over him 
 and his claims. 
 
 And to this day in many towns in Turkey de- 
 scendants are to be found of those Jews who turned 
 Mohammedan with the impostor. The ‘‘Donmeh”’ 
 they are called by the Turks: the ‘‘ Apostates.”’ 
 They keep themselves apart from the other Jews and 
 make a great show of going to the mosques and 
 keeping the Mohammedan holydays. But be- 
 neath it all, they are still Jews. They live side by 
 side, or in houses which are secretly connected, 
 marry only among themselves, have their own hid- 
 den meeting-places where they pray in Hebrew or 
 Ladino, and still await the return of Sabbatai the 
 Messiah. Somehow they have obtained a monopoly 
 of the barber trade, so that in a town like Salonica 
 to-day you can hardly have your hair trimmed 
 save at the hands of one of these strange half-Jews. 
 And sometimes the swarthy young foreigner who 
 shines your shoes in an American barber-shop, 
 is also one of them... . 
 
 It is all a bewilderingly strange story. ... 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 HOW THE SECRET JEWS OF SPAIN FLED TO HOL- 
 LAND AND THE NEW WORLD 
 
 When the Jews were cast out of Spain in 1492, 
 most of them found refuge in Turkey, Palestine, and 
 Syria. And we have already seen what manner of 
 adventures they had there. 
 
 But the story of the Maranos who remained be- 
 hind is still to be told. 
 
 The Inquisition continued its work of persecution, 
 and not alone in Spain, but later in nearby Portugal 
 also. But somehow it completely failed to accom- 
 plish its purpose. The Maranos still remained 
 Maranos, secretly observing the ancient Jewish 
 rites, and training their children and their children’s 
 children to observe them. Not merely to the third 
 and fourth generations, but to the ninth and tenth, 
 the practices of the ancient faith were secretly 
 transmitted. Though all Spain and Portugal reeked 
 with the smell of burning Jewish flesh, the heresy 
 could not be destroyed. 
 
 But as the years passed and the tyranny of the 
 Inquisitors did not abate, the Maranos grew des- 
 perate. Though they had great wealth and high 
 station, the strain of living in hourly danger of 
 exposure became too great even for them. So they 
 began to think of flight. Accordingly, in the six- 
 teenth century some of them followed their Jewish 
 brethren who had fled to Turkey, and there they re- 
 
IN HOLLAND 269 
 
 turned openly to the ancient faith. And there they 
 prospered and grew enormously powerful. 
 
 But as had happened so often before in the history 
 of the Jews, in a little while their popularity began 
 to wane. Perhaps it was because they had increased 
 in numbers too rapidly in their new home and 
 had become too prominently noticeable there. 
 (When foreigners in a community are few, their 
 presence is rarely resented. But when they so 
 multiply that they seem to be always in the way, 
 the attitude of the natives quickly changes.) So 
 after the sixteenth century but few Maranos looked 
 upon the Near East as a refuge. 
 
 They began looking to the north instead; to the 
 Netherlands. , 
 
 2 
 
 After one of the most heroic revolutions in the 
 story of all mankind, Holland had just succeeded 
 in freeing itself from the tyranny of Spain. Natu- 
 rally, therefore, it attracted the Maranos. In greater 
 and greater numbers they began to take refuge in 
 the free-spirited republic, bringing with them their 
 wealth and vast trading connections. And from 
 then on the glory of Spain began rapidly to wane— 
 and the might of Holland began to grow. 
 
 A distinguished Jewish community arose in 
 Amsterdam. Many of its members had been rather 
 lofty aristocrats in the land from which they had 
 fled, and had held high positions there. Former 
 priests and prelates were among them; perhaps 
 even former inquisitors. There were statesmen and 
 physicians, scholars and financiers. And many of 
 
270 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 them bore romantic Spanish names that rolled off 
 the tongue like polite rumblings of thunder. 
 
 (It is interesting to picture a haughty Juan Mar- 
 tinez de Caballeria and a proud Roderigo Ramirez 
 de Ribera, with their black little van dyke beards, 
 their enormous ruffs, their silk doublets, huddling 
 with their brethren in a little synagogue and reciting 
 the Hebrew prayers of their forefathers. . . .) 
 
 3 
 
 And from this parent colony in Holland, many 
 others were formed. The King of Denmark was 
 induced by the prosperity which the Jews were bring- 
 ing to the Netherlands, to invite them to settle in 
 his country too. Far more important, England 
 now reopened its doors to the Jews. In 1654 Oliver 
 Cromwell was won over by the eloquent rabbi of 
 Amsterdam, Menasseh ben Israel, and set aside the 
 edict that had kept the Jews out of England for 
 more than three and a half centuries. From then 
 on Jews from Holland—and later Germany—began 
 to filter into England in a steady stream. 
 
 + 
 
 Nor was that all. America too now became a 
 refuge for the wandering Jews. By a strange trick 
 of fate the very day after the Jews were ordered out 
 of Spain was the day that Christopher Columbus 
 set sail for the West. The coincidence was almost 
 a prophecy. That voyage, made possible to a 
 certain extent by the funds, the nautical instru- 
 ments, and the man-power of the people who had just 
 been made homeless, discovered for them a new home. 
 
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 nN 
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 31.—The Flight of the Maranos 
 
272 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 Maranos drifted over to the New World with the 
 earliest Spanish and Portuguese conquistadors in 
 such numbers that soon the dread Inquisition 
 was set up there. Full half a century before the 
 Pilgrim Fathers ever set foot on the continent, Jews 
 were already being martyred at the autos-da-fé in 
 Mexico and Peru. 
 
 But fortunately for the Jews, not all the New 
 World fell into the hands of fanatical Catholics. 
 In 1642 a group of six hundred Jews set sail from 
 Holland for Brazil, which then was a possession of 
 the Dutch. The community grew rapidly, so that 
 twelve years later, when the Portuguese conquered 
 the province, several thousand Jews had to flee. 
 Most of them settled in the Dutch West Indies, 
 but a shipload of twenty-three found their way to 
 New York, which then was called New Amsterdam. 
 The governor, Peter Stuyvesant, tried to keep the 
 little band of fugitives from landing; but the 
 Dutch West Indies Company, which was partly 
 controlled by Amsterdam Jews, sent orders to him 
 to let them in. Before the orders could arrive, how- 
 ever, several of the wanderers had gone on and taken 
 refuge in Rhode Island, where full religious liberty 
 had been granted all settlers. 
 
 And thus did the Wandering People cross the 
 threshold of the New World. 
 
 5 
 
 At first it was only the Sephardic Jews from 
 Spain and Holland who wandered to the new colonies. 
 But soon the Ashkenazic Jews from Germany began 
 to emigrate to them also. The Thirty Years War 
 
32.—How the Jews Came to America 
 
274 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 had brought ruin in their homeland to countless 
 thousands of these Ashkenazim, and in droves they 
 now poured out to settle in freer places. They fled 
 to Holland, and thence to England and America. 
 And everywhere a feeling of coolness arose between 
 them and the Sephardim. The two groups were quite 
 unlike each other, not alone in language and culture, 
 but also in stature, features, and complexion. They 
 seemed almost to belong to two different races. 
 (There must have been much Spanish blood in the 
 veins of those former Maranos, and not a little 
 German blood in the veins of the others.) They 
 kept apart from each other, praying in separate 
 synagogues and using somewhat different rituals. 
 Perhaps what united them most was the silent 
 pressure of the Gentile, who drew no distinctions 
 and called them all Jews. 
 
 Of course, the Sephardim were considered the 
 superior of the two groups, for they were far wealth- 
 ier, more cultured, and better groomed than their 
 brethren who had just escaped from the foul German 
 ghettos. But for all that, those Sephardim were a 
 sadly narrow and bigoted lot. They who had 
 writhed so long in the clutches of an intolerant 
 Church now became intolerant themselves. 
 
 And because of that intolerance they committed 
 two of the saddest crimes in all the long history of 
 their people. ... 
 
 6 
 
 A certain scholarly young Spaniard named Uriel 
 Acosta, though belonging to a Marano family that 
 for generations had been strictly Catholic, suddenly 
 
IN HOLLAND 275 
 
 fled away to Amsterdam to become a Jew. He had 
 long been secretly studying the Holy Scriptures, 
 and a mighty yearning for the religion of his fore- 
 fathers had taken possession of him. 
 
 But no sooner did he reach Amsterdam than he 
 discovered the religion of his brethren there was 
 quite unlike the religion of his forefathers in Pales- 
 tine. Hardly a trace of kinship was left between 
 the two. The flaming faith of an Amos and a Jere- 
 miah had died down to a smolder of petty law-keeping; 
 the dreams of an Isaiah had been supplanted by the 
 Shulchan Aruch. And a holy desire to reform the 
 religion of his brethren was kindled in the heart of 
 the young dreamer. Earnestly—and perhaps im- 
 patiently—he attacked the travesty on true Juda- 
 ism which obtained among the Jews around him. 
 
 But those Jews were in no mood to allow any 
 one to tamper with their hard-and-fast form of 
 belief. Having suffered for it so many generations, 
 they now insisted that it should be treated as per- 
 fect and unchangeable. So the rabbis complained 
 to the police, and Acosta was thrown into prison 
 as a public enemy to all religion. He fled to Germany, 
 and for nine years lived in coventry there. Finally 
 he could stand it no longer, and he returned, a broken 
 man, to Amsterdam and begged to be forgiven. 
 
 He was readily taken back, and lived for a while 
 at peace in the community. But then trouble began 
 again. Acosta could not long remain a hypocrite 
 and make a pretense of believing what he knew to 
 be false and ridiculous. People began to complain 
 to the rabbis that he was not observing all the laws of 
 Judaism. He was summoned before the officials 
 
276 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 of the Synagogue and commanded to repent. And 
 on his refusal he was excommunicated with awful 
 oaths from the fold of Israel. 
 
 Seven long years he suffered in silence. Even his 
 nearest relatives refused to speak to him. And then 
 for the second time his spirit caved in, and he sur- 
 rendered. 
 
 But this time he was not so readily taken back. 
 First he had to make public confession of his sins 
 in the crowded synagogue. Then he had to kneel 
 and let his naked back be lashed thirty-nine times. 
 Finally he had to prostrate himself on the threshold 
 of that House of God and let himself be stepped 
 over or trampled on by the mob. 
 
 It was too much. The proud spirit of the hidalgo, 
 Acosta, who had sacrificed everything to throw in 
 his lot with the Jews, could not live on after so 
 terrible a humiliation. He went home, wrote a brief 
 sketch of his stormy life, and then shot himself. 
 
 7 
 
 But Acosta’s spirit of protest lived on after him. 
 Hardly five years passed, and another young Jew 
 was discovered to be a heretic. His name was 
 Baruch Spinoza, and he seems to have belonged to 
 one of the prominent Jewish families in Amsterdam. 
 Born in 1632, he was reared in the religious school 
 of the community. He studied the Bible and the 
 Talmud, and toward the end of his course, the 
 writings of the great Jewish scholars like Ibn Ezra 
 and Maimonides. And also he studied Latin, the 
 sciences, and medieval philosophy. 
 
 This Baruch Spinoza was a brilliant lad, and 
 
IN HOLLAND 277 
 
 no doubt his teachers looked upon him as a future 
 leader in the community. But gradually the story 
 was noised around that he was thinking free and 
 heretical thoughts. He was not molested, however, 
 until after his father’s death. Then he was brought 
 before the officials of the synagogue to answer for 
 his reputed heresies. And before those officials he 
 freely admitted the truth of all that had been ru- 
 mored about him. He did not believe in angels, or 
 in heaven and hell, or in anything else that his 
 reason declared impossible. 
 
 The rabbis were horrified. It was not merely 
 that they could not themselves tolerate this young 
 man’s scorn of their beloved errors. It was more 
 a terrible fear in them that if word of his heresies 
 reached the Christian world, all the Jews might be 
 made to suffer. 
 
 First the officials tried to buy his silence; but 
 Baruch nobly refused to be bought. So then they 
 cut him off forever. A mere youth of twenty-three, 
 he was excommunicated and driven from the city. 
 And from that day to the day of his death, Baruch 
 Spinoza never again was spoken to by a Jew. 
 
 He wandered from one village to another, finally 
 settling in The Hague. He earned a livelihood as an 
 optician and lens-grinder; but most of his hours were 
 spent in setting down his ideas about God, religion, 
 and freedom. Learned Christians from many lands 
 came to consult with him, or wrote to him on philo- 
 sophic problems. And when he died at the age of 
 forty-five, his lungs destroyed by the glass dust he 
 had so long breathed at his daily toil, he was the 
 most noted philosopher of his age. 
 
278 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 This Jew, Spinoza, had but resurrected and carried 
 on the grand tradition of Maimonides. He had 
 sought to base all his thinking on reason, not on 
 faith. He had refused to believe what the men of 
 the Church or Synagogue commanded. He had 
 tried to think for himself. 
 
 To-day no one remembers the names of the rabbis 
 who hounded that young thinker out of Israel. 
 But all our world knows the name of their victim. 
 For he it was who helped lay the foundation of 
 modern philosophy. He was one of the great light- 
 bearers of human-kind, one of its immortal warriors 
 against credulity and ignorance. 
 
 The pious rabbis of his day branded Spinoza as 
 an enemy and a betrayer of Israel. (Which is just 
 what the ancient priests always thought of the 
 prophets of their time.) But his whole life and 
 labor proved him to be infinitely truer to the spirit 
 of Israel than they. 
 
 For Baruch Spinoza was a breaker of idols and a 
 rebel against all them that would enshackle thought. 
 He was a worker of Godly Mischief. In a very 
 real sense he was the spirit of the Strange People 
 incarnate. .. . 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV 
 THE DARKNESS IN EASTERN EUROPE 
 
 The Jews met with relatively little ill-treatment 
 at the hands of the non-Jews in Holland and the 
 West; but it was far different in the East. The 
 princes of Poland, as we have already seen, had 
 previously welcomed the Jews in their flight from 
 mob-ridden Germany. ‘Those princes found them 
 then of high value, for their activities brought com- 
 merce and a measure of prosperity to the Polish 
 provinces. And the Jews, glad to find refuge and 
 asylum anywhere, came in ever increasing numbers. 
 They spread out and multiplied until there was 
 a Jewish colony in almost every town and village. 
 They did not till the soil, for there were already too 
 many native peasants for that sort of work. Instead, 
 the Jews functioned as traders and_ professional 
 men, and thus became the middle class of the land. 
 
 That proved their undoing in the end. For gen- 
 erations they managed to live on in fair comfort, 
 wedging themselves ever more firmly in between the 
 serfs and the lords. And then suddenly they dis- 
 covered themselves imprisoned. They were caught 
 between two millstones, so that at every approach 
 of bad times they were crushed. Whenever the lower 
 class was hungry or the upper class was bankrupt, 
 the Jews who formed the middle class were ground. 
 
 It was not until the middle of the seventeenth 
 
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 PF 
 
IN EASTERN EUROPE 281 
 
 century that the Jews of Poland awakened to the 
 dreadfulness of their position. In 1648 the Cos- 
 sacks rebelled against their Polish overlords, and 
 directed the brunt of their savage attack against 
 the Jews. The Jews seemed to those Cossacks almost 
 worse than the feudal princes, for they were the 
 feudal agents and taxgatherers. The Jews, there- 
 fore, were tortured and plundered; they were almost 
 drowned in their own blood. Over a half-million 
 of them lost their lives before the uprising was 
 crushed. 
 
 And that was but the beginning. From that day 
 to this the Jews of Eastern Europe have known 
 no rest. These upper and nether millstones have 
 ground them, bled them, crushed them, generation 
 after generation. For two hundred and twenty- 
 five long and bloody years their life has been but a 
 nightmare. 
 
 2 
 
 That explains why Eastern Europe became the 
 center of the extremest Talmudism. When the 
 Jews awakened to find themselves in a raging sea of 
 hostility, they almost instinctively shot up their 
 high wall of Law. And that wall became and re- 
 mained the sole interest in their religious lives. 
 
 This was especially true in the north in Lith- 
 uania and what is called White Russia. Every 
 male child from infancy was sent to the cheder, the 
 ‘“classroom,”’ to learn Hebrew. And almost as soon 
 as it could read, its little body was taught to bend 
 and sway over the huge volumes of the Talmud. 
 Day and night the child was forced to freeze or 
 
282 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 swelter in the stuffy cheder while it learnt to repeat 
 in a peculiar sing-song tone the arguments of the 
 ancient rabbis. 
 
 At thirteen each boy was confirmed, and he was 
 then allowed to go to work if he had shown no 
 particular diligence as a pupil. But very many of 
 the boys went on with their studies. They went on 
 to the yeshivah, the college, or in the smaller com- 
 munities, to the bes ha-medresh, the house of learn- 
 ing. These boys were usually supported by the com- 
 munity, getting their meals each day in a different 
 home, and sleeping on the hard benches in the study 
 room. Until they were seventeen or eighteen they 
 lived in that way; and then often they were married 
 off to the daughters of wealthy Jews and were sup- 
 ported in the yeshivah perhaps for the rest of their 
 lives by their fathers-in-law. 
 
 They never studied anything but the Talmud. 
 The reading of a book of poetry, or science, or phi- 
 losophy—especially one written in any but the 
 sacred tongue—was considered a most serious crime. 
 The students learnt only how to split hairs—how to 
 divide and mangle and shred every little Talmudic 
 rule so as to make a dozen new rules out of it. 
 
 Twice a year great fairs were held in the land, 
 and along with the traders who came to them to 
 exhibit their wares, came also the students to show 
 off their cleverness. While the traders from different 
 towns haggled with each other over prices, the stu- 
 dents from different yeshivos disputed over Talmudic 
 verses. And before the fair was over, the wealth- 
 iest traders picked the most brilliant students, and 
 took them home to marry their daughters or sisters. 
 
IN EASTERN EUROPE 283 
 
 The old Jewish idea that the only genuine aris- 
 tocracy is that of brains, was unchallenged among 
 them. The scholar was the lord supreme. Every- 
 thing—not alone wealth and station, but also native 
 kindness of heart and even character—was counted 
 far less important than learning. 
 
 3 
 
 This idolization of learning was not so intense, 
 however, among the Jews in the southern provinces— 
 in Poland, Galicia, and Ukrainia. There too the 
 cheder and bes ha-medresh existed in every town and 
 village; and there too learning was highly respected. 
 But it was not looked on as the one thing exclusively 
 worth respecting. 
 
 There was a marked difference in psychological 
 background between the Jew of Poland and his 
 brother in Lithuania. In Poland and the southern 
 provinces generally, the emotions were esteemed and 
 considered more important than mere intellect. The 
 Jews there were more interested in extracting a 
 wealth of feeling from their religion, than in pro- 
 ducing by much thinking a host of arguments in its 
 favor. Perhaps that explains why to this day the 
 vast majority of the artists, writers, actors, and 
 musicians among the East-European Jews, come 
 from those southern provinces; while the astutest 
 lawyers and keenest scientists among them, usually 
 come from Lithuania. 
 
 No one can tell for certain how this difference 
 arose. Perhaps it was due to the greater admixture 
 of rich Tartar blood in the veins of the Jews in the 
 south. Perhaps in that region more intermarriages 
 
34.—Eastern Europe 
 
IN EASTERN EUROPE 285 
 
 had taken place with the descendants of the Khazars. 
 
 Whatever the cause may have been, however, 
 the contrast was unmistakable. The Polish Jews 
 could not and did not try to forget all their woes in 
 dull Talmudic disputations. They preferred a game 
 that gave their imaginations rather than their wits 
 a chance to gambol and frolic. So while the norther- 
 ners, the ‘‘Litvaks,”’ patiently spun their holy 
 rules, the southerners played with incantations and 
 magic spells. While the Lithuanians set their 
 minds to the task of boring through the Talmud, 
 the Polish and Galician Jews let their fancies run 
 riot in the Cabala. 
 
 In a way the difference between the two regions 
 was strikingly like the difference between old Judea 
 with its scholarly Pharisees and Galilee with its 
 mystical Essenes. .. . 
 
 Naturally enough it was in the southern provinces 
 of Eastern Europe that the ache for a miraculous 
 Deliverer was keenest. The least rumor of the 
 appearance of a new Messiah swept through the 
 Jewish population there like the wind. The boom 
 of Sabbatai Zevi carried them literally to the verge 
 of hysteria. Even the disgraceful collapse of the 
 boom, did not cure them altogether. Not for another 
 century, indeed, were they cured. 
 
 It was another low impostor, a man very like 
 Sabbatai, only even more impudent, who finally 
 cured them. The rascal was named Jacob Frank, 
 and he appeared in 1755 and declared himself the 
 reborn Sabbatai Zevi. And many hundreds there 
 were who believed him and flocked to his support. 
 The second coming of Sabbatai seemed quite as 
 
286 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 credible to them as the second coming of Jesus still 
 seems to millions of Christians to-day. 
 
 The coming of Frank caused a furor that shook 
 all of East-European Jewry. The rabbis denounced 
 him violently, especially in the shrewd, level-headed 
 north; but nevertheless, his following grew. 
 
 Then, suddenly, like a pricked balloon, the furor 
 collapsed. Four years after Frank first put forward 
 his claims, he and his followers found themselves 
 caught fast in the talons of the Church. And just 
 as the Sabbataians, to save their lives, became Mo- 
 hammedans, so the Frankists now became Christians. 
 
 That brought the Jews abruptly to their senses. 
 Twice within a century they had seen great and 
 much-vaunted ‘ Messiahs’”’ end up as cowardly 
 apostates. Twice they had been duped. 
 
 They never were duped again. 
 
CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 THE STORY OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD OF POLAND 
 WHO WAS CALLED BAAL SHEM TOV 
 
 But the old hunger for religious excitement still 
 lived among the Jews of Poland and Galicia. Strug- 
 gling along in the semi-darkness behind their frown- 
 ing rampart of Law, they had not lost their craving 
 for the coming of a man who could bring them the 
 sun. 
 
 And at last such a man came. 
 
 His name was Israel ben Eliezer, but the people 
 soon learnt to call him Baal Shem Tov, ‘‘The Kind 
 Master of God’s Name.” A strange and wondrous 
 man was he—one who in his whole life and work 
 seems to have been a true brother to that other 
 ‘‘Kind Master,” Jesus of Nazareth. And like Jesus, 
 very little is definitely known about Baal Shem 
 Tov, for he too left no writings. Only naive and 
 confused legends remain to tell us of his life, and it 
 is not easy to decide just what in them is fact and 
 what is fancy. 
 
 He was born in one of the southern provinces 
 about the year 1700, and was left an orphan at an 
 early age. Kindly townsfolk tried to rear him, send- 
 ing him to cheder with their own children. But he 
 was a difficult lad to bring up. He was forever 
 playing truant, and wandering off alone to the 
 woods. He was always dreaming—of just what, 
 
288 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 no one could find out. And he simply would not 
 apply himself to his Talmudic studies. So indolent 
 a student was he indeed, that finally he was expelled 
 from the cheder and told to go and find work. 
 
 He was then a grown man of twelve, and he found 
 a job as a helper in a cheder. He taught the little 
 tots the alphabet; and part of his duty was to take 
 them to and from the school. (The word ‘‘peda- 
 gogue”’ originally meant a Greek slave who used to 
 do just such work in ancient Athens.) Then, when 
 he grew older, he became the shamosh, the sexton, 
 of a synagogue. 
 
 People did not know just what to make of him, 
 he was so eccentric in his conduct. He would sleep 
 most of the day, and spend the nights alone in the 
 synagogue, where he would pray with terrible fer- 
 vor. He would sway to and fro, shouting loudly 
 and seeming in a trance half the time. Or else he 
 would sit up and pore over huge volumes of Cabala. 
 
 For many years he lived in a lone village near the 
 Carpathian Mountains where he eked out a living for 
 himself and his wife as a clay digger. For a while 
 he was a tavern-keeper, then a village Hebrew 
 teacher, and then a shamosh again. 
 
 2 
 
 And then all of a sudden he started out among the 
 people as a self-appointed magic healer, a baal- 
 shem, a ‘“‘Master of God’s Name.” Many other 
 such healers were wandering about the countryside 
 of Poland and Galicia at the time. They all claimed 
 to be able to do wonders and work miracles with the 
 aid of God’s secret name. They were supposed to 
 
BAAL SHEM TOV 289 
 
 be able to cure diseases, cast out demons, foretell 
 the future, and perform other such marvels for the 
 superstitious folk. 
 
 But in one respect this Israel was quite unlike the 
 other ‘‘healers.”” There was a kindliness about him, 
 a saintliness that fast won him to the hearts of the 
 downecast Jews. He was not at all like the ordinary 
 baal-shem, who mumbled incantations for money. 
 He never once asked for pay and he helped every- 
 where. There was a godly light in his eye and a 
 godly sincerity in his heart. The people saw that 
 he came and spent himself for them only because 
 he truly loved them. 
 
 That explains why they called him ‘‘Baal Shem 
 Tov,” ‘‘the Kind Master of God’s Name.” Even 
 Christian peasants were among those who came to 
 him with woes and wounds for him to heal. 
 
 At first the orthodox Cabalists probably looked 
 down on him as once the Pharisees had looked down 
 on that other kindly healer, Jesus. And from first 
 to last the aristocratic Talmudists of the north 
 hated him as the aristocratic Sadducees had hated 
 the Nazarene. But the simple folk, the tailors and 
 the cobblers, the teamsters and the tavern-keepers— 
 they and their sickly wives and their anamic chil- 
 dren all believed in Baal Shem Tov, and worshiped 
 him. 
 
 And from him they learnt to look on the world 
 in a new way. God, he told them, was everywhere 
 and in everything—not alone in the synagogues, 
 but also in the muddy roadways, the foul villages, 
 in every dreary moment of their daily toil. So 
 everywhere they could pray to Him and find Him. 
 
290 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 And it was their duty to pray to Him wherever they 
 might be—to count every moment holy. Not by 
 praying at certain fixed times in a certain fixed way, 
 could they be true Jews, but only by making all their 
 lives a prayer. So declared Baal Shem Tov. 
 Fundamentally that was the valid element in the 
 theory underlying all of Cabala. But Baal Shem Tov 
 added to it a peculiarly attractive note of his own. 
 He proclaimed that one’s life must not be a sad or 
 mournful prayer, but emphatically a gay and joyous 
 one. Only thus could it be acceptable to God. 
 Now the ordinary Cabalist did not think this at 
 all. He was rather afraid of God, and usually in- 
 clined to sidle up to him with a long, tearful face. 
 That is why he believed in long fasting, great mourn- 
 ing, and fearful conjuring with magic words. He 
 imagined it was the only way to secure God’s favor. 
 But Baal Shem Tov declared that every one should 
 whole-heartedly love God, and not be at all afraid 
 of Him. No one should go to meet Him with tears 
 and terror, but only with laughter and song. In 
 prayer, one should not whisper, but shout and dance; 
 in life one should not fast, but feast and make merry. 
 
 3 
 
 So did this new prophet assure the humble folk of 
 Poland—and they believed him. They believed 
 because they wanted to believe. Baal Shem Tov 
 with this new doctrine of his, made their life worth 
 living. He gave them back the right to laugh— 
 a right they had not dared to exercise in many long 
 dark centuries. He insisted that they sing and be 
 happy. He brought back the sun to them. 
 
BAAL SHEM TOV 291 
 
 So they listened to him intently and believed and 
 obeyed him. He spoke in simple parables that they 
 could understand without difficulty. And he healed 
 them when they came to him, and comforted them 
 in all their distresses. He drew no distinctions 
 between rich and poor, between learned and ig- 
 norant. All were equal in his eyes, for all were 
 equally part of the great God he loved. 
 
 Never did he speak of himself as the Messiah, 
 however. On the contrary he was forever insisting 
 that only when all Israel loved God truly would the 
 Messiah come. He called himself merely a tzaddik, 
 a ‘‘Righteous Man,” and his followers he called 
 chassidim, ‘‘Pious Ones.” Every chassid, if he were 
 but sufficiently earnest in his piety, could become a 
 tzaddik. The difference was not one of kind but of 
 degree. The tzaddik because of his tremendous 
 piety was nearer the heart of God, and could under- 
 stand God’s intentions and interpret them to the 
 folk. He was, as it were, a connecting link between 
 God and the ordinary man. 
 
 Such was the gist of the teaching of that queer, 
 lovable, loving mystic whom the people called 
 Baal Shem Tov. For many years he taught it to 
 the people, and spread it all through the land. 
 
 And when the kind baal-shem passed away he 
 left that teaching as his legacy to comfort his breth- 
 ren in Israel. 
 
 + 
 
 But they that came after Baal Shem Tov and 
 undertook to carry on his mission, were smaller and 
 less exalted men. Either they had not righly under- 
 
292 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 stood him, or they had understood and did not 
 care to obey. For at their hands the noble belief 
 of Baal Shem Tov sank from a prophetic yearning 
 to a priestly cult. It became but a low means of 
 personal enrichment for those who set themselves 
 up as tzaddikim. 
 
 The leading disciples of Baal Shem Tov were 
 the first tzaddikim, and after them others arose. 
 They passed themselves off as professional holy 
 men, and commanded the plain people to support 
 them. And the plain people, being simple and super- 
 stitious, obeyed. They gave their last pennies 
 to the tzaddik of their district—the ‘‘Gitter Yid,” 
 the ‘‘Good Jew,” as they usually called him in 
 Yiddish—and out of these he grew wealthy. He 
 lived very much like a Polish. prince, surrounded 
 by a court of helpers and favorites. He had a 
 palace, a stable of fine horses, and a cellar filled with 
 the costliest wines. And in time a tradition arose 
 that only the son of a tzaddik could be a tzaddik— 
 that holiness was confined to a certain few families. 
 
 5 
 
 Of course, the rabbis of Lithuania attacked these 
 tzaddikim and the whole Chassidic movement. 
 They excommunicated its preachers, and when 
 they found that was of no avail, they even had them 
 imprisoned by the civil authorities. Perhaps it 
 was asking too much to expect them to understand 
 the great hunger inspiring and sustaining the new 
 movement. Those northern rabbis, staid and 
 severe in all their thoughts and deeds, were shocked 
 at the gay spirit of the chassidim. Especially were 
 
BAAL SHEM TOV 293 
 
 they scandalized by the amount of gay drinking 
 that was common among the members of the new 
 sect at their many festivals. And perhaps, too, 
 those northern rabbis were human enough to be a 
 little jealous of the enormous power of the popular 
 tzaddikim. 
 
 But despite all the opposition, the new movement 
 lived and prospered. While it did not spread much 
 beyond the borders of the southern provinces, 
 Poland and Galicia, inside of these it became su- 
 preme. The few misnaggedim, ‘‘opponents,” who 
 persisted there, were accorded scant tolerance in- 
 deed. 
 
 To this day Chassidism is supreme in those prov- 
 inces. There are still tzaddikim to be found there, 
 trying to live off the starving Jewish masses. And 
 many of them have come to America, here to live 
 off the immigrants from those provinces. They 
 can sometimes be seen to this day in the larger 
 American cities: long-bearded men with curly 
 locks hanging down over their temples. They dress 
 usually in fine silk gaberdines, black during the 
 week, but a spotless white on the Sabbath. They 
 wear their trousers stuck into their long stockings, 
 probably because in the time of their great-great- 
 grandfathers it was the fashion to wear knicker- 
 bockers. Their heads are covered with huge, round 
 fur hats. And for a little gift they will shower you 
 with blessings and promise that your every wish 
 will be fulfilled. 
 
 So low as that has the teaching of Baal Shem Tov 
 baller: o. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVI 
 
 THE DAWN OF TOLERANCE IN EUROPE, AND 
 WHAT IT WON FOR THE JEWS 
 
 In the middle of the eighteenth century it was 
 still Night; and it seemed as dark as ever it had been 
 in Jewish history. Persecutions were not so bloody 
 as in earlier years; but they were still cruel and 
 embittering. The world had outgrown its savagery 
 a little, and no longer lashed the body of the Jew. 
 But it still sought to crush his spirit. 
 
 That explains why the Jew cut himself off from 
 the world. He hid behind his high wall, and created 
 there a life all his own. Necessarily it was a narrow 
 and ingrown life: an unhealthy groping in the Tal- 
 mud, or a piteous groveling at the feet of the tzaddik. 
 But at least it was life, not death. 
 
 Soon, however, the light of the Dawn began almost 
 imperceptibly to creep up over the horizon. A new 
 spirit stole its way into the heart of the world, and 
 of a sudden whisperings were heard of a strange 
 thing called Tolerance. It was as if mankind were 
 emerging from a stupor. The world sat up in aching 
 bewilderment and wondered what could have pos- 
 sessed it all these years. Men began all at once to 
 realize that ‘‘differentness’” was not necessarily 
 sinful! They began to see that human beings were 
 human beings, no matter what their race, or religion, 
 
THE DAWN OF TOLERANCE 295 
 
 or station in life. In America, revolutionists were 
 declaring that men are created free and equal. In 
 France they were crying ‘‘Liberty, Fraternity, 
 Equality!”’ 
 
 The world was waking up. 
 
 2 
 
 Of course it was the Jew who benefited most 
 markedly by the change. 
 
 In 1782 the emperor Joseph II of Austria passed 
 the famous ‘‘Edict of Toleration’? which abolished 
 the wearing of the badge of shame by the Jew, 
 and also the insulting poll-tax. And then in 1791, 
 France went further and abolished all laws against 
 the Jew. For the first time, in all the history of 
 Europe, the Jew was put on a footing of equality 
 before the law with other men. 
 
 Holland followed in 1796, and even Prussia, one 
 of the most reactionary of all the European lands, 
 finally began to grant civil rights to the Jews in 
 1812. 
 
 The Era of Emancipation had at last set in for the 
 long outlawed people. Ghetto walls were torn down 
 and with them the ghetto fears. Stooped shoulders 
 straightened themselves a little, and downcast eyes 
 now began to look straight forward. At last the 
 Jew became a citizen of the world. 
 
 And hard on the awakening of the world came the 
 awakening of the Jew. Indeed, almost before the 
 first gleam of Dawn had shot its advancing spears 
 up over the horizon, a few—a very few—among the 
 Jews were already craning their necks over their wall 
 to welcome the light. 
 
296 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 3 
 
 Most prominent among the awakening Jews was 
 a sickly hunchback who stands out as one of the 
 real heroes in the history of his people. The life of 
 this hunchback, Moses Mendelssohn, reads strikingly 
 like fiction. He was born in 1729, the son of a poor 
 Torah-scribe in Germany. At the age of fourteen 
 he tramped on foot to Berlin, to continue his educa- 
 tion there. For years he starved and studied. And 
 then slowly he began to climb to the heights. Lessing, 
 who was one of the foremost dramatists of the day, 
 became his intimate friend. (‘‘Nathan the Wise,” 
 a popular play by Lessing, was written around the 
 gentle character of the hunchback; and in its day 
 it exercised a profound effect in softening Christian 
 prejudice against the Jew.) And Emanuel Kant, 
 the greatest of German philosophers, gave Mendels- 
 sohn his genuine admiration. (He had once been 
 defeated by the Jew in a prize essay competition 
 held by the Berlin Academy of Sciences!) 
 
 And the whole world stared in amazement. The 
 acceptance of a professing Jew into the highest 
 literary and scientific circles of the land, had never 
 been dreamed of as possible before the coming of 
 this man. And slowly, reluctantly, the world began 
 to reverse itself and revise its opinion of the alien 
 tribe. It began to concede that ay least some Jews 
 might be acceptable. 
 
 But Mendelssohn was not content with that par- 
 tial concession. He desired that all Jews should be 
 considered eligible. Yet he was not blind. He 
 saw only too well that the vast majority of his 
 
THE DAWN OF TOLERANCE 297 
 
 brethren hardly deserved to be graded as more than 
 aliens. The terrors of the Night had put them four 
 hundred years behind the times. Their rabbis, 
 themselves products of benighted yeshivos in Lithu- 
 ania, had kept them in ignorance of all save the 
 Talmud and the Shulchan-Aruch. Even though their 
 ancestors for centuries had lived in the land, they 
 knew little German. They spoke only the ghetto 
 jargon, that lawless mixture of ungrammatical 
 German and mispronounced Hebrew which later 
 came to be called Yiddish. 
 
 So Mendelssohn set himself to the task of stirring 
 his brethren out of their four-hundred-year slumber. 
 
 4 
 
 It was far from an easy task, for many there were 
 who did not wish to be stirred. They had dozed 
 off beneath their smothering blankets, and they 
 asked only to be let alone. But Moses Mendelsshon 
 would not heed that request. With patient but 
 firm hands he began stripping off the ancient and 
 moldy coverings. 
 
 He translated the Scriptures into pure German 
 so that his Ghetto brethren might learn at last the 
 language of the people around them. And even more 
 important, he edited a new commentary that was 
 printed together with the translation. Scores of 
 commentaries had already been written on the 
 Scriptures, but almost all of them were filled with 
 distinctions that were far-fetched or stupid, and 
 that confused the meaning of the Holy Writ rather 
 than made it clear. Only Ibn Ezra’s commentary 
 had previously made any genuine attempt to be 
 
298 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 critical and intelligent; and that was already an- 
 tiquated. So Mendelssohn found himself simply 
 compelled to edit the new commentary. 
 
 And when in the year 1783 the ‘‘Mendelssohn 
 Bible”? was completed and published, it caused great 
 excitement. The old-fashioned rabbis violently com- 
 bated it and commanded their followers not to 
 dare to look at it. They feared that the German 
 translation might lead the Jews to forget their 
 Hebrew altogether; and they were certain the new 
 commentary would lessen the respect for all the 
 old laws that had been read into and foisted upon 
 the Scriptures. 
 
 But the earnest little scholar was not daunted. 
 He refused to stop long enough to engage in argument 
 with his opponents. He simply went on with his 
 Godly Mischief. Very like his idol, old Maimonides, 
 he tried to give a rationalistic explanation of Juda- 
 ism. He did his best to make the religion of his 
 people seem reasonable in the eyes of free-thinking 
 and critical men. Of course, that meant stripping 
 off a great deal of the superstition and protective 
 ignorance in which the Talmudists and Cabalists 
 had wrapped their faith. And consequently it 
 meant the incurring of more hostility from the or- 
 thodox. 
 
 5 
 
 But nevertheless Mendelssohn went on with his 
 work, never pausing even to the day of his death. 
 And when he died others were forthcoming to take 
 up the work after him. A new generation of Jews 
 arose, thanks to Mendelssohn’s labors, and it proved 
 
THE DAWN OF TOLERANCE 299 
 
 to be a generation readier to meet the Dawn that 
 just then was breaking. In many lands Jews began 
 to look out over their imprisoning wall. The idea of 
 translating the Bible into the vernacular of the land 
 became common throughout Europe. Dutch, Eng- 
 lish, Italian, and other versions appeared in rapid 
 succession, all of them written by Jews and for Jews. 
 
 The movement spread even to Poland and Russia. 
 It was called there the Haskala, the “Enlightenment,” 
 and it stormed the gloomy yeshivos and chedarim 
 much as the Renaissance had stormed the Christian 
 colleges and monasteries four hundred years earlier. 
 Jewish humanists arose, earnest scholars who sought 
 with all their might to pull the weeds that had sprung 
 up in Jewish thought and practice. 
 
 Hebrew began to flourish again—not the corrupt 
 and distorted Hebrew of the Talmudists, but the 
 ringing, exalted Hebrew of the Prophets. And it 
 was used now not to write more codes of Law or 
 new blatherings of Cabala, but poems and novels and 
 essays of real worth. 
 
 Along with the rebirth of Hebrew literature, 
 a Yiddish literature came quite unexpectedly to 
 birth. The brawling, ill-sounding gibberish of the 
 ghetto somehow accomplished the miraculous, and 
 became a genuinely literary language. Poetry, fic- 
 tion, and drama of high quality were written in it. 
 
 Thus the Jewish scholars were provided three 
 different ways of approaching their brethren. They 
 could use the language of the land—German, Dutch, 
 or whatever it was—or they could use Hebrew 
 or Yiddish. And since even the humblest Jew 
 could usually read at least one of these languages, 
 
300 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 the ideas of the scholars were able to spread. Still 
 no lowering of the high wall of Law around the Jew 
 had taken place; but gradually there began a mighty 
 straining to clamber over the wall, or at least to 
 climb to the top and peer out at the new Dawn. 
 
 Gradually, very gradually, the Jew began to look 
 out again at the world. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVII 
 
 THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM IN ALL THE NA- 
 TIONS, AND HOW IT DESTROYED THE WALL OF 
 THE GHETTO 
 
 Dawn broke in the last years of the eighteenth 
 century. Moses Mendelssohn, who died in 1786, 
 saw no more than the first shafts of the light. But 
 the next generation actually felt the warmth of the 
 rising sun. Napoleon and his victorious armies 
 had largely destroyed the wall of the Ghetto. Only 
 the wall of the Law was left; and the new generation 
 by standing on the ‘Mendelssohn Bible,” could 
 look right out over that wall with little difficulty. 
 
 So now at last the outside world was revealed to 
 the Jews in all its inviting splendor. It was a vast 
 world full of exciting uniforms, romantic titles, 
 enormous fortunes, and enticing honors. The very 
 sight of it set the blood pounding in their veins. 
 At last they were free to take part in that world. 
 At last they were—emancipated. 
 
 2 
 
 But they were mistaken. They had no more than 
 ventured out into that sun-lit world, when utter 
 darkness closed down on them again. The sun 
 disappeared. The Dawn of a sudden sank back into 
 Night. 
 
 For reaction had followed revolution. Napoleon 
 
302 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 had been defeated; his empire had been destroyed. 
 And the nations of Europe had immediately re- 
 bounded to their old ways. Some immediately 
 repealed all the laws granting the Jews full freedom; 
 and others simply forgot they had ever passed such 
 laws. In Rome the rule of the pope was reinstated, 
 and all the old oppressive measures were put in 
 force again. In Germany there were even whole- 
 sale massacres and expulsions. 
 
 Thus the Jews, who but a few years earlier had 
 escaped from the Ghetto, now discovered them- 
 selves being forced back there again. And they 
 were most unwilling to go. They had already 
 played in the world of the Gentiles, and it was not 
 easy for them to leave it. Indeed, many of them 
 were ready to surrender everything, even their names 
 and their faith, rather than lose that Gentile world. 
 
 So throughout Western Europe there was a great 
 flocking of Jews to the baptismal font. One after 
 another the most learned and prominent among them 
 fell away to Christianity. In England the descend- 
 ants of the very Maranos who had braved all the 
 tortures of the Inquisition for the sake of their 
 religion, now sidled into the Church for the sake of 
 retaining political equality. In Berlin one-third 
 of the entire Jewish population—and the most 
 cultured third—turned apostate. Moses Mendels- 
 sohn’s own children were the leaders among the 
 deserters. . .. 
 
 3 
 
 It was not at all from choice and real change of 
 heart that the Jews deserted. Their intolerable 
 
THE GHETTO WALL CRUMBLES — 303 
 
 position drove them to it. There they were, men 
 and women steeped in the highest culture of the 
 age, leaders in thought and society, yet at the same 
 time political outcasts. Simply because they called 
 themselves Jews, the world called them aliens. 
 They could not enter many of the professions; they 
 could not hold office; they could not even vote. As 
 one of them, Heinrich Heine, the great German 
 poet, said bitterly: ‘‘If the law had permitted the 
 stealing of silver spoons, I should never have been 
 baptized.” 
 
 So they ceased to call themselves Jews. With a 
 sneer or a leer on their lips, they had themselves 
 sprinkled with holy water—and then proceeded 
 to call themselves Christians. 
 
 Very soon, however, they discovered that despite 
 the holy water, they were still counted aliens. Only 
 in the sight of the law had they become Prussians, 
 or Austrians, or Englishmen; in the sight of men they 
 were still Jews. Even though they could, as Chris- 
 tians, hold office and enter the professions, the Chris- 
 tian world still discriminated against them. Perhaps 
 the best known instance is Benjamin D’Israeli (Lord 
 Beaconsfield), who was always attacked as a Jew, 
 even though he had been baptized in infancy, and 
 was all his days a conforming Christian. 
 
 So slowly the truth dawned on the apostates that 
 they could not elude the prejudice of the Christians 
 by deserting their fellow-Jews. For their fellow-Jews 
 simply could not be deserted. One seemed shackled 
 forever to the people among whom one had been 
 born. Once a Jew, always a Jew! 
 
 And with the realization of that truth, a new 
 
304 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 spirit took possession of the hearts of many of the 
 apostates. Since they could not gain freedom by 
 flight, they determined to wrest it by battle. They 
 went back to their as yet unbaptized brethren, and 
 standing shoulder to shoulder with them, they 
 tried to force the world to accord them their human 
 rights. They no longer tried in some cowardly 
 way to change themselves; instead they tried fun- - 
 damentally to change the world. 
 
 And thus was the Jew brought to enlist in the 
 modern revolutionary movement. 
 
 4 
 
 It was not difficult for the Jew to enter the rev- 
 olutionary movement. He was a rebel by herit- 
 age. From the time of the ancient Prophets, all 
 his ancestors had been ‘“‘troublers’” and revolu- 
 tionists. The spirit of protest, the hunger for some- 
 thing better, had always been part of his life. 
 
 He had no hand in the earlier revolution—the 
 one that brought on the short-lived Dawn enjoyed 
 by his people at the end of the eighteenth century. 
 (That had been kindled in France, and the few Jews 
 then in the land had been poor pedlars or shop- 
 keepers.) But in the revolutions of 1830 and 1848, 
 the Jews was in the very thick of the fighting. 
 
 Many Jewish names stand out prominently in 
 those history-making revolutions. There are first 
 of all the names of several Berlin Jewesses, Henri- 
 etta Herz, Rahel Levin, and Moses Mendelssohn’s 
 daughters. The homes of these women were centers 
 of the cultured life of Mid-Europe—and at the 
 same time centers of its liberal and revolutionary 
 
THE GHETTO WALL CRUMBLES — 305 
 
 thought. Almost every great man of the period— 
 for instance, Goethe, Schleiermacher, Victor Hugo, 
 and Schlegel—seems to have made the acquaintance 
 of these Jewesses at one time or another. 
 
 Then, of course, there are Ludwig Borne and 
 Heinrich Heine, two men who by their merciless 
 wit and sarcasm became leaders among the revolu- 
 tionist writers. Karl Marx, Ferdinand Lassalle, 
 Johann Jacoby, Gabriel Riesser, Adolphe Cre- 
 mieux, Signora Nathan—all these of Jewish lineage 
 played important rdles in the social struggle that 
 went on throughout Europe in this period. Wherever 
 the war for human liberty was being waged, whether 
 in France, Germany, Austria, Hungary, or Italy, 
 there the Jew was to be found. It was little wonder 
 that the enemies of social progress, the monarchists 
 and the Churchmen, came to speak of the whole 
 liberal movement as nothing but a Jewish plot. 
 
 5 
 
 Of course, the liberal movement was far more than 
 that. Essentially it was a heroic effort to drive 
 away the Darkness and cast out its lords. It was 
 a movement to crush the tyrants so that the people 
 might be free. It was the Protestant Reformation 
 in the world of politics. 
 
 Incidentally, however, it brought complete re- 
 lease at last to the Jew. Within a generation after 
 1848 there was hardly a country in Europe—save 
 Russia—where in the eyes of the law the Jew was 
 not accorded complete equality with all other men. 
 
 In Norway even temporary residence had always 
 been forbidden to Jews; but complete freedom was 
 
306 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 granted in 1851. For over a century the Jews had 
 been fighting in England for the right to sit in Par- 
 liament—and the way was at last cleared in 1858. 
 Nine years later, Austria removed all Jewish dis- 
 abilities. Two years after that, Germany did like- 
 wise. The next year the ghetto gates in Rome were 
 torn down. 
 
 And so one land after the other finally granted 
 the Jew his rights as a citizen. To be sure, they were 
 granted to him only reluctantly. He was still ‘‘dif- 
 ferent’? and the world still could not quite forgive 
 him for it. In almost every land he had to fight 
 long and bitterly before full freedom was given to 
 him in practice. 
 
 But finally he triumphed. 
 
 And then the long Night seemed to be at an end 
 forever. The New Day had really dawned now, 
 and the Jew was free at last. 
 
 At least, so he imagined. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVIII 
 
 THE STRUGGLE FOR REFORM IN JUDAISM, AND 
 HOW IT BEGAN THE DESTRUCTION OF THE WALL 
 OF LAW 
 
 And while one army of Jews was struggling to 
 destroy the wall of the ghetto, another was striving 
 just as strenuously to lower the wall of Law. It 
 is usually said that Moses Mendelssohn was the 
 leader of this second army; but that is hardly true. 
 Mendelssohn never entertained the intention of 
 lowering the wall of Law. His whole aim had been 
 merely to supply a ladder by which his fellow-Jews 
 could climb up and peer over the wall. To the 
 very end he had himself scrupulously kept the laws 
 of the Talmud and Shulchan Aruch. He had freed 
 himself only in thought. In practice he had re- 
 mained altogether orthodox. 
 
 Undoubtedly that explains why the next genera- 
 tion so readily fell away to Christianity. Mendels- 
 sohn had fondly imagined his followers, after he had 
 helped them to the top of the wall, would be con- 
 tent to do as he had done. He had imagined they 
 would be content merely to look at the outside world. 
 
 That was his fatal mistake. Of course it was im- 
 possible for them to rest content with merely looking. 
 Soon, very soon, they were burning with the desire 
 to leap off and take active part in the carnival. 
 
 And they did. The moment Mendelssohn’s steady- 
 
308 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 ing hand was removed, off they toppled like so 
 many Humpty-Dumpties. And then not all the 
 king’s horses nor all the king’s men could put them 
 back over the wall again. For once having danced 
 in the sun of the open world, they would not go 
 back to grope and stumble again in the gloom of the 
 prison yard. No matter what it cost them, they 
 would not go back. 
 
 2 
 
 During the first years of the nineteenth century, 
 when the followers of Mendelssohn first slipped down 
 off the wall of Law into the great open world out- 
 side, there was little said. They disappeared so 
 quietly that their fellow-Jews behind the wall hardly 
 noticed what had happened. But with the reaction 
 following the defeat of Napoleon, and the re-establish- 
 ment of the ghettos, the sweep of apostacy became 
 an open scandal. For the Jews who had slipped 
 away, now discovered themselves trapped in a 
 sort of No-Man’s land. In front was the rampart 
 of the ghetto shutting them off from the world; 
 in their rear the rampart of the Law. And they had 
 to make an open choice between the two. 
 
 Now although the rampart of the ghetto was high, 
 cut into it was a wide and inviting gateway. And 
 though it was a Church gateway guarded by a 
 crucifix, nevertheless it was attractive, for it led out 
 into the world. The rampart of the Law, on the 
 other hand, had no breach in it whatsoever. Only 
 by clambering back over its very top could one get 
 back within its protection. And when one got there, 
 only the gloom of the prison yard was the reward. 
 
THE WALL OF LAW CRUMBLES _ 309 
 
 So hundreds of Jews in making their choice between 
 the two walls, turned to the one with the wide 
 gateway. ‘There was an epidemic of baptisms in 
 Western Europe in the period from 1815 to 1848. 
 And that epidemic shocked Western Jewry into 
 wakefulness. It was evident that something drastic 
 had to be done, and done immediately. Young Jews 
 —and usually the most cultured and gifted in their 
 communities—were still balking at the wall of 
 Law and being forced over to the Church gateway. 
 It was clear that the wall would have to be lowered 
 at once, and the prison yard made more attractive, 
 if the best blood in Jewry was to be saved. 
 
 And thus arose the Reform Movement in Judaism. 
 
 3 
 
 Already for over a generation brilliant Jewish 
 scholars in Germany had been busily laying the 
 foundation for that movement. They had been 
 investigating scientifically the vast rampart by 
 which the Jews had walled themselves in. Then 
 they had gone further, and made a critical survey 
 also of all the life going on behind the rampart. A 
 new field of research had come into being—the 
 Science of Judaism it was called—and learned Jews 
 had been laboring on its problems for several years. 
 
 As a result, it had become more or less possible 
 to begin the Reformation. It was tentatively known 
 what was ancient and fundamental in Judaism, and 
 what was recent and unimportant. So the reformers 
 set to work. 
 
 At first they centered their attention on the 
 synagogue ritual, seeking to simplify and beautify 
 
310 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 it. Rabbi after rabbi for eighteen hundred years 
 had been adding to the length of the services.. The 
 prayers were all recited in Hebrew or Aramaic, 
 so that exceedingly few of the Jews understood what 
 was said. In fact, with its Oriental chanting and 
 its noise and confusion, the whole ritual had grown 
 foreign and unattractive. 
 
 A new generation of Jews was arising in Germany, 
 a generation that had been out in the world and had 
 come to admire certain of its fashions. It was no 
 longer Oriental, but Occidental—Western! It no 
 longer felt at home in a house of prayer where the 
 men, clad like desert wanderers in head-coverings 
 and vast striped shawls, sat in the main pews, while 
 the women, like harem slaves, sat hidden behind a 
 thick curtain in a little back-room or up in a gallery! 
 
 So in Hamburg and other cities new synagogues 
 using a modernized ritual began to appear. Prayers 
 were recited partly in German; an organ was used; 
 mixed choirs replaced the old-fashioned cantor; men 
 and women sat together in family pews; and no noise 
 or conversation was permitted during the services. 
 
 4 
 
 Of course, a storm of protest went up from the 
 orthodox, and there ensued a war very much like 
 that now raging in the Church between the Modern- 
 ists and the Fundamentalists. Attempts were 
 made by orthodox rabbis to excommunicate the 
 daring reformers. But Jewry had advanced too 
 far for that. The leaders in the new movement— 
 for the most part, rabbis themselves—were reviled 
 and denounced and opposed and threatened. But 
 
THE WALL OF LAW CRUMBLES _ 3ll 
 
 they were not driven from the fold. The mistake 
 that had been made eleven hundred years earlier, 
 when the Karaites were cast out, and seventeen 
 hundred years earlier, when the Nazarenes were 
 cut off, was not repeated. 
 
 And the reformers went on with their work. Their 
 movement, which was confined at first to Germany, 
 began to spread to England and other lands. Es- 
 pecially it spread to America, where through the 
 energy and ability of young immigrant rabbis from 
 Germany—most prominently, Isaac M. Wise—it 
 became almost dominant in Jewish life. ; 
 
 5 
 
 Changes in ritual, however, were but the be- 
 ginning. Soon far more drastic reforms followed. 
 Judaism in its entire practice was liberalized and 
 brought into harmony with the life of the day. 
 The Shulchan Aruch, the Talmud, even sections 
 of the Torah, were laid aside as law-codes that had 
 long outlived their usefulness. The dietary laws 
 were held to be no longer binding, and the rabbinic 
 regulations concerning marriage and divorce gave 
 way to the civil regulations of the land. The whole 
 aim was to free the Jew, to level the high rampart 
 of Law, so that his going out into the world would 
 not necessarily mean deserting Jewry. During: the 
 long Night the protecting rampart of Law had been 
 terribly necessary; but now that Day had dawned, 
 it was seen to be only a hindrance. 
 
 For by the time these major changes were put on 
 trial by the Reformers, Day had indeed dawned. 
 The wall of the ghetto it seemed had been razed to 
 
312 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 the ground forever, and the Jew had become a citizen 
 of the world. He no longer had need of ramparts 
 to protect him from his enemies. His enemies were 
 gone. Peace covered the earth as the waters covered 
 the sea, and all bigotry, hatred, and stupidity had 
 been banished forever and aye. 
 
 At least, so thought the Reformers in that ecstatic 
 hour of release. 
 
 6 
 
 And thinking so, they went on even to new ex- 
 tremes with their work. They sought to revolu- 
 tionize the whole traditional outlook of the Jew. 
 
 During twenty-four hundred years the eyes of the 
 Jew had been turned yearningly toward Jerusalem. 
 All those years he had been clinging stubbornly 
 to one hope—that the Messiah would some day 
 come and lead him back to his holy land. 
 
 The great Prophets who were the first to con- 
 ceive the dream of an ‘‘ Anointed One,” had hardly 
 been in agreement as to just what was to be His 
 nature. Some—for instance, Isaiah, and Haggai— 
 considered Him a person, a descendant of the royal 
 house of David, who would restore the people to 
 their home, inaugurate there a reign of perfect 
 justice, and be called the Prince of Peace. Others— 
 for instance, the Unknown Prophet of the Babylo- 
 nian Exile—seem rather to have considered Him 
 a spirit. With them He was a great hunger for Right, 
 for world-wide Justice and Peace—a hunger em- 
 bodied in Israel, and one that would be appeased 
 only when Israel and its ideals of Right and Justice 
 and Peace were triumphant. 
 
THE WALL OF LAW CRUMBLES © 318 
 
 Later writers, embittered by continued oppression, 
 were drawn of course to the former conception. It 
 - was far more satisfying to their bruised and persecuted 
 souls. So they made it the center of all their thinking. 
 
 This dream of a personal Messiah ran something 
 like this: In God’s own good time a wondrous 
 Person would suddenly appear and miraculously 
 destroy all Israel’s enemies. Then He would gather 
 the Jews from the four corners of the earth, and 
 mounted on a white ass or a lion, He would lead 
 them back in triumph to the Holy Land. There 
 they would be joined by all the righteous souls of the 
 past, for these would in the meantime have rolled 
 underground to Zion and been brought back to life. 
 The Temple would be restored, and sacrifices would 
 be offered again. And thereafter the Messiah 
 would reign supreme and all would be well with the 
 Jews and the world forever and aye! 
 
 There was much more to the dream—innumerable 
 minor fancies and extravagant details. Generation 
 after generation the fantasy had grown until it had 
 become almost incredibly naive and childish. Yet 
 never in over two thousand years was it doubted by 
 the Jew. Every day in his prayers he had begged 
 for its realization, and regularly on his festivals he 
 had cried: ‘‘Next year in Jerusalem!” 
 
 And it was that dream more than anything else 
 that had made the Jew’s life bearable during twenty 
 terrible centuries. ... 
 
 fi 
 
 But great as was the worth of that dream during 
 the Night, it seemed to lose it all with the coming 
 
314 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 of Day. The Reformers of the nineteenth century, 
 cultured men with critical minds, could deem it little 
 more than a crude and superstitious vagary. They 
 spurned it utterly. Yet a little of the old yearn- 
 ing for the Messiah still lived on in them—only it 
 was for a nobler, a higher, a more spiritual Messiah 
 than the one dreamed of by their fathers. These 
 Reformers went back to the Scriptures and took 
 up the conception of the Messiah that had long 
 been neglected—the conception of the Unknown 
 Prophet of the Babylonian Exile. The Messiah, 
 they therefore held, was not a person, an individual, 
 but a spirit. He was the Spirit incarnate in Israel, 
 the ‘Suffering Servant of the Lord,’ who had been 
 divinely anointed to redeem the whole of mankind. 
 Israel had a Mission. It was to be God’s most ar- 
 dent champion in the struggle to bring Peace and 
 Light into the world! 
 
 So did the leaders of the Reform Movement re- 
 interpret the old dream of their fathers. The whole 
 ideal of the ‘‘ Anointed One” was reft of its patriotic, 
 its nationalistic, import. Instead, it was made 
 purely religious and universalistic. 
 
 For the first Reformers contended that the Jews 
 were no longer a nation. In their estimation the 
 Jews were purely a religious group, like the Protest- 
 ants or the Catholics. The more pompous among 
 them liked to call themselves ‘‘Germans (or Ameri- 
 cans, or Englishmen) of the Mosaic Persuasion.” 
 ‘They no longer considered the Holy Land as their 
 home, but whatever land they happened to dwell in. 
 Zion was everywhere, they claimed. Every syna- 
 gogue in every land was a rebuilt Temple—the 
 
THE WALL OF LAW CRUMBLES © 315 
 
 Reformers always called them ‘‘temples” for that 
 reason—and the languages of all peoples were 
 equally worthy to be used in prayer. The God they 
 worshiped was no tribal horde, no limited little 
 Yahveh whose jurisdiction was confined to the 
 ancient Land of Israel. He was the Lord of the 
 Universe! 
 
 It was all very advanced and exalted thinking that 
 the Reformers indulged in during those years. But 
 as some of them soon discovered, in certain ways it 
 was perhaps too advanced and exalted... . 
 
CHAPTER XXXIX 
 
 THE MISSION OF REFORM JUDAISM—AND THE 
 STORY OF THOSE WHO PRACTICED IT 
 
 Reform Judaism—or Liberal Judaism as it is 
 coming to be called to-day—is so new a movement 
 that as yet it can hardly be judged fairly. People 
 are still arguing its pros and cons with such heat 
 that we all are forced to look on the movement 
 out of somewhat prejudiced eyes. 
 
 The accusation most commonly brought against 
 it was that it tended to lead the Jews away from 
 Judaism toward Christianity. And the first half 
 of that accusation was unquestionably true—that is, 
 if by Judaism is meant the religion that grew up 
 among the Jews during the ghastly Night. The 
 Reform Movement was an almost ruthless attempt 
 to cut away from all that—to get back to the Juda- 
 ism of the Prophets and begin growing and building 
 all over again. In certain respects it may have 
 failed in its attempt. But at least the attempt was 
 honestly made. 
 
 The second half of the accusation, however, seems 
 to be quite false. The Reform Movement had its 
 origin in an effort not to lead the Jew to the Church, 
 but rather to keep him from it. If the Church, 
 either Protestant or Catholic, had seemed to the 
 Reformers at all superior to the Synagogue, their 
 movement might never have come to the birth. 
 
THE TRUE MESSIAHS 317 
 
 They were strikingly clear-minded and _ courage- 
 ous men, and it is unlikely that they would have 
 balked even at outright apostasy if they had thought 
 it would bring them nearer the Truth. But they 
 saw only too well that the Christianity of the day 
 was not one whit freer of superstition, bigotry, 
 fear, and spite, than the medieval Judaism they were 
 fleeing. To go from the Orthodox Synagogue to 
 the Orthodox Church meant to them going not 
 forward but sideways—no, backward. For though 
 contemporary Judaism spent all its time regulating 
 one’s action, contemporary Christianity was worse, 
 for it devoted itself rather to shackling one’s thought. 
 
 What the Reformers were really seeking was not 
 merely some other creed than Orthodox Judaism, 
 but some better one. They wanted a belief that did 
 not bind them either with petty rules or stupid 
 dogmas, but one that set them utterly free. They 
 sought a religion that rested not on the authority 
 of a book or a priest, but on the great human hunger 
 for Truth and Righteousness. And after they had 
 fashioned that creed as best they could, all danger 
 was past of their ever being lured to adopt Chris- 
 tianity. 
 
 2 
 
 Significantly, but few of the Reformers or their 
 children ever went over to the Church. Some of 
 them, to be sure, have since gone over to Unitarian- 
 ism; but that doctrine can hardly be classed in with 
 the religion of the Church. (Indeed, it is almost as 
 far from the Church as is the Synagogue.) And 
 in very recent years, some have gone over to Chris- 
 
318 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 tian Science—but that doctrine too is many worlds 
 removed from the religion of the Church. 
 
 No, the vast majority of the Jews who were 
 baptized came from the ranks of those who had 
 never entered the Reform Movement. They went 
 over from Orthodox Judaism, which because of its 
 very orthodoxy, its ‘“‘fundamentalism,” is far closer 
 to Orthodox Christianity than the religion of Reform 
 Judaism. For instance, it was the colonies of Se- 
 phardic Jews in Holland, England, and America, 
 which were most reduced by apostasy. And the 
 Sephardic Jews with but rare exceptions were most 
 rigidly orthodox in their Judaism. 
 
 3 
 
 Liberal Judaism has grave faults, and perhaps 
 they will be shown up pointedly enough a little later 
 in this story. But it also has its virtues. For in- 
 stance, there is its unfaltering opposition to any 
 return to what is usually called ‘‘authority.”’ Like 
 Orthodox Judaism, it has no pope, living or dead, in 
 control of its freedom. Its rabbis hold office not 
 because of any official ‘‘ordination,” but by virtue 
 of their reputation for learning and religious zeal. 
 And unlike Orthodox Judaism, it has not even a 
 ‘‘printed pope,” for it accepts neither the Shulchan 
 Aruch nor the Talmud as binding. 
 
 Even the Bible is not allowed to play tyrant over 
 its thinking. Liberal Jews cherish the Bible for the 
 nobility of its prophetic protests, the beauty of its 
 psalms, the grandeur of its books of wisdom. They 
 pore over it because they see in it the epic of their 
 early search for God. But they refuse to believe it 
 
THE TRUE MESSIAHS 319 
 
 utters the last word on that theme, or that the search 
 ends with its last page. 
 
 That is a wondrous advance—the more so because 
 it was made after four centuries of retrogression. 
 Christianity, which began its forward march three 
 hundred years earlier, is only now being stirred to 
 hazard a similar advance. 
 
 And it was not the only one made by Liberal 
 Judaism. Another advance lay in the ideal it 
 preached of the Prophetic Mission of Israel. For 
 according to this ideal, the essence of religion lay 
 not in praying for the health of one’s soul, but in 
 striving for the well-being of mankind. The truest 
 Jew was seen to be the person who labored most 
 earnestly to bring on a Reign of Peace among men. 
 
 That was and is an overwhelmingly high ideal, 
 and Reform Judaism deserves abundant praise for 
 lifting it out of the writings of the Prophets and 
 preaching it anew. Unfortunately, however, Reform 
 Judaism seemed able to do exceedingly little to put 
 that preaching into practice. In every ‘‘temple”’ 
 in Germany and America there was fulsome talk of 
 Israel’s Mission—but little effort actually to carry 
 it out. 
 
 Perhaps that is the severest criticism one can make 
 of the new movement: it knew exactly what the 
 Jew ought to do, but failed to induce him to do it. 
 
 4 
 
 There were indeed Jews who were carrying out the 
 historic mission of Israel, who were serving as true 
 messiahs among men, but exceedingly few of them 
 seem to have been inspired by the Reform Move- 
 
320 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 ment. The exceptions were commonest perhaps in 
 Hungary, where certain Reform rabbis like Ignatz 
 Einhorn and Adolph Huebsch made their ‘‘ temples” 
 notable centers of the revolution of 1848. But save 
 for such exceptions, the Jews who led or participated 
 in the heroic efforts to remold the world of the last 
 century, were neither Reform or Orthodox. Indeed, . 
 they were often not professing Jews at all. 
 
 For instance, there was Heinrich Heine and Lud- 
 wig Bérne, both unfaltering champions of freedom. 
 And even more conspicuously, there was Karl Marx, 
 one of the great prophetic geniuses of modern times. 
 
 Jewish histories rarely mention the name of this 
 man, Karl Marx, though in his life and spirit he was 
 far truer to the mission of Israel than most of those 
 who were forever talking of it. He was born in 
 Germany in 1818, and belonged to an old rabbinic 
 family. He was not himself reared a Jew, however, 
 but while still a child was baptized a Christian by 
 his father. Yet the rebel soul of the Jew flamed 
 in him throughout his days, for he was always a 
 ‘“‘troubler’’ in Europe. He was banished from one 
 land after another, and he was arrested and im- 
 prisoned many times. He had to flee from Germany 
 to France, then to Belgium, then back to Germany, 
 again to France, and finally to England. 
 
 He was so persecuted simply for not holding his 
 peace. Very like the ancient Prophets in that re- 
 spect, he could not abide the sight of injustice and 
 corruption. He was forever protesting in behalf of 
 the ‘‘underdog.’”’ He was one of the founders of 
 Socialism, and his book entitled ‘‘Capital,” is 
 called the Bible of the Socialist movement. He 
 
THE TRUE MESSIAHS 321 
 
 believed in equality, in democracy, not alone in 
 the domain of politics but also in the domain of 
 industry. He sought to win for every man the 
 right not merely to vote as a citizen, but also to 
 thrive as a human being. He warred to banish 
 poverty, and all the vice and disease and ugliness 
 that poverty breeds. 
 
 There may be some question whether Karl Marx 
 waged that war in the most desirable or the most 
 effective way. But none can question that the war 
 itself was worth waging. It was an earnest effort 
 to remold the society of men into a true brother- 
 hood, and though there may still be those who 
 insist it was misguided, none can deny it was holy. 
 
 5 
 
 Significantly enough, however, those who most 
 fervidly talked of the Mission of the Jew, had little 
 love for a Karl Marx who tried to live it. Almost 
 as soon as they were emancipated and could mingle 
 as equals before the law with other men, the need 
 for a newer and better world was forgotten by 
 them altogether. All of a sudden the world as it was, 
 began to seem quite good enough. 
 
 From reaching up, the Jews now turned to reaching 
 out. From fighters they changed to ‘‘climbers.” .. . 
 Not all of them—but many. Too many... . 
 
 Reform rabbis still continued to tell the occu- 
 pants of the pews that they were chosen for mighty 
 works, that they were all messiahs. But those who 
 really essayed those mighty works, those who were 
 the true messiahs, rarely sat in the pews to listen. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE ANTI-SEMITIC REACTION IN EUROPE, AND 
 HOW IT HELPED GIVE RISE TO ZIONISM 
 
 Liberal Judaism was—and still is—a movement 
 of a small minority. It attracted only those of the 
 broadest ‘‘worldliness” in the lands of the greatest 
 enlightenment. In Russia and Roumania where 
 lived half the Jews of the world, it made no headway 
 whatever. In all of the Orient it was utterly un- 
 known. The Wall of Law still towered high in 
 those lands, and the Jews behind it still dreamed 
 on of a Messiah who would lead them bodily back 
 to Zion. To have told them to look on the land 
 where they dwelt as their Zion would have appeared 
 to them but an unfeeling and blasphemous jest. 
 
 The Reformers in the West knew that full well; 
 but they were not in the least dismayed. To them 
 it seemed but a question of time before their move- 
 ment would take root also in the East. For Day 
 seemed to be dawning there too. Emancipation 
 was spreading Eastward, and with it, enlightenment 
 and courage. 
 
 And in the second half of the nineteenth century 
 it did indeed seem as though Day were about to reach 
 the East. The most tolerant monarch that Russia 
 had ever known, Alexander II, ascended the throne 
 in 1855. ... Turkey in 1876 accepted a con- 
 stitution which gave all citizens, no matter what 
 
ZIONISM 323 
 
 their religion, full equality before the law; and in 
 the first Turkish parliament elected the following 
 year, there were three Jews. ... The Treaty 
 of Berlin, signed by the nations of Europe, in 1878, 
 included a clause compelling Roumania, Servia, 
 and Bulgaria, to cancel all laws discriminating 
 
 against the Jews. . . . It did indeed seem indubi- 
 table that light was seeping into the East. 
 2 
 
 And then of a sudden came a reverse. The advance 
 all at once changed to a retreat, and the growing 
 light turned again to darkness. Alexander II was 
 murdered, and after his assassination, the Jews 
 were the victims of the ghastliest cruelties through- 
 out Russia. In Turkey, the new parliament was 
 dismissed and the constitution forgotten. By a 
 trick, Roumania evaded the clause in the Treaty 
 of Berlin compelling her to grant equality before 
 the law to the Jews. Instead still heavier burdens 
 were piled on them, afflicting them so severely 
 that they fled by the thousands. 
 
 Even in the West the clouds gathered to blot out 
 the sun. A new movement arose against the Jews, 
 an unholy mixture of crude prejudice and false 
 science, which called itself Anti-Semitism. Warn- 
 ings were spread far and wide that the Jew was 
 an enemy and a menace, for once more it was 
 discovered that he was ‘‘different.’”’ Not ‘‘differ- 
 ent’’ merely in religion, but even more in blood. 
 It was clamored that the Jew belonged to an alien 
 race. He was not an Aryan, a real European, but 
 a Semite, a native of Asia. Because the first lan- 
 
324 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 guages spoken by Aryan and Semite had been dis- 
 tinctly different it was concluded that the bloods 
 of Aryan and Semite must likewise be distinctly 
 different. 
 
 It was all sheer nonsense. Aryan and Semite were 
 indeed different in their psychology, in their think- 
 ing, but not at all in blood. Quiet intermarriage 
 had constantly been going on between the two 
 groups. Every war between the two, every in- 
 vasion, deportation, oppression, and trading con- 
 nection, had left children of Aryan fathers among 
 the Semites, or children of Semitic fathers among 
 the Aryans. It was altogether untrue that the two 
 races were still scrupulously ‘‘pure”’ and unrelated 
 in blood. 
 
 But though untrue, still the charge was repeated. 
 And the Anti-Semites went further and declared 
 that the two groups were not merely unrelated, 
 but racially also unequal. The Aryans were far 
 the superior of the two races—so they claimed. 
 Indeed, all that was good in civilization had been 
 contributed by them, just as all the evil had been 
 dragged in by the Semites. And all the great men 
 of history, no matter where born and reared, were 
 claimed by the Aryans as their own. Even Jesus 
 of Nazareth! ... 
 
 3 
 
 And then quite naturally a movement arose to 
 stamp out the “‘inferior” race. In Germany a party 
 was organized for the express purpose of robbing 
 the Jews of all their political and social rights. 
 In other lands similar parties sprang up—in Austria, 
 
ZIONISM 325 
 
 Hungary, and France. Anti-Semitic newspapers 
 appeared in which all manner of crimes were laid 
 at the door of the newly-emancipated people. In 
 France they were accused of being German spies, 
 and in Germany of being French spies. And in all 
 these lands the Jews were said to be plotting against 
 all Aryan civilization, seeking to ruin it so as to 
 set up Semitic anarchy in its place. 
 
 Even the stupid old medizval ‘“‘blood accusa- 
 tions” were revived again. In the Hungarian town 
 of Tisza-Ezlar in 1882, a peasant girl disappeared 
 just three days before the Passover. Immediately 
 the Jews were accused of murdering her to procure 
 blood for the festival, and only with great difficulty 
 were they protected from the fanatical mobs. Simi- 
 lar accusations were made in other towns and in 
 other lands—in Germany, France, Roumania, and 
 Bohemia. There were riots and massacres, fiendish 
 assaults and heartless expulsions. It seemed almost 
 as if the dread Night were returning. 
 
 4 
 
 The reaction culminated in one scandalous affair 
 that shook all of Western Europe and that had its 
 effect on all the world. There was deep unrest 
 among the people in France because a corrupt gov- 
 ernment was rapidly dragging the country down to 
 ruin. Panically that government looked around for 
 a way to save its skin—and pounced on one of the 
 Strange People. That was nothing new. Kings and 
 governments had often found it convenient in days 
 gone by to stave off revolution by turning the wrath 
 of the masses against the defenseless Jews. 
 
326 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 A young Jew named Alfred Dreyfus, an officer 
 in the French army, was accused of selling military 
 secrets to the Germans. Undoubtedly it was done 
 in the hope that his trial and condemnation would 
 arouse such a furor of Anti-Semitism that the corrup- 
 tion of the government would be entirely forgotten 
 in the excitement. 
 
 But Dreyfus did not prove a good scapegoat. 
 He showed fight, and he had a wealthy family to 
 support him. Dreyfus was condemned and sentenced 
 to a living death on Devil’s Island; but immediately 
 his people began an agitation for a new trial. Pro- 
 tests were made, mass meetings were held, articles 
 and pamphlets and books were written in defense of 
 the innocent man. France was convulsed to its very 
 depths, and all the civilized world became aroused. 
 Twelve long years the excitement lasted, and finally, 
 after the true criminals committed suicide, and the 
 corrupt government had been overthrown, Dreyfus 
 was exonerated. 
 
 It was a frightful ordeal, not alone for Alfred 
 Dreyfus, but for the whole Jewish people. With 
 him they all stood on trial, for he had ceased to be 
 a Jew, and had become the Jew. And though in the 
 end he and his people were declared innocent, the 
 lesson of the ‘‘ Affair’? sank deep into their memories 
 and remained there. From then on, the Strange 
 People were a far sadder but wiser lot. It had 
 put the horrible old Fear of the Goy back into their 
 hearts. They suddenly found out that despite all 
 the long years they had fought for liberty, they still 
 had not gained their end. They were still gypsies. 
 They had been telling themselves that they were 
 
ZIONISM 327 
 
 at home everywhere, but now they knew again 
 that they were at home nowhere at all. 
 They were still in Golus, in Exile. ... 
 
 5 
 
 And then arose that most dramatic movement 
 called Zionism. The old Messianic ache began to 
 throb again, and once more Jews even in the West 
 began to long for their ancient homeland. The 
 hasty optimism of the Reformers who had called 
 every land their Zion was at an end. And with it 
 almost the whole Reform Movement in Europe 
 came to an end. Only in America, where the lash 
 of Anti-Semitism had not yet been laid on the back 
 of the Jew, could the “‘temples”’ thrive. In Europe 
 their harried kinsmen were content to worship in 
 synagogues, and wait for the redemption of the 
 Holy Land before talking any more of grander 
 sanctuaries. 
 
 Once again the ancient vow of the Wandering 
 Jew was to be heard in the world: 
 
 “Tf I forget thee, O Jerusalem, 
 May my right hand forget its cunning; 
 May my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, 
 If I remember thee not, O Zion!” 
 
 Only now that vow was not uttered in a whisper 
 as of yore. It was no longer a timorous prayer but 
 a fierce cry of defiance, a ringing battle cry. The 
 Jew was no longer willing to retreat and cower be- 
 hind his ramparts, to pray tremblingly for the Mes- 
 siah to come. He himself would be the Messiah! 
 He himself would retake the old home-land! ... 
 
328 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 The Zionist movement started first in Russia 
 during the dread days following the murder of 
 Alexander IJ. But it was vague and powerless 
 there. Its Russian adherents were enthusiastic 
 over it, tremendously enthusiastic—but that was 
 all. Zionism with them remained a dream, a thing 
 to talk about. They utterly lacked the worldly 
 ability required even to attempt to realize it. 
 
 But then came Theodore Herzl. 
 
 6 
 
 Herzl was a Western Jew, born in Budapest in 
 1860. During his youth as a university student, 
 and his young manhood as a journalist and drama- 
 tist, he took no interest whatsoever in Jewish life 
 or thought. He was a typical member of the genera- 
 tion of Jews then growing up in Central and Western 
 Europe. Alfred Dreyfus belonged to the same type— 
 a Jew solely by virtue of his birth. 
 
 At the time of the first Dreyfus trial, Herzl was 
 in Paris, serving as the foreign correspondent for a 
 Vienna newspaper. And the sight of a young officer 
 being disgraced and betrayed to the mob simply 
 because he was a Jew, set a train of thought running 
 in the journalist’s mind that was destined to change 
 the whole future of the Jewish people. 
 
 Herzl had such poor Jewish training that he 
 knew little of the Messianic Hope reaching back to 
 the Exile in Babylon, and nothing at all of the 
 feeble Zionist agitation that had just started up in 
 Russia. All he had discovered was that though 
 thoroughly a European in training and conduct, 
 he was nevertheless without. a real home in any 
 
ZIONISM 329 
 
 European land. No matter how hard he might deny 
 it, he was still regarded as an alien and an intruder 
 wherever he lived. There was therefore but one 
 thing for him to do: go to some land where he would 
 not be an alien. There presumably he would be let 
 alone to live his own life in peace and develop his 
 own talents in quiet. There he would be able to give 
 his Jewish genius free scope, and be his own self. 
 
 There, in his very own home, he would be free! 
 
 And hardly conscious of what consequences might 
 follow, Herzl set down his ideas in a book entitled 
 “The Jewish State.” It was not a book of excep- 
 tional merit. Zionists in Russia had written on 
 the same subject a generation earlier with better 
 understanding, greater feeling, and more originality. 
 Nevertheless, that book made a world-wide im- 
 pression. Almost immediately Herzl’s reputation 
 was made and’ his whole career was transformed. 
 At the age of thirty-six he suddenly discovered that 
 he was no longer a care-free, religionless literary 
 man, but the head of a vast and intensely religious 
 movement. Here and there little groups of Zionists 
 sprang up, for the most part refugees from Russia 
 and Roumania, and they madly hailed Herzl as their 
 leader. 
 
 Herzl’s life now became one unceasing round of 
 labor. His supporters in the beginning were largely 
 dreamers, enthusiastic but penniless. The Jews of 
 wealth frowned on his movement, for they still 
 cherished the idea of working out their salvation 
 in the lands of the Exile. So Herzl found his task 
 was twofold: he had to win the Jews for a home and 
 win a home for the Jews. 
 
330 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 Eight years he wrestled with those two tasks— 
 eight years of incessant writing and speaking, of 
 pleading and rebuking, of running to and fro in all 
 the lands of Europe and the Orient, of meeting with 
 sultans and emperors and popes and ambassadors, 
 of unabating, feverish agitation. 
 
 And then he died. After eight years of superhuman 
 effort, Theodore Herzl crumbled in the prime of 
 life. It had been too much even for him.  Dis- 
 sension had broken out among his own followers. 
 The Westerners among the Zionists were willing 
 to locate the new home anywhere—in Argentine 
 or the heart of Africa. The Easterners, with the 
 old Messianic dream far mightier in their souls, 
 would have the home nowhere save in Palestine. 
 
 And torn between the two Zionist factions, as- 
 sailed by the Anti-Zionists, thwarted by the Chris- 
 tian Powers, the great leader was destroyed. 
 
 But his Zionism lived on. Other men leaped into 
 the breach and carried on until to-day Zionism looms 
 in importance above every other movement in all 
 the life of the Strange People. 
 
CHAPTER XLI 
 THE GREAT EXODUS FROM EASTERN EUROPE 
 
 The head and the directing intelligence that 
 guided the Zionist movement, belonged very largely 
 to the West; but its heart from first to last was 
 Eastern. That was natural, for full half of the 
 whole Jewish people dwelt in those lands in the 
 east of Europe. By the end of the nineteenth 
 century, almost six million Jews were penned in 
 there, groping in the darkness of Night behind the 
 outer wall of Christian persecution and the inner 
 wall of Talmudic Law. 
 
 The Polish overlords who in the fourteenth and 
 fifteenth centuries had so gladly welcomed the Jews, 
 -were now no more. All their lands had been taken 
 from those overlords late in the eighteenth century by 
 three neighboring powers: Prussia, Austria, and Rus- 
 sia. And as ill-luck would have it, the portion taken 
 by Russia contained the vast majority of the Jews. 
 
 A greater misfortune for the luckless people could 
 hardly have occurred. Russia was perhaps the most 
 backward nation in Europe. Her czars were the 
 most despotic of rulers, and her subjects the most 
 barbarous of serfs. When Poland was conquered 
 the Jews fell into the paws of the Russian bear, and 
 they suffered indescribably. And the more they 
 suffered from the ever greater lengths to which their 
 oppression was carried, the more they degenerated. 
 
332 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 They shut themselves off so completely from the 
 outside world that they lived almost in utter dark- 
 ness. In the provinces of the north they buried them- 
 selves still further in Talmudism, and in those of the 
 south they plunged even deeper into Chassidism. 
 
 2 
 
 Only during the reign of Alexander II, from 1855 
 to 1881, was the oppression lightened a little; and 
 
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 35.—The Partition of Poland 
 
 immediately Jewish genius began to bloom again. 
 Russian universities were thronged with Jewish stu- 
 dents glad to escape the gloom of the cheder and 
 yeshwah. Ambitious merchants closed and left their 
 little shops in Polish towns, and moved off to Mos- 
 cow and St. Petersburg. Jewish newspapers and pe- 
 riodicals appeared in Russian and Modern Hebrew. 
 Yiddish newspapers began to flourish. Musicians 
 like Anton Rubenstein, and sculptors like Mare An- 
 tokolski, made their appearance. 
 
THE FLIGHT WESTWARD 333 
 
 The very Dawn seemed to be breaking at last in 
 dark Russia. 
 
 And then swift reaction followed. Alexander 
 II was murdered in 1881, and with his successor 
 came back all the terrors of the Night. The rev- 
 olutionary unrest that was seething in the masses, 
 was turned against the Jews. Bloody riots went on 
 everywhere, so that it seemed the whole of Russian 
 Jewry would be destroyed. And when the fury of 
 the mob was spent, and Cossacks and peasants 
 were too exhausted to continue the carnage, the 
 czar came forward with new laws against the survi- 
 vors. All Jews who had wandered off and settled in 
 the larger cities or on farms in the heart of Russia, 
 were ordered to return at once to their old homes in 
 the crowded towns of Poland and Lithuania. They 
 were all driven out, bag and baggage, to what was 
 called the ‘‘Pale of Settlement,” and there penned 
 in like prisoners. 
 
 Indignant protest was made by enlightened states- 
 men throughout the world. Mass meetings were 
 held in England and America. The outrage was 
 decried in the press of many lands. But the czar and 
 his ministers paid no heed. They were determined 
 to get rid of the Jews once and for all. They openly 
 admitted that they hoped to convert a third of the 
 Jews by their persecutions, drive out another third, 
 and murder all the rest. 
 
 So persecutions continued. From 1903 to 1906 
 indescribable massacres occurred. (Pogroms they 
 were called in Russian.) Thousands of Jews were 
 slaughtered in the streets of Kishineff, Odessa, and 
 other cities in the Pale. 
 
Mas en, COLHYNIA 
 
THE FLIGHT WESTWARD 335 
 
 But it was all to little avail. The czar and his 
 counsellors found themselves still unable to get rid 
 of the Jews. Hundreds of thousands were killed off, 
 and millions of others fled—but still more millions 
 remained on in the land. And the more they were 
 afflicted, the more stubbornly they lived on; the 
 more they were hounded, the more they multiplied. 
 They refused utterly to change their ways or their 
 thoughts; rather they sought to change the ways and 
 thoughts of the Russians. Their sons and daughters 
 were the most desperate and violent of the nihilists 
 and terrorists. Wherever in the land there was talk 
 of revolution, young Jews were to be found among 
 the leaders. 
 
 3 
 
 The fleeing millions scattered to every corner of 
 the globe. They poured out of the foul Pale in 
 droves and scurried to every imaginable place of 
 refuge. They settled in France, England, South 
 America, China, Australia, Canada, South Africa— 
 everywhere. But most of all they settled in the 
 _ United States. 
 
 Unfortunately the exodus was altogether without 
 direction. There was none to tell the fugitives where 
 to go. As they were used to town life in the “Old 
 Country” they naturally made for the towns in the 
 new countries. They settled in swarms in the larger 
 cities, in London and, especially, in New York. 
 
 Only at the twelfth hour was an heroic attempt 
 made to provide channels for the streams of emi- 
 gration. In 1891 a German Jewish banker named 
 Baron Moritz de Hirsch, set aside the huge sum of 
 
336 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 $45,000,000—the largest gift in the history of the 
 world—for the sole purpose of directing the emigrants 
 away from the cities toward the open countryside. 
 He bought vast tracts of land in Argentine and other 
 countries, on which to settle the fugitives. His 
 aim was to put the Jews back on the soil, to make 
 them farmers instead of merchants. 
 
 But despite the money and zeal back of the 
 effort, it failed. Somehow the Jews could not feel 
 at home outside the cities. Two thousand years of 
 town dwelling had estranged them from the soil. 
 Theoretically they could see all the advantages of 
 rough, healthy, outdoor life—but practically they 
 could not take to it. 
 
 Perhaps the root of the failure lay in the fact that 
 the whole scheme of Baron de Hirsch was not a thing 
 of their own creation. The emigrants weren’t settling 
 themselves on the land; they were being settled there. 
 It was not their own hunger for the soil that was draw- 
 ing them to the agricultural colonies, but the thou- 
 sand doles which a kindly millionaire offered them. 
 
 Many, therefore, even of those who took the doles 
 and went out to the colonies, soon tired and moved 
 in to nearby cities. 
 
 4 
 
 And in the cities new problems arose. They be- 
 came most acute, of course, in the United States, for 
 about a million Jewish immigrants took refuge there 
 between 1881 and 1905 alone. The port cities on 
 the Eastern coast—New York, Boston, Philadelphia, 
 and Baltimore—developed vast ghettos and dread 
 ghetto evils. 
 
THE FLIGHT WESTWARD 337 
 
 Those ghettos and their evils are still in existence 
 to-day, and they will continue to exist probably for 
 many years. All the efforts made by benevolent 
 German Jewish millionaires have failed to end them. 
 And the chances are that they will continue to fail. 
 The ghetto masses themselves must work out their 
 salvation. 
 
 And they will. They are already doing it. 
 
 There is tremendous vitality in those masses, 
 and in some slight measure they have already 
 lifted themselves out of the lowest depths. On 
 their first arrival in America, they were despised 
 and rather scorned by their brethren who had pre- 
 ceded them from Germany. Just as previously 
 there had been a coolness between Spanish and 
 German Jews when first they came together in 
 Holland and America, so now a coolness arose be- 
 tween German and East-EKuropean Jews. And 
 just as that first coolness was dispelled by time, so 
 the second is being dispelled. 
 
 5 
 
 Most of the German Jews in America emigrated 
 to the United States during and after the Napoleonic 
 wars. They came over in rags, for they had been 
 robbed of everything in the wars and the subsequent 
 reaction in Germany. And these newcomers were 
 treated by the Sephardic Jews, already well at 
 home in the New World, very much like ‘‘poor 
 relations.” 
 
 But not for long. The destitute wanderers from 
 Germany, despite their foreign ways and guttural 
 accents, soon began to improve their lot. They 
 
338 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 started out as pack-pedlars, then opened little 
 country shops, grew up with the towns, and finally 
 became owners of huge department stores and 
 factories. And their children, who had no foreign 
 ways and spoke without an accent, became people 
 of influence in the middle-class life of America. 
 So that what few Sephardic Jews had not drifted 
 off to Christianity, were now glad to intermarry 
 with them. Compared to the wealth which the 
 energetic newcomers from Germany had managed to 
 amass, the somewhat effete descendants of the Span- 
 ish Jews were almost paupers. 
 
 Thus is summed up the whole story of Jewish 
 social life in the United States—and in a measure 
 also in England—up to 1881. 
 
 6 
 
 And then almost to a detail that story began to 
 repeat itself. The Russian Jew, poor, full of foreign 
 peculiarities, a stranger speaking a strange jargon, 
 became a pack-pedlar in the country or a sweat- 
 shop worker in the city slum. The German Jew, 
 quite a bit proud of his Americanism and his re- 
 finement, looked down on this poverty-stricken 
 immigrant with his outlandish ways. This German 
 Jew belonged to a ‘‘temple,’”’ and had liberalized his 
 religion almost out of all recognizable likeness to the 
 rigid Talmudism of the newcomers. And he was 
 wealthy. He mixed and mingled in what he con- 
 sidered the highest of Gentile society. So he could 
 not but be a little ashamed of his Russian relatives. 
 
 Of course, he was benevolent to them. With 
 characteristic Jewish generosity, he aided them with 
 
THE FLIGHT WESTWARD 339 
 
 loans and alms, and built ‘‘settlement houses’’ and 
 other charitable institutions for them. Neverthe- 
 less his attitude toward them was snobbish. He 
 considered them hopelessly ‘‘foreign’’ and low, and 
 therefore his inferiors. 
 
 But gradually the more ambitious or more for- 
 tunate of the Russian Jews began to lose their 
 ‘‘foreignness,” and showed themselves anything but 
 inferior. From pack-pedlars they became _store- 
 keepers, and from sweat-shop hands they turned 
 into ‘‘bosses.”” They began to attain wealth, and to 
 move from their ghetto tenements to fine homes in 
 the suburbs where the German Jews lived. They 
 either became Reform Jews and joined the ‘‘ temples,” 
 or else they refined their synagogue ritual and called 
 themselves Conservative or Modern-Orthodox Jews. 
 
 In Chicago and New York, hundreds of thousands 
 of them who did not attain wealth but were com- 
 pelled to remain in the working class, organized 
 themselves into powerful trade-unions. 
 
 There was no holding them back. All the energy 
 pent up in them during their long Night in the 
 Pale of Settlement, broke loose and simply swept 
 every obstacle out of their way. Their keen intelli- 
 gences, whetted from long study in the Talmud, 
 simply gashed a path for them. 
 
 And the dominance in American Jewish life which 
 once passed from the Spanish Jew to the German 
 Jew, now began to pass from the German Jew to 
 the Russian Jew. 
 
 That second process is going on to-day—and going 
 on most rapidly. Another generation or two, and 
 the transfer will be complete. 
 
340 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 And then it will be the turn of the Russian Jew 
 to show his mettle. Like his brother in Germany 
 or Spain, he was well able to live through all the 
 terrors of the Night. 
 
 But what is going to happen to him now that his 
 Night has passed? ... 
 
CHAPTER XLII 
 THE NIGHT OF WAR, AND THE NEW DAWN 
 
 The Exodus from Eastern Europe which began 
 in 1881, continued without interruption until 1914. 
 And then there came an ominous halt. 
 
 The World War had begun. Of a sudden all the 
 nations of Europe found themselves leaping at each 
 other’s throats—though just why, no one of them 
 really knew. They acted rather like those pathetic 
 maniacs who are so genial and sane and industrious 
 for months on end, and then suddenly, bewilderingly, 
 without all trace of reason, run amuck. 
 
 The savage in the heart of man broke loose and 
 slashed all the bonds of civilization. 
 
 In a way the War can be understood as another 
 convulsive effort of the Night to get the world back 
 into its clutches—an effort that succeeded only too 
 ' well for a while. Epidemics of savage intolerance 
 of all that was “‘different”’ became common every- 
 where. And as might be expected, it was Jews, 
 the universally ‘‘different’”’ people, who were its 
 sorriest victims. 
 
 The severest sufferings were inflicted on them of 
 course in Eastern Europe, and almost half the Jews 
 of the world still lived in that region. There they 
 lay helplessly in the path of vast armies rushing to 
 blow each other to fragments. Just as in ancient 
 times the Jews occupied the bridge between the em- 
 
342 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 pires of the Orient, so now they dwelt on the main 
 highways between Germany, Austria, Russia, and 
 Roumania. And the armed hosts of the powers 
 came thundering over those highways, attacking and 
 counter-attacking, rolling each other backward and 
 forward, murdering and pillaging and burning their 
 way, and leaving East-European Jewry prostrate 
 and broken. 
 
 The ordeal of the Belgians was as nothing com- 
 pared with what was thus suffered by the Jews on 
 the Eastern front. For the Jews were not ordinary 
 noncombatants going through the ordinary hell of 
 war. They were Jews, and as such were marked out 
 for an especially fiendish torment. They were the 
 prey of both sides, so that no matter which won, 
 they invariably lost. 
 
 2 
 
 It is not easy to tell of the atrocities committed 
 against the Jews during all four years of the World 
 War on the Eastern front, and all five years of civil 
 war that followed in Russia. The story is too ghastly! 
 There were wholesale deportations of women and old 
 men and children. ... Cattle trucks were filled 
 with the sick and helpless, and were abandoned 
 on railroad sidings in the forests. ... Carts and 
 sleighs were loaded with starving women and chil- 
 dren, and sent off into oblivion in the dead of 
 night... . Everywhere there was terror and flame 
 and ne. ae 
 
 Of all the lur ec chapters in the long story of the 
 martyrdom of the Jews, the one enacted there and 
 then in Eastern Europe was the worst. It began in 
 
NIGHT AND THE NEW DAWN 348 
 
 August of 1914, when Russia battered her way 
 into Galicia; and it went on without a moment’s 
 pause until 1923. The Revolution and downfall 
 of the ezar brought no relief, for civil war then 
 broke out. Anti-revolutionary generals Jet their 
 Cossack armies cut down the Jew without mercy, 
 on the assumption that the hated folk were all 
 friends of the Revolution. And roving bandits 
 calling themselves Bolsheviki, plundered and mur- 
 dered these same Jews on the ground that they were 
 all against the Revolution. 
 
 There in southwestern Russia a whole people was 
 beaten almost to death. Hundreds of thousands 
 of Jews were murdered or starved, and hundreds 
 of thousands more went wandering through the land 
 vainly seeking a hiding place. 
 
 3 
 
 But even after the War the sufferings of the Jews 
 were not confined to Russia. Poland had been made 
 a nation once more, and drunk with its new glory, 
 it celebrated its triumph with wholesale massacres 
 of the homeless folk. Roumania and Hungary, even 
 Germany, were the scenes of Anti-Semitic riots and 
 murders. 
 
 And in lands further west, although Anti-Semitic 
 passion could not culminate in lynchings and massa- 
 cres, it nevertheless brought sore evil to the Jews. 
 A flood of malicious propaganda swept through 
 France, England, and America. Fresh currency 
 was given to old slanderous stories which recounted 
 how the Jews were all secretly united under the 
 leadership of certain mythical Elders of Zion and 
 
344 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 were plotting to conquer all the world. Anti-Semitic 
 parties and fraternities were organized in many 
 lands, even in America; and Anti-Semitic books 
 and newspapers were published and widely dis- 
 tributed. 
 
 All the forces of reaction everywhere let loose 
 after the War, turned with the old venom upon the 
 Jew. Wherever custom made it possible he was 
 stoned and murdered, and elsewhere he was re- 
 viled and despised. 
 
 t 
 
 And out of the bitterness of his experiences during 
 and after the War, one dread lesson was brought 
 home again to the Jew: he was still in Golus, in Exile. 
 
 Even in America that lesson was well learnt 
 at last. It came first through the sight of the holo- 
 caust of his brethren in Eastern Europe. Ever since 
 1881 the Jews in America had been answering the 
 call for aid from their brethren in the Pale. And 
 year after year they had been solacing themselves 
 with the hope that the horrors there would soon, 
 very soon, abate. 
 
 But the horrors only increased. In 1914 they 
 forced the first of a series of enormous relief drives 
 to be launched in America to rescue East-European 
 Jewry. Incredibly large sums, millions upon millions 
 of dollars, had to be sent over to feed and clothe 
 the victims of war and prejudice: Year after year 
 the Jews in America, poor as well as rich, were thus 
 forced to tax themselves to relieve their afflicted 
 brethren. In 1922, in one supreme effort, as much 
 as seventeen millions of dollars was subscribed! 
 
NIGHT AND THE NEW DAWN 345 
 
 But while all those funds were being gathered and 
 distributed, a doubt began to creep into the minds 
 of the American Jews as to the worth of their efforts. 
 Slowly it began to dawn on them that the fortunes 
 they were sending across were going merely for re- 
 lief, and were doing nothing at all to effect a cure. 
 Even more: they began to come to the conclusion 
 that a cure could never be wrought if their people 
 were left to live in Eastern Europe. 
 
 5 
 
 For a whole century they had been deluding them- 
 selves that the full solution of the Jewish world 
 problem lay in obtaining complete recognition of 
 the Jews as citizens in every land where they dwelt. 
 But the World War made it clear that in at least 
 one region, Eastern Europe, the Jewish problem 
 could never be solved by the removal of their civil 
 disabilities. Because of their vast and huddled 
 numbers, their alien religion, their hateful position 
 as middlemen, their age-old unpopularity, the Jews 
 could never possibly feel at home there. They would 
 have to migrate. Inevitably they would have to 
 flee. 
 
 But whither? The more attractive lands in the 
 west were no longer willing to receive them. Like 
 America, they had closed their doors. And to send 
 the fugitives to Mexico or to one of the South Ameri- 
 can republics, was but to drag out the misery. For 
 those lands, generous and hospitable to-day, might 
 grow bitter and hostile to-morrow. 
 
 No, it was clear that what these people needed 
 was not another nachtsyl, another ‘‘night’s lodging,” 
 
346 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 but a real home. That secure haven was needed most 
 obviously for the persecuted in Eastern Europe; 
 but no less certainly was there need of it for the 
 sensitive, the creative, the artist Jews everywhere 
 else. For the latter, though now perhaps physically 
 comfortable, were spiritually lost. As they them- 
 selves put it, they did not feel ‘‘at home”’ anywhere 
 in the Diaspora. They could not express fully and 
 joyously the Jewish genius astir in their souls. 
 
 Moreover, ordinary Jews, the merchants and 
 the professional men everywhere in the world, also 
 needed a home; not a home for their bodies but 
 for their cowed and Exile-broken spirits. They 
 needed a spiritual world center, a dynamo radiating 
 courage and strength to them wherever they hap- 
 pened to live. With the wall of the Ghetto almost 
 demolished, and the wall of Law fast wearing away, 
 they stood in desperate need of some new rampart 
 of protection if they desired to survive. They needed 
 a spiritual home. 
 
 And where in all the world could they expect to 
 find such a home, physical or spiritual, sayve—in 
 Palestine? 
 
 6 
 
 By such a process of reasoning were American 
 Jews won over at last to make the dream of Theodore 
 Herzl their own. Only in the interval it had come 
 to be something more than a dream. The incessant 
 labors of Herzl’s successors had by this time been 
 crowned with victory. On November 2, 1917, the 
 British Government officially declared its intention 
 of helping to make Palestine—which it was just then 
 
NIGHT AND THE NEW DAWN 347 
 
 wresting from the Turks—a ‘‘national home for the 
 Jewish people.” 
 
 And thus at one stroke was a fantastic dream made 
 almost a reality. 
 
 There still remained some Reform Jews in America 
 and ‘‘Britishers of the Mosaic Persuasion”’ in Eng- 
 land who continued to labor under the old delusion. 
 Some of them still believed that Zionism was a step 
 backwards, an inglorious retreat into a narrow na- 
 tionalism. There are still some who believe that 
 LO-USV serene 
 
 But rapidly even they are being won over, for 
 they are coming to see that Zionism is not at all 
 an effort to corral all the Jews in the world within 
 the borders of Palestine. Not even the most fana- 
 tical Zionist dreams of doing that. The Jews in 
 the Diaspora now number over sixteen millions, 
 and they never could be crowded into a land four 
 times the size of Palestine. All that Zionism pro- 
 poses to do is to secure a home for the Jews who 
 now are homeless—and for the Jewish spirit which 
 for almost two thousand years has been without a 
 haven. 
 
 7 
 
 That home has now been secured. In 1922 the 
 League of Nations ratified the British Mandate 
 over Palestine, and thereby the Powers of the 
 world signified that the declaration first made by 
 Great Britain had their indorsement. All that is 
 left—but it is a mighty task—is to furnish the home 
 so that the wanderers may return there and live. 
 And that task is now being done. 
 
348 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 8 
 
 So to-day, eighteen hundred and fifty-four years 
 after their expulsion from Palestine at the hands of 
 Rome, the Wandering People are on their way back. 
 Not all of them. Only those go back who are most 
 conscious of their race, who have been beaten in 
 body or harried in spirit until their whole life has 
 become a matter of race. For the most part thus 
 far they are young people, youths and maidens from 
 Kast-European universities, and with their staffs and 
 knapsacks they go back on foot. The Chalutzim, 
 the ‘‘pioneers,” they are called, and in legions they 
 are trooping back to redeem the land of their 
 fathers. 
 
 Two distinct urges have been basic in all the story 
 of the Jews: the prophetic dream and the priestly 
 way of realization. The one has given the people 
 a reason for living, and the other has sought to 
 provide a way. One thinks of them almost as two 
 vast spiritual back-drops on the stage of Jewish his- 
 tory—the one a stirring red, the other a sober gray— 
 in front of which the whole drama has been enacted. 
 No matter to what corner of the world the action has 
 shifted, always one or both of those drops have lent 
 the basic color. Jt is the clash between prophetic 
 hunger for the ideal and priestly resort to the ex- 
 pedient that lies at the bottom of every advance and 
 every retrogression in the spiritudl life of the Jewish 
 people. 
 
 Zionism, of course, belongs quite clearly to the 
 gray. It is essentially a priestly movement—not 
 a reason for living but a way to keep alive. It is 
 
NIGHT AND THE NEW DAWN 349 
 
 a means, not an end. And if prophetic spirits to-day 
 are leading the chalutzim, the Zionist pioneers, it is 
 solely because they realize this. They look on the 
 rehabilitation of the homeland but as the pre- 
 lude to something far greater. To them it is but 
 a clearing of the way for the rehabilitation of 
 the old prophetic spirit. They abide the gray 
 back-drop now, but only because they dream of 
 seeing the red one hung in its place in a little 
 while. 
 
 And perhaps they will not be disappointed. 
 
 There were only forty-two thousand chalutzim 
 who returned from the Babylonian Exile in 536. 
 B. c. Yet from their loins there sprang a people 
 that gave a new idea of God to half the world— 
 the idea that He is the Father of all Mankind. 
 
 What these thousands of newer chalutzim may 
 give, no one can tell. Perhaps a new idea of Man- 
 kind. No, not a new idea of Mankind, but an old 
 one reémphasized—the idea of the ancient Prophets 
 that Mankind is one great Fellowship. 
 
 For the.rebel spirit of the Prophets is mighty in 
 the bones of these young pioneers. ‘They are no 
 timorous band fleeing in a panic from an evil world, 
 but hardened warriors intrenching themselves for 
 a new assault on it. They are aflame with the pas- 
 sion to redeem not solely Palestine, but through 
 Palestine all the world. The Messianic dream is 
 still with them. They still believe, even though but 
 half-consciously, that the mission of their people is 
 to bring on the Kingdom of Heaven. 
 
 So who can tell what may yet come forth from 
 the new-old land of Israel? .. . 
 
300 STRANGER THAN FICTION 
 
 9 
 
 Yet one forecast may indeed safely be made. With 
 the going back of these chalutzim, the Jews every- 
 where go forward. They go forward in history, 
 taking on a new lease of life. A new rampart has 
 been thrown up to supply the protection afforded 
 by the old one of Law. And behind it Jews are 
 making ready to go on with their work, their his- 
 toric work of Godly Mischief. 
 
 So that even our day can see no end to the life 
 of the Strange People, but again only a new be- 
 ginning. Even here one cannot write ‘‘Finis’’ to 
 this long story, but only 
 
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 MOSES 
 
 MENDEL=- 
 
 SSO H N 172.8- 
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 Struggle 
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 4 
 
 GERMAN JiWG 
 
 T HEODORE AER GL Programs 
 ZIONISM 
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 DECLATION 
 
 —— 
 LAND OF ISRAEL 
 Chart F. The Adventures of the Jews, Part VI 
 
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GLOSSARY 
 
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GLOSSARY 
 
 Au uL Kiran: Arabic for ‘‘ People of the Book.’”’ The name 
 applied by the Arabs to the Jews because they had written 
 the Bible. 
 
 AraAMAIc: The popular dialect used by the Jews after the return 
 from the Babylonian Exile. It is a corrupt form of Hebrew. 
 
 ASHKENAZ: The medieval Hebrew for Germany. 
 
 ASHKENAZIM: Jews living in, or belonging by ancestry to Ger- 
 many and the rest of Northern Europe. Used in contra- 
 distinction to Sephardim, the Jews from Spain and Portugal. 
 
 Baa (pl. Baar): Hebrew for ‘“ Master.” Any of a number 
 of local gods worshiped by the Canaanites. 
 
 Bast SHEM: Hebrew for “Master of The (God’s) Name.” 
 Term applied to a magic-worker and healer among the 
 Jews of Poland and Galicia. The most famous of them was 
 Baal Shem Tov, ‘The Kind Master of God’s Name.” 
 
 Bes Ha-MepresH: Hebrew for “house of learning” or rab- 
 binical school. 
 
 CaBaLa: Hebrew for “tradition.” A system of magic and 
 mystical thought that was popular among the Jews in 
 the Middle Ages. It was based on peculiar Bible inter- 
 pretations which it was believed had been secretly handed 
 down by the ancient rabbis. 
 
 Cuassip (pl. CHassiprm): Hebrew for ‘‘ Pious One.” A follower 
 of Chassidism, the religious movement which arose among 
 the Polish Jews in the eighteenth century, and which won 
 over nearly half of the Jewish masses. 
 
 CHANNUKAH: Hebrew for ‘‘dedication.”” The Jewish Feast of 
 Dedication instituted by Judas Maccabeus in 165 B. c., 
 to commemorate the rededication of the Temple altar after 
 its pollution by Antiochus Epiphanes of Syria. 
 
 ? 
 
306 GLOSSARY 
 
 CHEDER: Hebrew for ‘‘room.’’ The name applied to an elemen- 
 tary. Hebrew school. 
 
 Curist: From the Greek word christos, meaning “anointed.” 
 The same word in Hebrew is mashiach, or Messiah. Paul 
 called Jesus of Nazareth ‘‘Christ”’ because he thought him 
 the Messiah, or ‘‘God’s Anointed.” 
 
 Diaspora: Greek for “dispersion” or “scattering.” The term 
 used to describe the world outside of Palestine inhabited 
 by the Jews after the Exile. 
 
 DonmeuH: Turkish for “Apostates.” A sect of secret Jews 
 descended from the followers of Sabbatai Zevi who went 
 over to Mohammedanism with him. Most of them now 
 live in Salonica, in Turkey. 
 
 Exoum: Hebrew for ‘‘God”’ (originally ‘gods’’). 
 
 Exouist: Name given to the ancient historical document set 
 down in the ninth century B. c. by the chroniclers of the 
 Northern Kingdom, and now to be found in fragmentary 
 form in the Bible. 
 
 EsseNE: Name of Hebrew or Aramaic origin applied to one of a 
 sort of brotherhood or monastic order among the Jews of 
 Palestine from the second century B. c. to the second cen- 
 tury A. D. 
 
 Gaon (pl. Grontm): Hebrew for ‘Illustrious One.” Head of 
 the chief rabbinical academy in Babylonia during the early 
 Middle Ages. 
 
 GitrtTeR Yrp: Yiddish for ‘‘Good Jew.” A Tzaddik, or wonder- 
 working rabbi, reverenced by the Chassidim. 
 
 Gouus: Hebrew for “Exile.” 
 
 Goy (pl. Goyrm): Hebrew for ‘ Gentile.” 
 
 HaskataH: Hebrew for “Wisdom.” The movement begun in 
 the late eighteenth century in Germany, and afterwards 
 in Poland and Russia, to liberalize Jewish life and 
 thought. 
 
 Hesrew: From the Hebrew zwvri, the original meaning of which 
 is not definitely known. Properly the word should not be 
 applied except to Israelites and Judeans before the Baby- 
 
GLOSSARY 307 
 
 lonian Exile. After that event the term “Jew” (from 
 Judah) became the accepted one. 
 
 HEuLENISM: From the Greek word Hellas, meaning Greece. The 
 word is used to describe the culture and civilization of 
 ancient Greece. 
 
 IsRAELITE: From the Hebrew Yisrael, meaning ‘‘Champion of 
 God.” A descendant of Israel or Jacob. Specifically, one 
 belonging to the Northern Kingdom. 
 
 Karaism: The “Religion of the Bible.”’” A Jewish sect originat- 
 ing in the eighth century, which rejected the Talmud and 
 tried to base its religion and life altogether on Biblical Law. 
 
 Keposuim: Hebrew for “Holy Ones,” or ‘‘Saints.’”’ The term 
 often applied to the Jewish martyrs. 
 
 LapINo: Spanish for “learned” or “cultured,” evidently from 
 the word Latin. It is the name for the curious jargon made 
 up of mixed Spanish and Hebrew, which is spoken by the 
 Sephardic Jews in the Orient. It is sometimes called Spag- 
 niolish. 
 
 Litvak: Yiddish for a Lithuanian Jew. Often it is used to 
 connote shrewdness and cunning, because the Lithuanian 
 Jews were great adepts at Talmudic argument. 
 
 Marano: Spanish for ‘“Accursed.” A Jew professing Chris- 
 tianity in order to escape persecution. 
 
 MessiAH: Hebrew for “Anointed.” The expected king and 
 deliverer of the Hebrews. 
 
 MisHNna: Hebrew for “Repetition.” The code of civil and 
 religious law compiled by Rabbi Judah a little before 200 
 A.D. It was called by that name because it repeated, with 
 many changes and enormous elaborations, the laws of the 
 Pentateuch. 
 
 MisnaGGEpDIM: Hebrew for ‘“Opponents.”” Those who opposed 
 the Chassidim, and disbelieved in the “ wonder-working” 
 Tzaddikim. 
 
 Moreu Nevucuim: Hebrew for “Guide for the Perplexed.” A 
 philosophic study of the creeds of Judaism written by Moses 
 Maimonides (often called Rambam) in the twelfth century. 
 
358 GLOSSARY 
 
 ” 
 
 Nervi: Hebrew for “prophets.” Originally it may have meant 
 “shouters.”’ 
 
 PHARISEE: From the Hebrew pharash meaning ‘‘to interpret,” 
 or according to many scholars, “to separate.’”” The Phar- 
 isees destroyed the power of the Jewish priests by “‘inter- 
 preting” the Holy Law in new ways. 
 
 Pryyutim: Medieval Hebrew for certain synagogue hymns. 
 
 Pocrom: Russian for ‘‘devastation.’”? An organized massacre, 
 usually of the Jews. 
 
 Rassi: Hebrew for “My Teacher.” A Jewish title of respect 
 for a teacher of the Law. Later it came to mean the spirit- 
 ual leader in a synagogue. : 
 
 Rasui: Name coined of the initial letters of Rabbi Shelomoh 
 (bar) Jtzchak, the famous commentator on the Bible and 
 Talmud who lived in France 1040-1105. 
 
 ResH GatuTHa: Aramaic for “ Prince of the Exile.”” The leader 
 of the Jews living in Babylonia. The office was hereditary 
 in a family that claimed descent from King David, and 
 was abolished by the Mohammedans in the eleventh cen- 
 tury. 
 
 SappucegEs: From Tzaddok, who was Solomon’s high priest. 
 The Sadducees formed the priestly and aristocratic party in 
 Judea from the second century B. c. almost to the end of the 
 first century A. D. 
 
 SANHEDRIN: Greek for ‘‘assembly.” The parliament and su- 
 preme court of the Jews during many centuries. 
 
 Srrorim: Hebrew for “books,” but sometimes used with special 
 reference to the Holy Books of the Bible. 
 
 SemitTes: One of the descendants of Shem. A member of the 
 race which seems to have originated in the Arabian Desert, 
 and which to-day is represented chiefly by the Jews and 
 Arabs. 
 
 SEPHARAD: Medieval Hebrew name for Spain. 
 
 SEPHARDIM: Descendants of the Jews who were expelled from 
 Spain and Portugal, and who settled in the Orient, Holland, 
 and the New World. 
 
GLOSSARY 359 
 
 SHAMASH: Hebrew for “servant.’’ The word now has come to 
 mean a sexton or beadle of a synagogue. 
 
 SHULCHAN ArucH: Hebrew for “Set Table.” Title of the most 
 popular compilation of the rabbinic laws regulating the 
 practice of Judaism. It was written by Joseph Karo in 
 1555. 
 
 Synacoaue: Greek for “a gathering.” A Jewish religious 
 organization, or the building in which such an organization 
 worships. 
 
 Tautmup: Aramaic for “learning.” The collection of Jewish 
 civil and religious laws drawn up by the rabbis in Baby- 
 lonia in the fifth century. (There was also a Talmud drawn 
 up in Palestine a century earlier, but it never attained great 
 importance.) 
 
 Tarcum: Aramaic for “interpretation.” A translation or 
 paraphrase of the Old Testament in the Aramaic dialect 
 popular in Judea after the Babylonian Exile. 
 
 ToraH: Hebrew for “law.” The name given to the “ Five Books 
 of Moses” which contained the Biblical Law. 
 
 Tosarists: Writers of Tosaros, which is the Hebrew for “addi- 
 tions.” The Tosafists flourished in France in the twelfth 
 century, and wrote little critical and explanatory notes on 
 the margin of the Talmud. 
 
 Tzappik (pl. Tzappikim): Hebrew for ‘Righteous One.” A 
 rabbi claiming the power to work miracles. 
 
 YAHVEH: Original name of the God worshiped by the Hebrews. 
 Through the mistake of an ignorant translator, the word is 
 now usually spelled Jehovah. 
 
 YesHIVAH: Hebrew for “session.’’ A rabbinical college. 
 
 YippisH: From the German jiidisch, meaning “Jewish.’”’ The 
 vernacular of East-European Jews. It is the Middle High 
 German language of the sixteenth century, mixed with 
 Slavic and Hebrew. 
 
 Zouar: Hebrew for “Splendor.” Title of a Cabalistic work 
 introduced into Spain in the thirteenth century by Moses 
 de Leon, 
 
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SIX CHARTS TELLING 
 THE ADVENTURES OF THE JEWS 
 
hm 
 
THE DESERT 
 
 Wild Hebrew Shepherds 
 
 “FERTILE CRESCENT” 
 
 Exodus 
 
 THE WILDERNESS 
 
 Where they wander many years 
 
 Invasion of 4 
 
 WCAN ee AN, trv qqie 
 
 with the “native tribes 
 
 Hebrews feght a5 separate Iribes 
 SAMSON, etc.) , 
 
 They unite at last undera King 
 
 They allain um pertal power 
 
 They beyin to lose their power 
 Division of the Hing dom a 
 
 JUDAH ISRAEL 
 Chart A. The Adventures of the Jews, Part I 
 
Jahkyist” Mistory. (Judah) 
 —--Llohist” story (\sract) 
 
 JUDAH ez) 
 
 oan RS Sov Nereis 
 MIC AH 
 
 § Temporary reform 
 § Reaction 
 8 Re form: again 
 
 Deulerenom copied 621 BC. 
 JEREMIAA Tray Solas 
 
 Jrida deported. to 
 
 BABYLONIA 
 
 P97 ~ F682 BC. 
 
 e return from exile 53538 BC. 
 laqgadh and ZeEcHARIAH Preach 
 7emple rebuzl~ 
 
 (Ward Jim es) 
 
 NEHEMIAH Govenor, 444BC. 
 Walls of Jerusalem rebut 
 Inaitiuiion of lhe Priestly Law 
 
 Five Books of *Moses” completed 
 
 (Reign of fhe Priesis ) 
 ALISCANDID: introduces Greek 
 
 enllure 
 
 (Hellenesm takes root ) 
 
 (The Pious Ones” war 
 against (ellentsm) 
 
 Chart B. The Adventures of the Jews, Part II 
 
Hellenism Grows 
 os 
 
 ANTIOcHUS tries to end JuDaisn 
 ia MACCABEAN REVOLT 
 Judea 1s ree 
 
 JOHN Nraeanus forcibly converls Lvonitrs 
 
 Pharisees vs. Sadducees 
 es ROMANS CAPTURE JERUSALEM 
 
 Wild Hunger fer the Nessiah® 
 
 VOOR VAS Oe NAZARETH 
 DAUL - Beqining of GHRISTIANITY 
 
 DESTRUCTION OF wee Te 
 
 Scape ipa 
 ets 
 
 isz-t95 Ban Kocnpa rebellion 
 
 PaBBINICAL Academies moved to <O 
 
 GALILEE 
 Wshna Compe led 
 RABBINICAL Academies moved to 
 
 DABYLONIA 
 The Wall of Law 2a Deel? 
 
 ee hal 
 ER SIANS 
 
 -- JEWS” persecuted 
 by CHRISTIANS 
 
 _JSalestiniar Lalmud com piled 
 Chart C. The Adventures of the Jews, Part III 
 
BABYLONIA 
 
 Jews ruled by 
 
 ‘Prince of Lxile” 
 
 Lebylonian 
 lélrud compiled 
 
 EUROPE 
 JEWs 
 
 pereceses ARABIA 
 
 CHRISTIANS 
 
 624 Moxnammrp turns against 
 e Jrws 
 
 ---]| MOHAMMEDAN CONQVESTSI- - - 
 
 Vews grow (hn power 
 
 KHAZARS iw 
 
 southern Dwasida converted ANAN BEN 
 
 to UDAISM 
 
 Revolt against DAVID 
 the Talmud.-- 
 
 KARAITES 
 
 Grow in power... 
 
 Kn Kingdom SAADYA 
 cee WDawn of ..-4 @o.~ 942) 
 Vikelli GC7Ce” 
 
 Chart D. The Adventures of the Jews, Part IV 
 
EUR OPE 
 
 GERMANY 
 FRANCE 
 
 BABYLONIA 
 
 Tirol (Crusade 
 Terrible 
 Dersecuti 
 
 cond Crusade 
 
 Persecutions 
 
 Massacres 
 
 “« 
 yY THE 
 7290 -Jews 
 Zxpelled 
 fron L: nolan 
 
 Terrible MASS~ 
 acres at time 
 of Brac Deatn 
 
 Expulsions 
 
 Massacres 
 
 SDAIN | Persecution 
 Jews mo 
 
 C.OLDEN IBN GABIR.OL 
 
 1021-10 7° 
 
 (Growth of Arabic - 
 Jewish ICienle ih pain 
 
 1040 ~ OF 
 
 TOSAFISTS 
 C/nterest only 
 
 JUDAH HALEY] 
 £7 Jaimud) i : 
 
 083 = 1140 
 
 ABRAHAM IBN EZRA 
 
 1092, = 1167 
 
 MAIMONIDES 
 
 U3J ~~ 1204 
 
 Southern 
 
 France Cenier 
 of learning 
 Crusade vs. 
 Albigenses 
 ends Civi- 
 érzalion in 
 
 “Monen Nevucnim® Dublished. 
 NOs 
 
 1205 Jeur Badge” L aw 
 Massed 
 
 E NIGHT” 
 
 Rise ff |Cabalea) 
 
 Nrvucnim?® 
 burn 
 
 Constant 
 
 Lxpulsions . 
 P Persecution. 
 
 and maasacr 
 
 All Jews 
 cx petled 
 
 Vincente lerrer converts 
 ews wholesale 
 
 Rise of Merrranoo 
 
 1480 /p fursrtron Loltahlished 
 1492 TXPULSION FROM 
 
 REUCHLIN © 
 
 LUM RED: 
 Protestant 
 
 2.cformasion 
 HOLLAND 
 
 Chart E. The Adventures of the Jews, Part V 
 
GERMANY ORIENT AMERIGA 
 HOLLAND 
 
 POLAN 
 
 MAR TLANOS Massacres, 
 setile a Ex pulsions, 
 Amsrexrpam and Establish- 
 
 ment of 
 
 Ghettos 
 
 Uritr Acosta 
 
 —— 
 
 GeTmdn Jews 
 sellle at 
 AMSTERDAM 1636 
 
 ~4& Return to 
 
 SABBATAI N 
 ZEYV]I 19te~1676 
 
 'T7? Tpegmnng Devision of 
 Pot AND 
 Emanc 
 
 Eman ~ tim RUSSIA 
 
 SHEPRARDIC JEWS 
 
 CIDATION 
 1798 
 LR AOF | 
 MANCIPATION 
 rhe ty Fetelle (ts tare Jews betin to flee fo USA 
 or eman: A \° 
 ctpation MALES, = 
 > 
 
 uk England heat oe Tolerance | Tolerance z 
 
 Revolutions Reaction] Reaction = 
 
 of 1830 4 1648 meno a 
 
 KARL MARX o 
 
 AINT~ SEM TAST 
 
 | 
 LHwODOMEH me ale my 
 ZIONISM 
 Ege VLE 
 
 Ale ATION Set Pee 
 
 | LAND OF ISRAEL 
 Chart F. The Adventures of the Jews, Part VI 
 
ia Dia kao! oie oe 
 
ON a 
 Cia Riek i 
 
INDEX 
 
 Aaron, family of, 119 
 
 Abraham, 27, 190 
 
 Abraham Ibn Ezra—see Ibn 
 Ezra 
 
 Absalom, 54 
 
 Acosta, Uriel, 274ff. 
 
 félia Capitolina, 160 
 
 Ahab, 72 
 
 Ahijah, 74 
 
 Ahl ul Kitab, 189 
 
 Akiba, 159 
 
 Albigenses, 222, 224 
 
 Alexander the Great, 121, 161 
 
 Alexander II of Russia, 322, 
 323, 328, 332, 333 
 
 Alexandria, 161, 214 
 
 Alfasi, 255 
 
 Al Khazari, 208, 237 
 
 Allah, 194 
 
 Amaziah, 64 
 
 America, 270, 274, 295, 311, 
 344 
 
 Am ha-raetz, 166 
 
 Ammonites, 43, 52 
 
 Amorites, 26 
 
 Amos, 77ff., 86 
 
 Amsterdam, 269ff. 
 
 Anan ben David, 199ff. 
 
 Anatoli, Jacob, 182, 252 
 
 Anointed One (see Messiah) 
 
 Antiochus Epiphanes, 123ff., 159 
 
 Anti-Semitism, 322f7., 344 
 
 Antkolski, Mare, 332 
 
 Apocalypses, 133 
 
 Arabia, 188ff. 
 
 Arabian Desert, 22 
 
 Arabs, 193, 204, 247 (see alse 
 Mohammedanism) 
 
 Aramaic, 120, 138 
 
 Arameans, 38, 52, 57, 66, 78 
 
 Argentine, 336 
 
 Ark, 32, 40, 42, 50, 58 
 
 Arnold of Citeaux, 224 
 
 Aryan, 323 
 
 Ashdod, 42 
 
 Asher, tribe of, 38 
 
 Asher ben Yechiel, 255 
 
 Ashkenazim 237, 272, 274 
 
 Assyria, 66ff.; 68, 78, 95, 107 
 
 Athaliah, 64 
 
 Austria, 250, 295, 306 
 
 Auto-da-fe, 236 
 
 Avicebron, 153 
 
 Azariah, 254 
 
 Baal Melkart, 74 
 
 Baal Shem, 288 
 
 Baal Shem Tov, 287ff. 
 
 Baalim, 37, 48, 73 
 
 Baasha, 64 
 
 Babylonia, 26, 68ff., 95, 96ff., 
 113, 167, 178ff., 349 
 
 Balfour Declaration, 346 
 
 Baltimore, 336 
 
 Bar Kochba, 159 
 
 Bel, 97 
 
372 
 
 Berlin, 302, treaty of, 323 
 
 Bes ha-Medrash, 282 (see also 
 house of learning) 
 
 Beth-El, 78 
 
 Beth Shearim, 167 
 
 Beziers, 224 
 
 Bible, 75ff., 133 
 
 Blood Accusations, 217, 325 
 
 Bohemia, Expulsion from, 250 
 
 Bolsheviki, 3438 
 
 Borne, Ludwig, 305, 320 
 
 Boston, 336 
 
 Brazil, 272 
 
 Bruenn, Expulsion from, 232 
 
 Bulgaria, 323 
 
 Cabala, 221, 258ff., 285, 288ff. 
 Canaan, 13ff., 32ff., 35ff. 
 Canaanites, 26ff., 35ff., 58 
 “Capital,” 320 
 Carpathian Mountains, 288 
 Catholic Church, 245, 272 
 Chanukkah, 126, 176 
 Chalutzim, 348, 349, 351 
 Chassidim, 291, 332 
 Cheder, 281 
 
 Chicago, 96, 339 
 
 China, 67, 188 
 
 Christ (see Jesus) 
 Christianity, 145ff., 226 
 Christian Science, 317 
 Circumcision, 124, 158 
 Cologne, 218, 232 
 Columbus, 253, 270 
 Commentaries, 198 
 Constantine, 122 
 Cossacks, 281ff. 
 Cremieux, Adolphe, 305 
 Cresques, Jaffuda, 252 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Cromwell, 270 
 Crusades, 217ff., 220 
 Cyrus, 101ff., 108, 111 
 
 Dagon, 42 
 
 Darius, 109 
 
 David, 45, 48ff., 56, 74, 98 
 Day of Atonement, 190 
 Denmark, 270 
 
 Des Moines, 96 
 Deutero-Isaiah, 102, 311 
 Deuteronomy, 88ff., 101, 106 
 Diaspora, 160 
 
 Dietary Laws, 184 
 
 Diogo Pires, 262 
 Dispersion, 158ff. 
 D’Israeli, Benjamin, 303 
 Dominicans, 247 
 
 Dénmeh, 267 
 
 Dreyfus Affair, 326ff. 
 
 Edict of Toleration, 295 
 
 Edomites, 52, 57, 69, 109, 128, 
 131 
 
 Egypt, 27ff., 80ff., 66, 68, 92, 113 
 
 Egyptians, 26 
 
 Einhorn, Ignatz, 320 
 
 Elazar, Rabbi, 182 
 
 Elijah, 74 
 
 Elohist, 76, 98 
 
 Emancipation, 295 
 
 England, 270, 274, 302, 306, 311 
 
 Ephraim, 36 
 
 Essenes, 136, 198, 285 
 
 Euphrates river, 26 
 
 Europe, Eastern, 331ff., 
 342, 345 
 
 Ezekiel, 100, 101, 106, 112 
 
 Ezra, 112, 133 
 
 341, 
 
INDEX 
 
 Ferdinand and Isabella, 235 
 Fertile Crescent, 24, 32ff., 189 
 Fons Vitz, 214 
 
 France, 232, 295, 325ff. 
 Frankfort-on-the-Main, 242 
 Frank, Jacob, 285, 286 
 
 Galicia, 283, 343 
 
 Galilee, 138, 145, 167, 255, 285 
 
 Gaon, 197, 203 
 
 Gath, 50 
 
 Gedaliah, 92 
 
 Gemara, 182 
 
 Germany, 220, 270, 302, 306,343 
 
 Ghettos, 241, 242, 243, 244, 
 260, 295ff., 301, 302, 307, 308 
 
 Gietto, 241 
 
 Gilgal, 44 
 
 Gitter Yid, 292 
 
 Godfrey de Bouillon, 217 
 
 Goethe, 305 
 
 Golus, 160 
 
 Goshen, 28 
 
 Granada, 224 
 
 Grammar, 210 
 
 Greek, invasion, 119, 121ff., 204 
 
 “Guide for the Perplexed,’ 
 215, 221, 252 
 
 Hadrian, 158 
 
 Haggai, 106, 107 
 
 Halevi, Judah, 205ff., 237 
 Hamburg, 232, 310 
 
 Haskala, 299 
 
 Heaven, 120 
 
 Hebrew, Modern, 299 
 
 Heine, Heinrich, 303, 305, 320 
 Hellenism, 122ff., 129 
 
 Herod, 131, 137 
 
 373 
 
 Herz, Henrietta, 304 
 
 Herzl, Theodore, 328ff., 346 
 
 High Priest, 119 
 
 Hillel, 163 
 
 Hiram of Tyre, 59, 60 
 
 Hirsch, Baron Moritz de, 335ff. 
 
 Hittites, 26 
 
 Holland, 269ff., 295 
 
 Holy War, 193 
 
 Horeb, Mt., 32 
 
 Hosea, 81ff., 86 
 
 “House of Learning,” 164, 166, 
 282 
 
 Huebsch, Adolph, 320 
 
 Hugo, Victor, 305 
 
 Humanists, 178 
 
 Hungary, 320, 343 
 
 Ibn Ezra, 212, 276, 297 
 
 Immanuel of Rome, 253 
 
 India, 188 
 
 Inferiority Complex, 102 
 
 Innocent III, Pope, 222 
 
 Inquisition, 235, 268, 272 
 
 Isaac, 27 
 
 Isaiah, 82ff., 86, 102 (see also 
 Deutero-Isaiah) 
 
 Ishbaal, 48 
 
 Ishmael ben Elisha, 182 
 
 Israel, kingdom of, 49, 68ff., 
 76ff., 81ff., 107 
 
 Israel ben Eliezer (see Baal 
 Shem Tov) 
 
 Isserles, Moses, 256 
 
 Jabneh, 164, 167 
 Jacob, 27 
 
 Jacob ben Asher, 255 
 Jacoby, Johann, 305 
 
374 
 
 Jehoiakim, 91 
 
 Jehovah (see Yahveh) 
 
 Jepthah, 39 
 
 Jeremiah, 87, 90ff., 133, 134 
 
 Jerusalem, 50, 53, 58ff., 89, 
 101, 103, 107, 111; 158, 160, 
 209, 220 
 
 Jesus of Nazareth, 137, 168, 
 166, 190, 287, 289, 324 
 
 Jew Badge, 227, 243 
 
 “Jewish State,’ The, 329 
 
 Jezebel, 74 
 
 Joash, 64 
 
 Jochanan ben Zakkai, 163, 167 
 
 John, 122 
 
 John the Baptist, 137, 1389 
 
 John Hyrcanus, 128 
 
 John, King of England, 230 
 
 Jonah, book of, 116 
 
 Jordan, 34, 137 
 
 Joseph II of Austria, 295 
 
 Josephus, 152 
 
 Josiah, 87 
 
 Judas Maccabeus, 125ff. 
 
 Judges, 39 
 
 Joshua of Nazareth (see Jesus 
 of Nazareth) 
 
 Judah, Rabbi, 168 ~ 
 
 Judah Kingdom of, 36, 48, 63, 
 77, 95, 102 
 
 Judaism, 95ff. 
 
 Judea, 285 
 
 Jupiter, 158 
 
 Kaaba, 189, 190 
 
 Kalonymus ben Kalonymus, 253 
 Kant, Emanuel, 296 
 
 Karaism, 199ff., 201, 204 
 Karaites, 210 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Karo, Joseph, 262 
 
 Kedoshim, 220 
 
 Kenites, 30, 36 
 
 Khazars, 237, 285 
 
 Kimchis, 222 
 
 Kingdom of Heaven, 141, 150 
 Kishineff, 333 
 
 Koran, 195 
 
 Ladino, 240, 267 
 
 Lassalle, Ferdinand, 305 
 
 Law, Wall of, 162ff., 165ff., 172, 
 197, 252, 260, 307ff., 322 
 
 League of Nations, 347 
 
 Lessing, 296 
 
 Levi, priestly tribe of, 119 
 
 Levi ben Gershom, 252 
 
 Levin, Rahel, 305 
 
 Levita, Elijah, 253, 254 
 
 Liberal Judaism (see Reform 
 Judaism) 
 
 Lithuania, 281, 288, 292, 333 
 
 Litvaks, 285 
 
 Lost Ten Tribes, 67 
 
 Lord of Hosts, 75 
 
 Luis de Torres, 253 
 
 Luther, Martin, 247, 248, 249, 
 250 
 
 Magdenburg, 232 
 
 Maimonides, 153ff., 214, 221, 
 252, 276, 278 
 
 Malachi, 110 
 
 Manasseh, 36, 38 
 
 Marranos, 234ff., 268ff., 272 
 
 Mattathias, 126, 128 
 
 Marx, Karl, 305, 320, 321 
 
 Mayence, 218 
 
 Mecea, 189, 190 
 
INDEX 375 
 
 Menasseh ben Israel, 270 
 
 Mendelssohn, Moses, 296ff., 302 
 304, 309ff. 
 
 Merchant of Venice, 234 
 
 Messiah, 100, 102, 107, 108, 
 109, 115, 132, 136, 141, 199, 
 244, 258ff, 261, 291, 312ff., 
 322, 327, 330, 349 
 
 Mexico, 272, 345 
 
 Micah, 83, 86, 106 
 
 Minna, 218 
 
 Mishna, 167ff., 177, 181 
 
 Misnaggedim, 293 
 
 Mission of Israel, 312ff,, 316 
 
 Moabites, 51ff., 69 
 
 Mohammed, 189ff., 249 
 
 Mohammedans, Jews under rule 
 of, 195 
 
 Molko, Solomon, 262 
 
 Moloch, 85 
 
 Moreh Nevuchim, 215 
 
 Moriah, Mt., 106 
 
 Moses, 30ff., 88, 98 
 
 Moses ben Maimon (see Mai- 
 monides) 
 
 Moses de Leon, 258 
 
 Nadab, 64 
 
 Napoleon, 301, 308 
 Nathan, 74 
 
 Nathan, Signora, 305 
 Nazarenes, 146 
 Nebuchadnezzar, 68, 69, 97, 102 
 Nehemiah, 111 
 
 Neviim (see Prophets) 
 New Amsterdam, 272 
 New Testament, 94 
 New World, 272 
 
 New York, 272, 336, 339 
 
 Nineveh, 116 
 Noah, 133 
 Nuremburg, 232 
 
 Odessa, 333 
 Olmuetz, 232 
 Omri, 64 
 
 Oral Law, 168 
 
 Pale of Settlement, 333, 339 
 
 Palestine, 346ff. 
 
 Papal States, 250 
 
 Parthians, 174, 176 
 
 Paterson, N. J., 96 
 
 Paul, 147ff., 190 
 
 Pedagogue, 288 
 
 Pfefferkorn, 246, 247 
 
 “People of the Book,” 189 
 
 Persia, 176 
 
 Peru, 272 
 
 Pharisees, 128, 130, 131, 138, 
 140, 148, 162, 166, 285, 289 
 
 Pharaoh, 28 
 
 Philadelphia, 336 
 
 Philistines, 40ff., 44, 46, 47, 
 48ff., 50, 69, 109 
 
 Philo, 161, 214 
 
 Philosophy, 213 
 
 Pheenicians, 26, 38, 52, 53, 57, 
 60, 69, 74 
 
 Pilgrim Fathers, 272 
 
 “Pious,” 110 
 
 Piyyutim, 206 
 
 Pogroms, 333 
 
 Poland, 237, 238, 250, 279ff., 
 283ff., 287ff., 321, 333, 343 
 
 Pompey, 131 
 
 Pontius Pilate, 142 
 
 Prague, 220 
 
376 
 
 Priests, 100, 106, 348 
 
 ' “Prince of the Exile,” 174 
 
 Prophets, 45, 60, 72ff., 100, 
 348 
 
 Protestant Reformation, 246 
 
 Protestantism, 248, 250 
 
 Provence, 222 
 
 Rabbah, 182 
 
 Rabbis, 158ff., 163ff. 
 
 Ramadhan, 192 
 
 Ramses II, 28ff. 
 
 Rashi, 220, 221, 248 
 
 Rationalism, 215 
 
 Raymond the Good, 224 
 
 Reformation, 247 
 
 Reform Judaism, 309, 316, 322, 
 327 
 
 Regensburg, 220 
 
 Renaissance, 247, 299 
 
 Resh Galutha, 174 
 
 Reuben, 38 
 
 Reubeni, David, 262 
 
 Reuchlin, 246, 248 
 
 Revelations, Book of, 263 
 
 Revolutions, 304 
 
 Rhode Island, 272 
 
 Riesser, Gabriel, 305 
 
 Rome, 130ff., 151, 158, 302, 306, 
 348 
 
 Robinson, James Harvey, 216 
 
 Roumania, 323, 343 
 
 Rubinstein, Anton, 332 
 
 Russia, 281, 322, 323, 328, 333, 
 335 
 
 Ruth, Book of, 115, 165 
 
 Saadya, 203, 216 
 Sabbath, 101, 112, 113, 120, 
 
 INDEX 
 
 124, 159, 176, 244, Lights, 
 176, Laws, 181 
 
 Sabbatai Zevi, 262ff., 285 
 
 Sadducees, 129, 1380, 131, 140, 
 289 
 
 Safed, 255 
 
 Samaria, 67 
 
 Salome, 122 
 
 Samaritans, 107, 109, 111, 119, 
 120, 128 
 
 Samson, 39, 40 
 
 Samuel, 45, 72 
 
 Samuel be Yechiel, 218 
 
 Sanhedrin, 164, 167 
 
 Satan, 120 
 
 Saul, 43, 46ff., 48, 72, 147ff. 
 
 Schleiermacher, 305 
 
 Science of Judaism, 309 
 
 Schlegel, 305 
 
 Scriptures, 297 
 
 Scythians, 87 
 
 Season of Mourning, 176 
 
 Second Coming, 263 
 
 Seforim, 133 
 
 Semites, 23ff., 323 
 
 Sephardim, 240, 272, 274, 318, 
 337 
 
 Sepphoris, 167 
 
 Servia, 323 
 
 Settlement Houses, 339 
 
 Shakespeare, William, 234 
 
 Shalim, city of, 50 
 
 Shamosh, 288 
 
 Shefarim, 167 
 
 Shulchan Aruch, 255, 256, 257 
 
 Simon, 36, 128 
 
 Sinai, Mt., 32 
 
 Slave Trading, 196 
 
 Socialism, 320 
 
INDEX 
 
 Solomon, 56, 73, 89, 98, 133 
 
 Solomon Ibn Gabirol, 214 
 
 South America, 345 
 
 Southern Tribes, 48, 49, 63ff., 
 107 
 
 Spain, 205ff., 224, 268, 270 
 
 Spinoza, Baruch, 276ff. 
 
 Stuyvesant, Peter, 272 
 
 Sumerians, 26 
 
 Synagogues, 120, 139 
 
 Syria, 26, 125ff. 
 
 Talmud, 177ff., 181, 197, 220, 
 241, 254, 255, 256 
 
 Talmudism, 281ff., 332 
 
 Targum, 120 
 
 Temple, 58, 89, 107, 108, 114 
 
 Ten Tribes, of Israel, 95 
 
 Teutonic Lands, 188 
 
 Thammuz, 85 
 
 Thirty Years War, 274 
 
 Tiberius, 167 
 
 Tibbonides, 222 
 
 Tigris river, 26 
 
 Tisza Ezlar, 325 
 
 Titus, 152, 153ff. 
 
 Torah, 162, 168 
 
 Torquemada, 235 
 
 Tosafists, 221 
 
 Trent, 232 
 
 Treves, 220 
 
 Turkey, 220, 240, 322, 323 
 
 Tyre, 60 
 
 Tzaddik, 291 
 
 377 
 
 Ukrainia, 283 
 
 Ulm, 232 
 Unitarianism, 317 
 United States, 49, 336 
 Usha, 167 
 
 Usury, 229, 230 
 
 Vespasian, 152, 153 
 Vienna, 232 
 Vicenta Ferrer, 234 
 
 Washington, 50 
 West Indies, 272 
 Wise, Isaac M., 311 
 Wittenberg, 232, 248 
 World War, 341ff. 
 Worms, 218 
 
 Yahveh, 32, 38, 50, 60, 64, 72, 
 82, 83, 92, 97 
 
 Yahvism, 95 
 
 Yahvist History, 74, 76, 98 
 
 Yeshivah, 282 
 
 Yiddish, 240, 299 
 
 Zacuto, Abraham, 252 
 
 Zachariah, 106, 107 
 
 Zadok, 119, 129 
 
 Zealots, 132, 140 
 
 Zephaniah, 87 
 
 Zimri, 64 
 
 Zionism, 322ff., 327, 329, 330, 
 347, 348, 349 
 
 Zohar, 258 
 
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