MESSIANIC EXPECTATIONS 
 
 MODERN JUDAISM. 
 
 LECTURES DELIVERED BY 
 
 SOLOMON SCHINDLER, 
 
 OF THE TEMPLE ADATH ISRAEL, IN BOSTON. 
 
 JESEitfj an Entrotmction ftg 
 MINOT J. SAVAGE. 
 
 Boston: 
 
 S. E. CASSINO AND COMPANY. 
 1886.
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1886, 
 Bv S. E. CASSINO AND COMPANY. 
 
 ELECTROTYPED BY 
 C. J. PETERS & SON, BOSTON.
 
 Stack 
 Annex 
 
 fHg Belofart 
 HENRIETTE SCHINDLER, 
 
 THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED IN 
 THANKFULNESS, 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 "WHAT epoch would you choose to have 
 lived in ? " a lady once asked the late Chauncey 
 Wright. "The most modern," was his reply. 
 Amen, say I, unless I could come to life again 
 in a hundred or a thousand years. For the 
 present most certainly is the most cheering and 
 inspiring age of the world's history so far. The 
 world is not old, worn out, and hastening to 
 decay. Politically, industrially, and religiously, 
 we are seeing the first rays of the dawn of 
 humanity's long day. The real " Golden Age " 
 is ahead of us, not in the past. The twilight 
 has been very long ; and, while the mists and 
 shadows have hung over the earth, people have 
 easily imagined faces of hate and terror looking 
 down on them out of the sky, and have found 
 it hard to recognize friends in the uncertain 
 movements of those about them. But now 
 that the sun is up, the sky is seen to smile, and 
 the supposed enemies of the darkness are found 
 to be friends. 
 
 One of the most striking indications of this 
 religious advance is the coming together at last
 
 viii . Preface. 
 
 of the Christian and the Jew. According to 
 the narrow "orthodox" interpretation of these 
 words this coming together may seem to be 
 brought about by the Christian's ceasing to be 
 a Christian, and the Jew's ceasing to be a Jew. 
 But if so, it is only because those terms have 
 been so interpreted as to be too small for the 
 growing religious life of man. If either " Chris- 
 tian" or "Jew" is so defined as to make it less 
 than "man," then it is time for both of them 
 to be outgrown. 
 
 And it is curious and instructive to note the 
 genesis of the old hate as well as the genesis of 
 the new friendship. The Jews, at the time of 
 their captivity in Babylon, borrowed the story of 
 Eden and the Fall of Man from an old Turanian 
 epic. And this, together with their own tradi- 
 tions, which they came to regard as the infallible 
 Word of God, became the instrument of their 
 bondage, and the means of their isolation from 
 the common life of humanity. This same book 
 also, supplemented by another Scripture, and 
 interpreted in the light of that other, became 
 also the mental prison-house of Christendom. 
 And this isolation in both cases bred spiritual 
 pride and hate. 
 
 But now, after long centuries of enmity, at 
 least some Christians and some Jews have 
 grown brave enough to question their tradi- 
 tions. They dare to be hospitable to new
 
 Preface. ix 
 
 ideas, to think that even the religious world 
 may become wiser, and that maturity may know 
 more than childhood. So, as they look into 
 each other's faces, they are becoming conscious 
 that religious hate was born of religious igno- 
 rance and conceit, and that a truer knowledge of 
 God means a broader love for man. 
 
 Thus when Jew and Christian cease fighting 
 over what neither of them knows, they find 
 themselves on the common ground of human 
 need, human labor, and human hope. And here 
 God meets them as the common Father and 
 Helper. 
 
 This volume of lectures by a Jew, delivered 
 to an audience more than half of which was 
 Christian, and treating frankly and freshly a 
 theme of equal interest to both, is both prophecy 
 and fulfilment of the broader religious life of 
 the time. As such I hail it. My standing here 
 to introduce my friend to a larger audience than 
 that which first greeted him does not mean that 
 I am ready to agree with everything he says. It 
 means a much better thing than that the grand 
 and hopeful fact that the world at last is willing 
 to hear an earnest man without waiting to find 
 out whether it agrees with him or not. We are 
 coming to have faith in truth at last ; and this 
 is much better than believing that our faith is 
 true. Having got rid of the conceit that we 
 already have all the truth that God intended for
 
 x Preface. 
 
 the world, there is some hope now of our really 
 finding all the truth we need. I welcome this 
 book because I believe that it is at least honest 
 in its search. And since the truth-seeker is 
 the only God-seeker, I feel sure that they who 
 seek shall find the Father. 
 
 But now my simple task is done. An archi- 
 tect once said to me, many years ago, "Columns 
 that support nothing, but are set up only to 
 look at, are bad taste in architecture. Have 
 only what is of use ; then ornament that as 
 much as you please." I have often thought of 
 this as applying in general to all literary style. 
 And particularly have I thought of it when 
 called on to write a preface to % book. This 
 book needs no columns of mine to support it. 
 It will be able to stand on its own foundations. 
 And I should regard it as specially bad taste in 
 me to set up too long a row of pillars in front of 
 it. My only ambition has been to set up a few 
 very modest posts to mark the path that leads 
 to the doorway, and thus to indicate my be- 
 lief that it will be worth the reader's while to 
 enter in. 
 
 M. J. SAVAGE. 
 
 FEB. 18, 1886.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PACK 
 
 INTRODUCTORY i 
 
 "Two THOUSAND YEARS AGO" 15 
 
 " THE CARPENTER'S SON " 32 
 
 JUDAISM THE MOTHER, CHRISTIANITY THE DAUGHTER . 50 
 
 A GENUINE MESSIAH 66 
 
 THE SPANISH INQUISITION 83 
 
 DAVID RUBENI AND SOLOMON MOLCHO 101 
 
 THE KABBALAH 118 
 
 SABBATAI Zwi 134 
 
 CONCLUSION 152 
 
 THE PITTSBURG CONFERENCE: ITS CAUSES .... 170 
 
 THE PITTSBURG CONFERENCE: ITS WORK 186 
 
 MODERN JUDAISM 206 
 
 THE SINAITIC REVELATION 224 
 
 MOSES 239 
 
 PROPAGATION OF RELIGION 256 
 
 CHURCHES AND THEIR RELATION TO MORALS .... 276
 
 MESSIANIC EXPECTATIONS. 
 
 i. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 DEAS are as mortal as men, who are their 
 exponents : their origin and life are similar 
 to that of any human being : they are lim- 
 ited, as is mankind, by time and space. Ideas 
 are first conceived by the human mind, and 
 pass a period of embryonic existence before 
 they become strong enough to bear the light 
 and the changing temperature of the world. 
 Then they pass a term of childhood, during 
 which they are subject to all kinds of diseases, 
 and the weak among them die fast, like infants 
 in a crowded city. Those only which are en- 
 dowed with sufficient vitality survive ; they grow 
 up to manhood, fight their battles, and not sel- 
 dom conquer the world. After their mission is 
 fulfilled and their vitality exhausted, they enter 
 into a period of decrepit old age. Though they 
 are now of little, if any, usefulness, they still 
 command the respect and the reverence of the
 
 2 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 world on account of their age and their former 
 renown. But every day brings them nearer to 
 the grave, until their last hour strikes ; and 
 after a few last convulsions they pass away, 
 sometimes as unnoticed as they appeared upon 
 the stage of life. 
 
 Before, however, their contemporaries are 
 ready to bury them, a dispute frequently arises 
 as to the reality of their death. Some can 
 hardly believe that an idea which has lived and 
 worked among them for such a length of time, 
 which has performed such great and marvellous 
 deeds, and which has commanded their rever- 
 ence during all their lifetime, has indeed passed 
 away. They cling to it with filial love and. de- 
 votion, and deceive themselves with the hope 
 that the departed idea is only asleep for a while, 
 or in a trance from which it will surely awaken 
 after a few hours. Others, who have always 
 been depending on the departed idea for their 
 sustenance, are fearing the loss of their support, 
 and are unwilling to give up their privileges. 
 They too claim that death has not yet occurred ; 
 that they still observe some tokens of life ; and 
 they too are opposed to a speedy interment. 
 On the other hand, the health officers, reason 
 and common sense, insist upon the necessity of 
 the burial. They claim that the process of dis- 
 solution will infect the neighborhood with the 
 germs of disease. Thus the defunct idea is
 
 finally buried, in spite of all remonstrances ; 
 and posterity either passes by its grave indiffer* 
 ently or places a wreath of evergreen upon it, 
 as the case may be. 
 
 As there O9cur cases of death among men 
 every day which, though unnoticed by the mul-. 
 titude, cast their gloom over the circles in which 
 the departed had moved, thus ideas are dying 
 away in and with almost every generation, the 
 death of which affects only those who stood in 
 near relationship to them. And thus have we, 
 the Israelites of the present generation, been 
 the witnesses of the death of an idea which was 
 conceived more than two thousand years ago by 
 our nation, which passed its childhood, manhood, 
 and old age under its protection, and which has 
 now expired after a long and marvellous career, 
 never to be revived again. 
 
 The idea to which I refer is no other than 
 the hope of our nation in the advent of a per- 
 sonal Messiah who would collect the scattered 
 remnants of Israel under one banner, re-estab- 
 lish them in Palestine, rebuild Jerusalem in its 
 former glory, and make Zion the capital not 
 only of the Holy Land, but that of the whole 
 world. 
 
 In the following lectures I shall give the 
 eulogy of this idea, and trace its history from 
 its very conception to the hour of its death. 
 May it suffice, however, at present, if I ex-
 
 4 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 plain the reasons first why I selected such a 
 topic, and then why I maintain that the idea of 
 the advent of a Messiah has died of late; is 
 stone dead now, and ought to be buried by the 
 side of similar defunct ideas, in spite of all op- 
 position which may be raised against its final 
 interment. 
 
 Although our nation is one of the oldest, if 
 not the oldest, on earth ; although it has lived 
 on every continent, in every zone, in every 
 climate ; although we have a history, a litera- 
 ture of our own, excelled by no other ; it has 
 been our misfortune that we have never been 
 understood by our neighbors. At best, we have 
 been looked at with distrust ; and though we 
 have always thrown in our lot with our fellow- 
 citizens in happiness and adversity, though we 
 have been born and raised among them for 
 generations, we have always been denounced by 
 them as a foreign element, as a sect, the aspira- 
 tions and hopes of which differed widely from 
 those of the majority. This misunderstanding, 
 this distrust, has not been removed even in our 
 time and in this our country. You meet with 
 it wherever you turn in political, social, mercan- 
 tile, life. One of the reasons why we were and 
 are distrusted is, as it appears to me, that we 
 were and are still supposed to consider our 
 country as only a temporary domicile, or, in 
 other words, that we are suspected of indif-
 
 Introductory. 5 
 
 ference toward our country and its inhabitants. 
 We are said to yearn for a return to the land of 
 our forefathers, and to be impatiently awaiting 
 the time when a Messiah shall appear among 
 us, and not only restore our political indepen- 
 dence, but make us the masters of the world. 
 If this were the case, if these were indeed our 
 hopes and aspirations, I must say that our 
 neighbors would be perfectly justified in dis- 
 trusting us ; for I agree with them that a man 
 cannot have two countries at the same time, 
 that he can be attached with sincerity to only 
 one country. The man will never be a good 
 American citizen who always dreams of a re- 
 turn to the country from which he came, and 
 who delights only in the customs and usages of 
 the fatherland. 
 
 But in this regard our neighbors were and are 
 entirely mistaken. Not one of us cares to leave 
 this country except on a visit ; not one of us 
 harbors in his heart any love for Palestine, un- 
 less it is that esteem in which classical ground 
 is held by every man of culture : there is not 
 one among us who expects the advent of a 
 Messiah. 
 
 I always took it for granted that, with the ex- 
 ception of the ignorant, our fellow-citizens were 
 aware of the fact that modern Judaism has long 
 since discarded the hope in the advent of a Mes- 
 siah, and that the modern Israelite is with all
 
 6 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 his heart and soul a citizen of the country in 
 which he lives, and where he is granted human 
 rights ; but how great has been my surprise 
 when in conversation with persons of high cul- 
 ture, of eminent scholarship, and of rare intel- 
 ligence, I have found that they still believe us 
 yearning for Palestine and praying for the ad- 
 vent of a Messiah, that they still think it a 
 distinguishing feature between Jews and Chris- 
 tians that we believe the Messiah will come, and 
 they that he has come. Open the geographi- 
 cal text-books which your children use at school, 
 and you will find therein, in cold print, the 
 statement that the Jews are a sect which is ex- 
 pecting a Messiah, who, as the Christians claim, 
 has already come ; and thousands of children 
 memorize this erroneous statement year after 
 year, and hear it repeated Sunday after Sunday 
 at church ; and we do absolutely nothing to 
 contradict it and to rectify the error. It is 
 therefore time, high time, that we make an at- 
 tempt to enlighten our fellow-citizens in regard 
 to our hopes ; that we show to them the tomb 
 in which the Messianic expectations of our na- 
 tion are buried. 
 
 But although the misunderstanding may be 
 partly laid before our door, inasmuch as we may 
 have neglected to notify the Christian world 
 promptly of the demise of the Messianic idea, 
 we shall find that our Christian friends are not
 
 Introductory. 7 
 
 entirely faultless ; for they have never shown 
 any readiness to accept our information : they 
 have reasons for not believing in the death of 
 that idea, and they remonstrate against its in- 
 terment. The same people who distrust our 
 patriotism on the ground that we are expecting 
 a Messiah and wishing to return to Palestine, 
 these same people are shocked and horrified 
 when we tell them that we do not any longer 
 expect a Messiah, and have not the faintest 
 desire for a political restoration of our people. 
 Now why ? Because such intelligence strikes 
 at the root of their own religious belief. The 
 whole structure of their religion rests upon the 
 belief of the Jewish nation in the advent of a 
 Messiah. As long as this idea has been strong 
 and vigorous among us, their building has stood 
 firm ; but from the moment the idea expired, 
 from the moment its fallacy was demonstrated, 
 their structure could not be saved from its 
 downfall. They are actually placed between 
 the two horns of a dilemma, and do not know 
 which to choose. They do not know at present 
 whether they should prefer us to be indifferent 
 citizens or to be indifferent to Messianic expec- 
 tations. For this very reason, it becomes 
 doubly our duty to spread that intelligence as 
 far as our circles reach, and to show to the 
 Gentile world that Messianic expectations are 
 not essential to Judaism ; that Judaism can
 
 8 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 exist without them ; that the Jewish mission 
 is not chained to Palestine, but embraces the 
 whole world ; that, metaphorically speaking, 
 Israel itself is the Messiah whom God has 
 destined to enlighten the nations of the 
 earth. 
 
 In the course of my subsequent lectures, I 
 shall therefore show that the Messianic idea had 
 originally a political, and by no means a reli- 
 gious or spiritual, tendency ; that it never ap- 
 peared as a manifestation of a healthy condi- 
 tion of the body politic of the Jewish people, 
 but rather as a mental disease, as a mania, 
 as an epidemic, which would break out at 
 times of great national calamity. I shall show 
 that these epidemics repeatedly occurred with 
 greater or less force up to the eighteenth cen- 
 tury. I shall show how the Messiah, originally 
 political, was transformed by degrees into a 
 divine messenger, directly descending from 
 heaven, who should re-assemble, in a miraculous 
 manner, the Israelites from all the corners of 
 the earth, bring them to Palestine, raise the 
 dead, judge the whole world, past and present, 
 punish the wicked and reward the faithful, and 
 establish a universal government and a uni- 
 versal religion. I shall show how the Messi- 
 anic fancy finally pined away when the new era 
 shed its full light upon its absurdities, until it 
 died out entirely.
 
 Introductory. 9 
 
 The word Messiah itself deserves a close 
 scrutiny. The Hebrew word mashach means to 
 spread an oily or greasy substance over a per- 
 son or an article ; but right from the start it 
 implied a sacred ceremony. Jacob poured oil 
 upon the stone upon which he had rested and 
 enjoyed that wonderful dream. Moses is or- 
 dered to prepare oil for the special purpose of 
 anointing his brother Aaron as high priest, 
 and also to anoint the different articles of fur- 
 niture which were to be used in the tabernacle, 
 in order to give him and them a certain sanctity 
 in the eyes of the people. The narrative and 
 command are given in such a matter-of-fact way 
 that there cannot be the least doubt that, among 
 ancient nations, especially those with whom the 
 Israelites had come in contact, there must have 
 been in use a similar ceremony of installing the 
 highest officials, kings or priests, into their ex- 
 alted position. Why oil was poured over their 
 heads, in what connection oil stood with the 
 dignity of the office, what the meaning of the 
 custom was originally, when and where it origi- 
 nated, is more than I can tell ; and, I think, 
 more than anybody else can tell. The fact, 
 however, remains that the ceremony of pouring 
 oil upon the head of a person meant to conse- 
 crate him for a high political position. The 
 Mosaic constitution had provided for a hierar- 
 chical government. The high priest alone was,
 
 io Messianic Expectations. 
 
 therefore, to be anointed. After the decline of 
 the primitive priesthood, we find that Samuel 
 anointed Saul, and afterward David, as kings 
 over Israel ; and that from that time it became 
 necessary for a king to be anointed in order to 
 be acknowledged by the people as their legiti- 
 mate sovereign. Mashiach, or the anointed, 
 is, therefore, synonymous with the word king. 
 Whenever in political language that word has 
 been made use of, it had no other meaning, and 
 could have had no other, than that of legitimate 
 king. None, however, of all the so-called Mes- 
 siahs who have appeared in the course of his- 
 tory, has undergone or has found it necessary to 
 undergo the ceremony of having oil poured over 
 his head ; which evidently shows that the origi- 
 nal meaning having been forgotten or obliter- 
 ated by that time, the word mashiach, or, in the 
 Latin version, messias, denoted simply a king, 
 but not a divine messenger. 
 
 The illustrious reign of David, and the inde- 
 pendence which the united kingdom of Israel 
 enjoyed during his government, appeared in the 
 next centuries the more glorious the more the 
 weakness and dependence of Israel were then 
 felt. At a time when royalty was hereditary, and 
 people not seldom waged war to install an infant 
 upon a throne for no other cause than that it 
 was the lineal descendant of a king, it was quite 
 natural that when for the first time the hope of
 
 Introductory. 1 1 
 
 a regeneration of the Israelitish kingdom was 
 expressed, a Messiah, or king, was expected, 
 who, descending from David, should also be 
 heir to his courage, power, and success, and 
 should bring back the glory of the past. 
 
 All Messianic expectations centred, there- 
 fore, in the requirement of a lineal descent of 
 the Messiah from the house of David. None of 
 them, however, has ever proved his descent ; 
 and to-day such a proof has become entirely 
 impossible, as all traces have been lost. 
 
 The absurdity of upholding the hope in the 
 advent of a Messiah in our time or any future 
 time, will furthermore appear in a still more glar- 
 ing light if we take away its theoretical fanciful 
 garment, and translate it into practical reality. 
 
 Supposing a person should appear among us 
 who should be equipped with all the necessary 
 testimonials of his divine mission, even of his 
 lineal descent from David, if this could improve 
 his title ; supposing he should by some means 
 gather the Israelites from all parts of the world 
 and settle them again in Palestine, would this 
 enhance our happiness ? Supposing, even, he 
 should find for us room and employment in the 
 new country, supposing all impossibilities should 
 be made possible by him, let me ask the one 
 question, What kind of a government do you 
 think the Messiah would establish ? The re- 
 publican form would be entirely out of ques-
 
 12 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 tion. Just imagine a Messiah elected for a term 
 of one, four, or seven years ; just imagine a 
 Messiah passing through the ordeal of a politi- 
 cal campaign in which not only his own record, 
 but that of his ancestors upward to David, 
 should be exposed and laid bare to ridicule ! 
 No, those who expect a Messiah must give up 
 forever the hope that he would establish a re- 
 publican government. Would it be a constitu- 
 tional monarchy ? Equally absurd. Imagine a 
 Messiah quarrelling with his parliament, and 
 the latter refusing to vote the necessary appro- 
 priations ! The only imaginable form of govern- 
 ment under a Messiah would be despotism. 
 Under his rule there would be no free thought, 
 no free speech, and surely no free press. No 
 opinion differing from that of the Messiah either 
 in politics or religion would be tolerated, and 
 should we call this happiness ? Would this 
 condition of slavery be the ne plus ultra of our 
 hopes and aspirations ? For this state of men- 
 tal stagnation should we be supposed to pray ? 
 Absurd, thrice absurd. 
 
 At the time when the Jews were crowded 
 into the Ghetto ; at the time when our ancestors 
 were denied the most fundamental of all human 
 rights, namely, the right to live ; at the time 
 when they were chased from country to coun- 
 try, and had to purchase at heavy expense the 
 privilege of breathing the foul air of their se-
 
 Introductory. 1 3 
 
 eluded quarters ; at the time when ignorance 
 ruled supreme among them, and still more 
 among their oppressors ; at such a time all 
 fanciful hopes and fantastic expectations were 
 permissible, and no picture of Messianic hap- 
 piness could be overdrawn. Did they care 
 what kind of government a Messiah would 
 institute ? Did they care for liberty of speech 
 and freedom of the press ? They would have 
 kissed the feet of the most selfish despot, pro- 
 vided he would have granted them recognition, 
 and placed them on an equal footing with their 
 fellow citizens. 
 
 But we, the children of the nineteenth, cen- 
 tury ; we, the free citizens of a free republican 
 country ; we, the graduates of the best schools 
 the world has seen ; we, whose hands have 
 learned to fold and cast a ballot, we do care 
 under what kind of government we are placed ; 
 we do love the privileges of a republic, and 
 would not for the world change it for any other 
 form ; we do value free thought, free speech, 
 and free press, as the highest attainments of 
 humanity ; and we shall never renounce them. 
 How could we, therefore, be expected to yearn 
 after Messianic despotism ; how could we be 
 suspected of infidelity to a country which grants 
 us these boons, and of favoring Palestine, where 
 all these glorious privileges would have no 
 room ?
 
 14 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 The hope in the advent of a Messiah and in 
 the restoration of Israel is surely dead. It has 
 died out in the heart of every intelligent Ameri- 
 can Israelite. As with the increase of knowl- 
 edge the horizon of the human mind has been 
 widened, as the universe has grown larger for us 
 than it ever was for bygone generations, as God 
 even has grown infinitely larger, mightier, and 
 holier than ever, thus our hopes have grown in 
 proportion. They have lost their national char- 
 acter, and have become universal. We have 
 given up all those fanciful notions of a political 
 restoration of Israel through the instrumentality 
 of a" Messiah, and have adopted in their place 
 the hope that all humanity will sometime reach 
 by steady evolution a degree of happiness far 
 beyond the present, and far beyond description ; 
 a state in which the evils still adhering to man- 
 kind will be removed, and its virtues increased 
 and developed. United, and hand in hand with 
 all our human brethren, we shall strive to ad- 
 vance toward this goal ; and if there must be a 
 distinction between us, let it be that of a gener- 
 ous competition as to who shall reach the mark 
 first.
 
 II. 
 
 "TWO THOUSAND YEARS AGO." 
 
 PON what does the earth rest? This 
 question greatly agitated the minds of 
 people before the time of Newton and 
 Copernicus. The answer was that it rests 
 upon the back of an enormous elephant. But 
 the inquisitiveness of human nature could not 
 be set at rest so easily. Another question was 
 raised : Upon what does the elephant rest ? 
 Answer : The elephant stands on top of an 
 immense turtle. Yet this answer even did not 
 give the desired satisfaction. The new question 
 turned up : Upon what does the turtle rest ? 
 Instead of answering this time, the scientist of 
 that age grumblingly complained in rather 
 strong language that one fool would be likely 
 to ask more questions than ten wise men could 
 answer ; and thus the conundrum was never 
 solved. 
 
 Whenever we turn to historical research, we 
 are in a similar quandary. We lack a basis 
 which could safely carry our argument. We 
 brag a great deal about historical knowledge
 
 1 6 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 and historical facts ; but whenever we are called 
 upon to bring them to light we find that our 
 knowledge is very limited ; that there are com- 
 paratively few real historical facts; and that 
 our so-called history, with all our argumentation 
 on top of it, floats, like that gigantic turtle, upon 
 nothing. 
 
 Ancient history especially has mixed up a few 
 grains of truth with such a bulk of fiction that 
 it is now well nigh impossible to sift the wheat 
 from the chaff. Some few scraps of statements 
 made by some writer as the facts appeared to 
 him individually, for the most part not even 
 corroborated by a contemporary, have been 
 handed down to us and palmed off on us as 
 history. But even if we were ready and willing 
 to accept the statements of a Herodotus, a 
 Tacitus, a Livy, or a Josephus, as plain and 
 absolute truth, with our best intentions we 
 could not supply another deficiency ; namely, 
 that by the slow and laborious process of copy- 
 ing and recopying the manuscript by hand, in 
 course of time so much of the original must 
 have been changed, so many interpolations and 
 additions must have been added to it, that if 
 the original writer should be confronted to-day 
 with his works, he would probably deny his 
 authorship. And, after all, how did these 
 writers know ? History was never written at 
 the time when the facts occurred. The current
 
 " Two Thousand Years Ago." 17 
 
 of the present is so swift and rapid, the multi- 
 tude of facts taking place at every moment is so 
 overwhelming, that the quickest camera could 
 not take a correct negative of them. It is fur- 
 thermore impossible for men to be both actors 
 and spectators ; we cannot be at the same time 
 upon the stage and in front of it. History, 
 therefore, has always been written by posterity. 
 Now you will acknowledge that it would be a 
 difficult task to-day to write a correct history 
 of, let me say, the life of George Washington, 
 although we are in possession of the archives 
 containing all the official documents written or 
 signed by him ; although we have the files of 
 the newspapers published at his time at our dis- 
 posal, and many other advantages which the 
 historian of former ages never had at his com- 
 mand. Tacitus, for example, had never seen 
 Germany or Judea ; still he wrote extensively 
 about these countries. All his information was 
 obtained from soldiers who had been there ; and 
 he took their yarns for facts : and we too have 
 become accustomed to take them for facts. 
 And this very Tacitus lived and wrote at a time 
 when the Romans stood at the summit of civili- 
 zation, and poets and writers were growing up 
 among them like mushrooms. 
 
 In regard to Jewish history, and subsequently 
 to that of the origin of Christianity, the entan- 
 glement is not less bewildering, although past
 
 1 8 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 generations have attempted to solve the diffi- 
 culty and to find a desirable historical basis by 
 cutting the Gordian knot in a somewhat pecu- 
 liar way. They picked out a certain number of 
 literary works relating their own history and 
 that of their nearest neighbors, and attributed 
 them to a divine authorship. They claimed 
 that God himself had dictated, word for word, 
 both the Old and the New Testament. From 
 such divine statements there was of course no 
 appeal. God, who knows the past as well as 
 the future, could not err; he stood above all 
 human criticism : and it was a long time before 
 the Bible was submitted to a close historical 
 scrutiny. For centuries, it has been a heresy, 
 almost a crime, to doubt one iota of this sacred 
 literature; to doubt that Moses wrote all the 
 books attributed to him ; to doubt that the 
 Psalms were all written by David, or the Eccle- 
 siastes by Solomon ; to ask in what way and 
 by what means the first correct copy of the ora- 
 tions of the prophets was obtained, or to con- 
 sider these speeches as pertaining to their time 
 only, or to the immediate future ; and so on ad 
 infinitum. For the so-called believer there was 
 and is no appeal from the letter of scripture. 
 
 In my research after the origin of the Mes- 
 sianic idea, I shall, therefore, not argue with 
 the believers. Modern Judaism does not be- 
 lieve blindly : it reasons. Although I take a
 
 " Two Thousand Years Ago." 19 
 
 just pride in the grand literature which our na- 
 tion has brought forth and accumulated ; al- 
 though I maintain that all literature is inspired ; 
 that no man can write one single sentence un- 
 less he is divinely inspired ; the books of the 
 Bible are to me, as they are to every intelligent 
 man to-day, products of human, and not of 
 divine, authorship. 
 
 All the imperfections which adhere to human 
 productions adhere also to the Bible. The men 
 named as the authors of the different books 
 were not their authors in reality. The real 
 authors lived and wrote much later than the 
 facts occurred which they describe. They col- 
 lected their knowledge from tradition and hear- 
 say ; but though they wrote in good faith, and 
 according to their best understanding, without 
 the least desire to impose, their views must 
 have been limited. Neither can they be held 
 responsible for the changes in the text made by 
 copyists and revisers during the hundreds of 
 years which elapsed between them and the first 
 authentic edition which is in the possession of 
 our time. I shall, therefore, touch them but 
 slightly ; and I wish it understood, from the 
 start, that the renowned eleventh chapter of 
 Isaiah is nothing more to me than a beautiful 
 picture, painted in Eastern colors, of that time 
 of peace which the orator hoped humanity 
 would sooner or later reach. If we were to
 
 2O Messianic Expectations. 
 
 picture that time to-day, we should probably 
 give it a different coloring and a less pictur- 
 esque perspective ; but we should surely omit 
 the fourteenth verse as in contradiction to the 
 letter and the spirit of the whole previous ora- 
 tion, and as unbecoming to a true lover of 
 peace.* With no other or better material at 
 hand than scripture offers, I am, however, com- 
 pelled to rest some of my arguments upon the 
 turtle, and to let the turtle float wherever it 
 pleases you. 
 
 The first traces of a hope in the advent of 
 such a person as a Messiah are to be found not 
 earlier than in the time shortly before, during, 
 and shortly after, the Babylonian exile. The 
 calamities which had befallen, first the house of 
 Israel, and then the house of Judah, had so 
 discouraged the Israelites that they despaired 
 of their own ability to help themselves; and 
 therefore they hoped for a miraculous interfe- 
 rence of God in their behalf. 
 
 They yearned for the independence of the 
 time of David, of which tradition must have 
 brought to them the most glorious reports. A 
 descendant of David was, therefore, to appear 
 and win for them again the respect of their 
 
 * Isaiah n : 14. But they shall fly upon the shoulders of the 
 Philistines toward the west. Together shall they spoil the 
 children of the east; upon Edom and Moab shall they lay 
 their hands ; and the children of Ammon shall obey them.
 
 " Two Thousand Years Ago," 21 
 
 neighbors, and make their voice heard again in 
 the council of the nations. 
 
 There is nothing whatever that is unnatural 
 or absurd in such a hope. Up to the last two 
 decades, the Germans too were "hoping for a 
 restoration of the German Empire to its former 
 mediaeval glory. Hundreds of beautiful myths 
 and legends predicted the return of the Kaiser 
 Frederick I., or, as he was popularly nicknamed, 
 Friedrich Barbarossa, "der Rothbart," who, as 
 the legend ran, had never died, but was sleep- 
 ing in the caves of the Kyffhauser Mountain. 
 With him a large army of valiant knights was 
 said to be concealed in the subterranean abode, 
 who would, at the proper season, awake and 
 break forth under his leadership to liberate 
 Germany and to restore its union. It was told 
 that, after every lapse of a hundred years, the 
 old emperor, whose beard had grown all around 
 the marble table upon which his head was rest- 
 ing, would call a shepherd to his cave, and 
 ask him whether the ravens were still flying 
 around the mountain-top ; and that upon his 
 affirming the fact, he would sadly exclaim, 
 
 " Und wenn die schwarzen Raben 
 
 Noch fliegen immer dar, 
 So muss ich nochmals schlafen 
 Verzaubert hundert Jahr." 
 
 One of the first and signal deeds with which 
 Barbarossa was expected to astonish the world
 
 22 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 was to wage a successful war against France. 
 What should you think of it if, a thousand 
 years hence, a historian should prove by these 
 myths that the Germans had been expecting a 
 Messiah, and that he actually appeared in the 
 year 1862, but was called, not Barbarossa, but 
 Bismarck ? 
 
 The scraps of literature which we possess 
 relating to the time before and after the Baby- 
 lonian exile, and which seem to speak of a 
 Messiah, are of about the same character and 
 the same value as the legends of Barbarossa. 
 They express the hope of a down-trodden 
 nation in a restoration to former glory. 
 
 However, after the second Commonwealth 
 had been firmly established, though by far 
 different means than expected, after the second 
 temple had been built, the Jews enjoyed a 
 period of unprecedented prosperity. The yoke 
 of the Persian Empire rested lightly upon them. 
 They paid a small tribute ; and as long as they 
 paid it promptly, they remained unmolested. 
 All Messianic expectations were therefore for- 
 gotten. 
 
 During this long season of prosperity, the 
 original Mosaic doctrine maintaining the belief 
 in one God came to full bloom ; and idolatry, 
 formerly flourishing among them, died away 
 entirely. The laws collected and compiled by 
 Ezra, and firmly planted by Nehemiah, fitted
 
 " Two Thousand Years Ago." 23 
 
 admirably to their condition. They were ex- 
 cellent laws, such as no other nation could 
 boast of. The belief consequently grew up 
 that they were of divine origin ; and that as 
 long as the nation should strictly adhere to 
 them, it would be successful and prosperous ; 
 but that the slightest deviation from them 
 would again bring the wrath of God upon 
 the people, and that they should be exiled> as 
 their ancestors had been before. 
 
 When the Persian Empire fell a prey to 
 Alexander the Great, the condition of the Jews 
 was not materially changed. It was of little 
 importance to them to whom they paid their 
 taxes, whether to the Persians, Egyptians, or 
 Syrians. The closer intercourse with the 
 Greeks tended in the beginning rather to 
 broaden their own philosophy, and the Greeks, 
 who had been accustomed to call all other 
 nations barbarians, were, in their turn, greatly 
 astonished to find such just laws, such deep phil- 
 osophy, such high culture, in a nation of which 
 they had scarcely heard before. 
 
 But by degrees some of the Jevtish youth 
 became attracted by Greek culture and customs. 
 At that time the cultured classes of the Greeks 
 were by no means gross idolaters. Socrates 
 had not died in vain, nor had Plato and Aris- 
 totle lived in vain. The practices of Greek 
 idolatry were at that period a mere conse-
 
 24 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 quence of indolence. Idolatry had become too 
 absurd for the educated classes to attempt to 
 wean the rest of the people from it. Their 
 philosophers claimed that the lower classes 
 were in need of some superstition, and advised 
 to let well enough alone. When Hellenism 
 and Judaism finally clashed against each other, 
 the forcible introduction of Greek idols into 
 Palestine was more a matter of policy with 
 Antiochus than of sincerity. Though a few 
 young men sided with the Greeks, the mass of 
 the Jewish people were sincere in their attach- 
 ment to God. By no means would they suffer 
 the least idolatrous rite to be practised in their 
 country ; and the few who had been influenced 
 by the Greeks, and had adopted with their cus- 
 toms also the indolence and indifference of that 
 age towards religion, were decidedly in the 
 minority. While the Hasmonean wars may 
 appear as a religious warfare, well-informed 
 historians claim that they were a political con- 
 test. Antiochus wished to form one large and 
 well-cemented empire of all the small nations 
 which were tributary to him, that he might be 
 able to withstand the power of the Roman 
 Republic, which, since the fall of Carthage and 
 Corinth, had already spread its threatening 
 shadows in an eastern direction. He thought 
 it good policy to tie Judea to his domain by 
 the bonds of the same superstition, as all relig-
 
 " Two Thousand Years Ago" 25 
 
 ion was called by the philosophers of that age. 
 But his policy was a mistaken one. Just here 
 the Jews drew the line. He would have found 
 them willing to pay any tribute whatsoever and 
 to render military service ; but they would not 
 permit their religious autonomy to be touched. 
 They flew to arms, and under the leadership 
 of the noble Hasmonean family, a contest 
 raging for several generations followed, which 
 was carried on with changing luck on both 
 sides. At the close of these wars, they found 
 to their greatest surprise that they had gained 
 more than they had ever expected. They had 
 originally fought for home rule only : now they 
 found themselves independent, their country 
 enlarged, with a king, a descendant not of 
 David but of the Hasmonean house, at their 
 head. They did not know how to account for 
 their good luck. 
 
 The people who had taken up arms for their 
 God and their religion, and who had been called 
 Chasidium, the pious, to distinguish them from 
 the frivolous Hellenistic element, now split 
 into two factions on account of it. 
 
 The greater part believed that their success 
 was the result of their obedience to the laws of 
 God ; that God had, in fact, interfered in their 
 behalf ; and that therefore their mission was 
 plain and self-evident. They must enforce the 
 law most rigorously, and refrain from all inter-
 
 26 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 course with other nations, especially with the 
 Greek. They were called Pharisees, Perushim, 
 interpreters of the law ; but they were consci- 
 entious, and by no means hypocrites. The 
 other class had seen more of the world. It 
 was composed of all those who not only had 
 been the leaders in previous battles, but who 
 had obtained as statesmen, by shrewd political 
 wire-pulling, more than their swords could ever 
 have won for them. They knew the secret of 
 their success. Their good luck had been the 
 result of Roman influence. That great and in- 
 satiable republic had stretched its hand nearer 
 and nearer towards its prey. Divide and rule 
 had been its motto. It had taken up quite dis- 
 interestedly, as it then appeared, the Jewish 
 cause, as well as that of the other tributaries of 
 which the Syrian kingdom was composed, and 
 had assumed the r61e of a protector over them. 
 Little did these small nations dream at that 
 time that after the fall of Syria and Egypt their 
 turn would come to be annexed to the Roman 
 Empire. 
 
 The Sadducees, as they were called, who had 
 been prominent in all the political manoeu- 
 vrings, knew, therefore, too well that rigor and 
 a blind belief in the help of God would not do ; 
 that they must yield to a compromise ; or, in 
 other words, that they must not totally ignore 
 the present. This split in the formerly com-
 
 " Two Thousand Years Ago" 27 
 
 pact party accelerated, though it did not cause, 
 the doom of the Jewish nation. 
 
 Indeed, their dream of independence and the 
 lustre of the Hasmonean dynasty were of a 
 short duration only. Judea became a Roman 
 province before the inhabitants became aware 
 of it ; and, while the Roman senate left to 
 them some shadow of self-government, it had 
 already fastened the shackles to the victim. 
 When the Jews came to themselves, they found 
 themselves tied, hand and foot, in the power of 
 an almighty foe. Their condition, indeed, was 
 then most pitiable. Their independence was 
 crushed, their king a mere puppet in the hands 
 of the Roman Caesars, their high priest without 
 authority, their laws set at nought by the 
 whims of the Roman proconsul. Roman le- 
 gions fattened at the public expense : rapacious 
 Roman procurators drained the resources of the 
 land by heavy taxation. 
 
 Jerusalem had then three separate courts, 
 which rivalled one another in luxury. There 
 was the high priest and his household, and with 
 him all the temple functionaries, who were sup- 
 ported in grand style by the reverence of the 
 people and from fear that God would withdraw 
 his protection from them unless every tax which 
 was due to the temple were scrupulously paid. 
 Next came the royal household, the dignity of 
 which was to be upheld at a heavy expense.
 
 28 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 Finally, there was the Roman governor, who 
 knew perfectly well how to make a public office 
 pay, and who imitated the extravagance of Rome. 
 No wonder that times were hard for the tax- 
 payer ; no wonder that the peaceful real-estate 
 owner grew riotous ; no wonder that the burden 
 became unbearable, and that the nation despaired 
 of itself. At this period of national calamity, 
 at the time when the days of the Jewish com- 
 monwealth were already numbered, the hope 
 broke forth with new vigor that, as human 
 efforts were of no avail, God himself would, 
 must, interfere and set matters aright. The 
 first commonwealth had fallen on account of 
 the sins of their forefathers ; but this time they 
 were innocent : they had strictly obeyed the 
 law ; and God, if he were just, was in honor 
 bound to come to their rescue. Neither was 
 there any cause to doubt the ability of God to 
 save them. Had he not returned the captives 
 to the land of their forefathers ? Had he not 
 assisted their very parents and grandparents in 
 their struggle against the power of Syria ? 
 There was not the least doubt in their minds 
 that the present time was only a time of trial, 
 and that God would soon rectify matters. 
 During the Hasmonean era, the prophetical 
 books had become quite popular. They were 
 now read and re-read with eagerness, and were 
 naturally interpreted to fit the present needs
 
 " Two Thousand Years Ago" 29 
 
 and hopes. The idea spread that, as the de- 
 scendants of the Hasmonean house had not the 
 courage to oppose the greed of rapacious Rome, 
 they had forfeited their right to the throne ; 
 and that a scion of the house of David would 
 therefore be sent by God, who should drive the 
 Romans out of the country, and bring back the 
 former independence and glory. 
 
 The maltreated, overtaxed farmer, the unem- 
 ployed artisan, the bankrupt merchant, the de- 
 moralized soldier, the aristocrat who had to bend 
 his head before the haughty Roman magistrate, 
 they all drank eagerly the hope of the advent 
 of a Messiah, and awaited impatiently the favor- 
 able moment when, sword in hand, they could 
 shake off the yoke of the oppressor ; and they 
 had not the least doubt that, at that auspicious 
 moment, God would send the right man to lead 
 them to success. 
 
 But there were also people who were not half 
 so sanguine as their more zealous neighbors. 
 They knew that a revolt against Rome would 
 be useless. Rome could only take of him who 
 owned property ; and it was only for the im- 
 provement of the condition of the property- 
 holder that war was to be undertaken. They 
 sought, therefore, safety in a change of the 
 whole social system. Nihilistic and communis- 
 tic tendencies began to develop. These classes 
 too were expecting the man who should have
 
 30 Messianic Expectations, 
 
 the power of establishing an ideal society after 
 their heart ; and who would, according to the 
 peculiar language which they used, save the 
 world. 
 
 The hope in the advent of a king duly 
 anointed for his office, who would improve the 
 state of affairs, grew stronger and mightier 
 every day the more unbearable the national 
 misery grew. It was again the natural growth 
 of the unhealthy condition of the time ; and the 
 sicker the national body grew, the wider spread 
 and the .more intense grew the mania. 
 
 The Roman authorities on their part wished 
 for nothing better than that a crisis should be 
 reached as soon as possible ; and they rather 
 stimulated a revolt of the people, in order to 
 obtain a pretext for crushing the nation at once. 
 They, too, were wishing that the Messiah, with 
 whose appearance they were threatened day by 
 day, would come. They had nothing to lose, 
 and all to win. And thus day by day added to 
 the fuel, which, if fired by an over-zealous or 
 uncautious hand would spread its conflagration 
 over the land. 
 
 In vain did the cautious among the people 
 raise their voice of warning ; they could not 
 undo what generations had prepared. Such 
 was the condition of the time shortly before the 
 destruction of the second temple ; and the first 
 flash of lightning which appeared and disap-
 
 " Two Thousand Years Ago" 3* 
 
 peared in the political sky of the second com- 
 monwealth, the appearance of Jesus of Naza- 
 reth, predicted the coming hurricane which 
 swept the Jewish nation, politically, from the 
 face of the earth.
 
 III. 
 
 "THE CARPENTER'S SON." 
 
 f T is not without some hesitation nor without 
 jf some embarrassment that I open the dis- 
 
 T cussion of the life and mission of a man 
 who, though he sprang from Jewish parent- 
 age, and is said to have lived the life of a con- 
 scientious Jew, has been placed between our 
 race and the rest of civilized humanity as a 
 barrier to exclude us from a more intimate 
 intercourse with our fellow-men ; whose very 
 name still alienates from us to-day the affection 
 of our fellow-citizens, though almost nineteen 
 centuries have passed since its bearer walked 
 the ground of Palestine. Neither must I lose 
 sight of the veneration in which he is held by 
 our Christian friends, many of whom love in 
 him the ideal of a magnanimous, high-minded, 
 and noble man ; while millions of others still 
 confide in him in life and in death, and adore 
 and worship him as a God. It is, therefore, not 
 more than simple courtesy on our part if we 
 respect their feelings, as we wish our own re- 
 spected, and if we discuss our subject with as
 
 " The Carpenters Son" 33 
 
 much careful delicacy and tenderness as we can 
 possibly grant to a historical research, which is 
 intended not to obtain notoriety, but to instruct ; 
 to weed out existing prejudices, and to establish 
 a better understanding between us. I beg you, 
 therefore, to distinguish well between the ideal' 
 Jesus, who has been a creation of Christianity, 
 and the historical Jesus of Nazareth as he lived 
 and died. 
 
 You can imagine at any time, if you so choose, 
 a human body in such giantlike proportions that 
 its head should reach the zenith while its feet 
 should touch the nadir. In the very same way, 
 you may imagine all the qualities of the human 
 soul raised to their highest degree of perfection. 
 We Israelites are accustomed to attribute these 
 qualities of the spirit in their highest perfection 
 to an invisible God ; to the One God who has 
 created the universe, and supports and governs 
 it in wisdom and love ; while our Christian 
 friends have become accustomed to affix these 
 very same attributes to a human form, to that 
 of Jesus of Nazareth. Herein we differ ; and, 
 therefore, I shall have nothing to say concern- 
 ing the ideal structure which has been built up 
 during the last nineteen centuries, which is in 
 the process of building yet, and which will not 
 be finished before humanity has reached the 
 highest round on the ladder of civilization. 
 
 I beg also to differ historically in two other
 
 34 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 points with oar Christian friends ; and I hope 
 they will not consider my utterances as disre- 
 spectful. I maintain that Jesus was not the 
 founder of Christianity ; that he never planned 
 it nor laid its foundation ; but that his personal- 
 ity has been brought into the Church, and used 
 as its corner-stone. I claim, furthermore, that 
 there are no historical sources whatsoever from 
 which we could derive authentic information 
 concerning his life, his deeds, and his death. 
 This point is of such grave importance that I 
 must dwell on it, with your permission, a minute 
 or two before I proceed one step further. 
 
 There are only three sources from which it 
 has become customary te quote in regard to 
 Jesus of Nazareth. The first and foremost of 
 them is the New Testament. Again I must 
 caution my hearers that I do not believe in a 
 divine authorship of any book whatsoever, be it 
 called the Old or the New Testament, and that 
 I shall always refrain from arguing a historical 
 point with a so-called believer. If one wishes 
 to believe that Homer was divinely inspired, and 
 that the Iliad and Odyssey were dictated to him 
 by God himself, and that therefore these books 
 must be true, word for word, I shall not object. 
 Let him believe, then, that Cyclops Polyphemus 
 had but one eye in his forehead, and that Ulysses 
 blinded him ; let him believe that the hero 
 visited Hades, and conversed with his former
 
 " The Carpenter's Son" 35 
 
 friends ; let him believe whatever he pleases. 
 But when we come to discuss historical facts, 
 we must be unhampered by belief. Bibliogra- 
 phers have long since proved that the Four 
 Gospels, which, after all, contradict one another 
 in important points, were written more than a 
 century later than the death of Jesus ; not by 
 eye-witnesses, but by people who collected their 
 material from tradition, and who had already a 
 principle, a theory, to affirm by their story. I' 
 do not question at all their veracity or sincerity; 
 but they lacked for their narrative the authentic 
 material, and could not help being biassed in 
 their judgment. These literary products lose 
 still more in the eye of the critic by the fact 
 that the original text has been tampered with 
 since. Only of late, a scrap of parchment has 
 been discovered which contains a passage from 
 one of the Gospels. Scientists place its age as 
 far back as the third and fourth century. In it 
 an important passage, relating to the promised 
 return of Jesus, is entirely omitted ; which would 
 prove, if it proves anything, that still later than 
 the fourth century interpolations, if we shall not 
 call them falsifications, of the original text, must 
 have taken place. A jury which finds the tes- 
 timony of a witness unreliable in one point 
 generally throws out his testimony entirely ; 
 and so does the historian. To him the Gospels 
 are of little historical value.
 
 36 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 The second source is the historian Josephus, 
 who lived at the time of Jesus, and consequently 
 must have known of him, if the latter had, in- 
 deed, been a distinguished person or of any 
 prominence. Though he gave considerable 
 space to the narrative of minor events, Josephus 
 originally never mentioned him. The cele- 
 brated and frequently quoted ^passage in his 
 Antiquities (book xviii., chapter 3,) has been 
 'condemned by authorities, such as Nathaniel 
 Lardner, as an interpolation ; and Origen, the 
 great Christian writer of the third century, 
 shows by his writings contra Celsum that he did 
 not know of that passage, which consequently 
 must have been inserted much later and for a 
 purpose.* Another historian, Justus of Tibe- 
 
 * I shall briefly give the arguments of Dr. Lardner, a very 
 learned Presbyterian clergyman, who flourished in the early 
 part of the last century. The passage reads thus : 
 
 " At the time lived Jesus, a wise man, if he may be called a 
 man; for he performed many wonderful works. He was a 
 teacher of such men as received the truth with pleasure. He 
 drew over to him many Jews and Gentiles. This was the 
 Christ; and when Pilate, at the instigation of the chief men 
 among us, had condemned him to the cross, they who before 
 had conceived an affection for him did not cease to adore him. 
 For on the third day he appeared to them alive again; the divine 
 Prophets having foretold these and many other wonderful things 
 concerning him; and the sect of Christians, so called from him, 
 subsists to this time." 
 
 I have italicized the parts which Dr. Lardner criticised at 
 length, occupying several pages (London edition, vol. vi., p. 
 487), but which I shall abridge. They are as follows :
 
 " The Carpenter s Son." 37 
 
 rias, lived at the same time ; but not a word did 
 he mention about the man who, according to the 
 Gospels, must have created quite a stir. 
 
 1. This paragraph is not referred to by any Christian writer 
 before Eusebius (in the fourth century), the Greek fathers, 
 such as Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and 
 Origen, and the Latin fathers Minucius, Felix, Cyprian, Arro- 
 bius and Lactantius, nor by Chrysostom, a contemporary of 
 Eusebius. These were all well acquainted with the writings of 
 Josephus, and quote him in their works. Dr. L. says : " So 
 extraordinary a testimony to our Saviour, in so celebrated a 
 Jewish writer, should not have been unknown to them, if it had 
 been in him." 
 
 2. This passage was wanting in copies of Josephus which 
 were seen by Photius in the ninth century. The said writer in 
 his Biblioteque had no less than three articles concerning 
 Josephus, and never notices such an important testimony; nay, 
 more; Photius says: " This writer (Josephus), being a preju- 
 diced Jew, makes not even the least mention concerning _him 
 (Christ) or the miracles done by him." 
 
 3. It interrupts the narrative ; Josephus begins the chapter 
 with a riot that took place in Jerusalem, in which a number of 
 Jews were killed and wounded ; then comes the paragraph 
 above quoted, and next follows that another calamity befel the 
 Jews. The reader will readily perceive that the paragraph 
 which was stuck in between the first and second, or another 
 calamity, is an interpolation ; it is out of place. 
 
 4. If Josephus was a Jew, he admitted too much; and if 
 a Christian, he said too little about Christ. I must add only 
 one quotation the idea would not strike an ordinary reader. 
 He drew over to him many Jew^ and Gentiles. That is not 
 true of the Lord Jesus, if intended of his own personal preach- 
 ing ; it was done indeed afterward. But this manner of speak- 
 ing is more suitable to a writer of the second or third century 
 than to Josephus. 
 
 Gibbon, in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 
 (Harper's ed., chap. 16, p. 298, in a note), says : "The passage
 
 38 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 The third source is the Talmud; but here 
 again we find an ominous silence concerning 
 him. Not before the time that our ancestors 
 were called upon to contest the religious struc- 
 ture which began to grow up upon him as its 
 corner-stone, and to defend themselves against 
 cahimnious charges, is he mentioned, and then 
 only slightly. 
 
 Besides these three sources, another argument 
 is frequently brought into use in order to prove 
 not only his existence, but his greatness. Be- 
 hold, say our Christian friends, the marvellous 
 growth of Christianity ! See how it revolution- 
 ized the world, how it civilized the most bar- 
 barous nations ! Could such a success have 
 been achieved if its founder had not been a 
 
 concerning Jesus Christ which was inserted into the text of 
 Josephus between the time of Origenand that of Eusebius may 
 furnish an example of no vulgar forgery ; and if any doubt still 
 remains (here he refers to several writers who have proved it a 
 falsity), it would appear pedantic were I to copy the names of 
 eminent theologians who have written against or rejected the 
 said passage ; the proofs that it forms one of the numerous 
 frauds which the Christians of the first three centuries deemed 
 a virtue are overwhelming. The truth is, had Jesus really 
 . been the important personage represented, Josephus would 
 doubtless have noticed him either as a God, a prophet, or an 
 impostor ; but as he mentions John the Baptist, and is utterly 
 silent about Jesus, we may reasonably conclude either there 
 was no such person, or that he was then deemed too insignifi- 
 cant, and that Josephus never heard about the crucifixion or 
 anything concerning him." From an article of Jacob Norton, 
 published in the American Israelite in April, 1864.
 
 " The Carpenters Son" 39 
 
 man of great prominence, if he had not been 
 able to impress his contemporaries with his 
 mission to such an extent as was needed for 
 the future success ? Granted, they say, that 
 there are no authentic literary evidences to be 
 found concerning his life and deeds ; is the 
 mere existence of the Church not evidence 
 enough for his greatness ? Do not facts prove 
 more than words ? 
 
 This argument, however rational and reasona- 
 ble it may appear, stands upon weak and tender 
 feet. Indeed, if the plans for the Christian 
 Church had emanated from him, if its doctrines 
 had been promulgated by him, if its system had 
 been suggested by him, then we could conclude 
 from the work about its creator. But, even 
 according to Christian sources, nobody dreamed 
 less of such a structure than its supposed origi- 
 nator. Christianity was not his work ; it was 
 the product of peculiar circumstances, which all 
 worked together in such a marvellous manner 
 that we cannot fail to see the finger of God in 
 its origin and development. The downfall of 
 Hellenistic idolatry, which had been prepared 
 by Greek philosophy long before ; the extinc- 
 tion of the Roman Republic and the decline of 
 the Roman Empire ; the great migration of 
 nations, which, issuing from the north, took a 
 southward course, and changed the geography 
 of the world ; the death of antique civilization
 
 40 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 in the waves of barbarism, which, like a second 
 flood, burst upon it, and covered the whole 
 world for a considerable length of time, all 
 these circumstances together produced what 
 to-day is called Christianity. Nothing can live 
 in this sublunary world unless it is marked for 
 life by God Almighty. Nothing succeeds un- 
 less God has destined it for success ; and thus 
 has Christianity a place on this earth and a 
 mission to fulfil as well as Judaism. And in 
 the course of my lectures I shall with pleasure 
 give due acknowledgment to the great work 
 which Christianity has indeed performed. 
 
 Taking it all in all, what may we reasonably 
 presume about Jesus of Nazareth, the so-called 
 Messiah ? Although volumes have been written 
 concerning his life and deeds, his whole history 
 could be inscribed almost upon the nail of 
 a thumb. 
 
 Jeshu, an abbreviation of Joshua, and Latin- 
 ized into Jesus, was born of humble parentage. 
 He was the son of Joseph, a poor carpenter, 
 and Miriam, his wife, who were also the parents 
 of several other children. It matters little to 
 the historian that millions of people still ascribe 
 to him a divine origin, and believe him the off- 
 spring of an immaculate conception. There 
 are many more millions of people who believe 
 to-day the very same story, but apply it to 
 another man, to Buddha. Not only are such
 
 " The Carpenters Son." 41 
 
 statements unhistorical, but I dare say that the 
 passages in tKe Gospels relating to them were 
 never written by a Jewish author : they were 
 the products of a Grecian pen. The Greeks 
 believed in the intercourse of their gods with 
 mortal women, and saw no disgrace in such an 
 adultery. All their heroes were demi-gods. 
 Even Alexander the Great attempted to insinu- 
 ate that Philip was not his real father, and that 
 he was the son of a god. Greek vanity cared 
 little that the chastity of their women was ques- 
 tioned whenever the customary compliment 
 was rendered to a man by calling him the son 
 of a god. The Greek and Roman populace 
 would have never believed in Jesus the man, 
 the reformer, the martyr, or the Messiah ; but 
 it was easy for them to accept him as the son 
 of the Jewish God, Jehovah. The Jews, on the 
 contrary, held the chastity of their women in 
 so high a respect that they would not permit 
 even a god to violate it. 
 
 About his childhood and early education 
 nothing is known. He is said to have learned 
 the trade of his father, that of a carpenter. 
 Grown up to the age of manhood, he joined the 
 sect of the Essenes, which was mostly com- 
 posed of artisans, and represented the socialistic 
 and nihilistic element of which I have spoken 
 in my last lecture. They despised all earthly 
 possessions, would not hold property, lived to-
 
 42 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 gether in small bands, sharing everything in 
 common. They would not marry : they believed 
 that a change for the better could be effected 
 only by an ascetic life, and that the Messiah 
 whom every Jew was expecting at that time 
 would transform the whole world into one 
 large communistic brotherhood, in which there 
 should be neither rich nor poor, and from which 
 all the passions adhering to mankind should 
 be removed. He may have grown into promi- 
 nence in the rural districts where he sojourned. 
 He may have spoken of the change which he 
 expected to come over the world, with such a 
 sincerity that, as is quite natural, his friends 
 expected him to produce the change, and may 
 have looked at him as the Messiah. Let me 
 state right here that the name Messiah, or, as 
 it is in Hebrew, Mashiach, is a misnomer, if 
 applied to him ; for he never was anointed for 
 his mission by any authority whatsoever, real 
 or fictitious. How can, therefore, a man be 
 called Mashiach, the Anointed, the Christ, if he 
 never was anointed? Even Christian sources 
 do not claim that the act of anointment was 
 ever performed on him. 
 
 Finally, perhaps he learned to believe in 
 himself. A great many people do believe in 
 themselves without being conceited. There 
 would be no heroism if the hero did not believe 
 in his own ability to perform the heroic deed.
 
 " The Carpenter's Son." 43 
 
 Young men especially are apt to carry such a 
 belief to an extreme ; and he was a young man. 
 At the time of his death, he was not older than 
 thirty-three years ; the most dangerous period 
 of life, in which the young man attempts to 
 transform his airy ideals into tangible facts. 
 
 The most critical season of the year was, at 
 that time, the Passover Festival ; a festival 
 celebrated in remembrance of the liberation of 
 Israel from Egyptian bondage. Every male 
 person was bound to be present in Jerusalem 
 during the seven days of this festival ; and the 
 spirit of liberty ran higher then than usual. 
 The Roman procurator found it, therefore, 
 always necessary to be present in person in 
 the city, in order to quell any disturbance which 
 was likely to arise, and to nip every revolt in 
 the bud. You will perhaps understand much 
 better the danger which the return of every 
 Passover Festival brought to the front, if you 
 place yourselves for one moment in the condi- 
 tion of that time. 
 
 Supposing our cherished Republic should 
 have been changed into a despotic government ; 
 supposing some other nation stronger than we 
 should defeat us in battle, and should keep us 
 in a state of servitude ; supposing that the 
 indignation of the American people should 
 watch for an opportune moment to break the 
 chains of such a slavery ; would not the Fourth
 
 44 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 of July then become the most critical and dan- 
 gerous of all the days of the year ? The remem- 
 brance of the glorious day when the heroic 
 fathers of the country declared their indepen- 
 dence would invite emulation. Any orator of 
 mediocrity even could on that day stir up the 
 people to riot and bloodshed. 
 
 The representative of the government then 
 in power would, as a matter of course, be 
 watchful of every movement, and have his sol- 
 diers in readiness to quell any disturbance. He 
 would be at his post of duty on that day from 
 morning till night, and feel relieved only when 
 the last hour of that dangerous day had passed 
 and the last fire-cracker had been set off. 
 
 In a similar plight was the Roman governor 
 during the feast of Passover. His troops were 
 stationed with great skill at the most important 
 posts, and the garrison of Jerusalem re-en- 
 forced : police in uniform and detectives in 
 disguise probably patrolled the streets, and re- 
 ported promptly at headquarters. It may easily 
 have happened when Jesus entered Jerusalem a 
 few days before the festival that he was recog- 
 nized and cheered by his rural friends : it is 
 probable that the rumor spread among the 
 people, which was ready for a revolt, that a 
 Messiah had appeared, and would give the sig- 
 nal at the opportune moment : it is more than 
 probable that this rumor reached the Roman
 
 " The Carpenter s Son." 45 
 
 authorities after it had been magnified to a 
 large extent. The natural consequence was 
 that Jesus was watched with suspicion ; that 
 every one of his steps was carefully guarded, 
 and that just before the festival he was taken 
 captive. Pontius Pilatus risked a coup de main. 
 If Jesus was the Messiah indeed, his prompt 
 imprisonment and execution would either in- 
 timidate the people and suppress the outbreak 
 of a riot for some years, or it would make the 
 people rise in arms at once, and hasten the 
 crisis. Either way pleased the haughty Roman 
 much better than the suspense in which he now 
 was kept all the time. 
 
 His calculation was as correct as it was 
 shrewd ; but he was mistaken, nevertheless. 
 The people would have risen in revolt if the 
 great mass had considered the Galilean the 
 right man to liberate them. Bu .hey expected 
 a warrior, not a man of peaceful disposition : 
 they expected a man of arms, and not a the- 
 orist. Neither was he an offspring of the house 
 of David. The masses remained cold and in- 
 different when they heard of his arrest ; and 
 even the few friends of the unhappy Messiah 
 deserted him in the hour of trial. 
 
 There is no evidence that he ever was tried 
 before a Jewish tribunal, for the right of 
 capital punishment had been usurped by the 
 Romans long before ; and even if there had
 
 46 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 been such a trial, he must have been acquitted, 
 because the sympathies of his fellow-citizens 
 would have been with him. But he was not 
 tried or convicted by a regular Jewish court, as, 
 on account of the holy day, there was no ses- 
 sion. He was simply judged and convicted by 
 the Roman authorities on the charge of con- 
 spiring against the Roman government ; and he 
 was executed in great haste the very next day, 
 at a time when the assembled people witnessed 
 the grand passover ceremonial in the tem- 
 ple. The mode of crucifixion was a Roman 
 mode of execution ; and the inscription Jesus 
 Nazaraeus, Rex Judaeorum, Jesus of Nazareth, 
 King of the Jews, which is said to have been 
 affixed to his cross, was to show the charge 
 which had been made against him. 
 
 Now this is a point upon which I must dwell a 
 few moments longer. The malicious charge that 
 the Jewish people, nineteen hundred years ago, 
 tried, convicted, and executed an innocent man, 
 has brought upon us indescribable misery, and 
 bears even to-day its bitter fruit. This charge 
 has been the cause of wholesale murder ; and 
 for nineteen centuries has our nation been per- 
 secuted for no other offence than that their 
 ancestors had crucified Jesus. We were, and 
 are still, called deicides, or, as vulgar language 
 expresses it, Christ-killers. Absurd as it is to 
 hold us responsible for an act committed by our
 
 " The Carpenters Son" 47 
 
 ancestors nineteen hundred years ago, as ridicu- 
 lous would it be for us to try to find an excuse 
 for it. Granted that our ancestors were, in 
 fact, the cause of his premature death, there is 
 no excuse needed ; for as long as capital pun- 
 ishment is not abolished, and circumstantial 
 evidence is used to convict a criminal, or as 
 long as political offences are punished with 
 death, so long will cases of judicial murder 
 never be avoided. 
 
 But the charge is as false as it is malicious. 
 Scan the Jewish law from its beginning to its 
 end and you will not find that such a trial as 
 related in the Gospels could have taken place. 
 The whole form of the proceeding as told in 
 the Gospels is illegal according to the forms 
 minutely described by the Jewish law. It 
 shows again that the writers of the Gospels 
 were not Jews, but must have been Greeks or 
 Romans, who were ignorant of the Jewish law. 
 And so it was ; and with this fact the whole 
 charge collapses. The whole charge was a fab- 
 rication of the early Church. At the time 
 when the Gospels were written, most of the 
 members of the Church were Gentiles ; and it 
 was at that time already evident that the Gen- 
 tile world, and not the limited Jewish circle, 
 was to be the future field for the missionary 
 efforts of the Church. 
 
 How could a missionary approach a Roman
 
 48 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 and tell him that his people had put to death 
 the Son of God, their Saviour ? Such a state- 
 ment would have alienated the whole world 
 from them ; for the Roman Empire comprised 
 almost the whole of the known world, and 
 every individual took a certain pride in being a 
 Roman citizen. The Jews, on the other hand, 
 were only a small nation. They were then liv- 
 ing in small communities scattered over all the 
 provinces of the Roman Empire. They were 
 furthermore disliked on account of their rigor- 
 ous laws, which would not allow their amalga- 
 mation with their neighbors. They were hated 
 at the imperial court on account of their obsti- 
 nacy and the riotous character which they 
 showed in frequent revolts. The charge was 
 therefore laid before their door ; and the 
 Roman was told that the Jews had killed his 
 Saviour ; that the Roman authorities even had 
 endeavored to save him from the violence of 
 the populace, but had been unsuccessful. Such 
 a story was pleasing to the Gentile world, and 
 to a Roman it seemed both probable and plausi- 
 ble. The masses, which gained by it a pretext 
 for venting their anger on a class which they 
 hated, did not investigate the matter any fur- 
 ther ; and thus the unfounded and malicious 
 charge, was handed down from generation to 
 generation to this very day. Is it not high 
 time that our liberal age and our enlightened
 
 " The Carpenter s Son" 49 
 
 fellow-citizens should finally drop that malicious 
 charge, which, even if it were not a fabrication, 
 could not reflect upon us ? Is it not high time 
 that bigotry and fanaticism should be silenced, 
 and that the rising generations should be in- 
 structed to take those legends for what they are 
 worth? It is not the Jew who is disgraced 
 when the epithet of deicide or Christ-killer is 
 hurled at him : it is the one who uses it ; be- 
 cause this very expression gives unmistakable 
 evidence, not only of his bigotry, his intoler- 
 ance, and of his bad breeding, but of his igno- 
 rance ; and, not for our own sake, but for his 
 sake, I stand here and appeal to you to spread 
 enlightenment wherever you can in regard to 
 such an important matter.
 
 IV. 
 
 JUDAISM THE MOTHER, AND CHRISTIANITY 
 THE DAUGHTER. 
 
 'HE time when Christianity was born was 
 as peculiar and as remarkable in regard 
 to religious matters as is perhaps our own 
 present age. Then, as to-day, the edu- 
 cated classes, the pioneers of civilization, were 
 ready for a change of front. Old ideas had out- 
 lived their usefulness, and the new ones had 
 not yet developed far enough to take their 
 places. The minds of the best and most con- 
 scientious men were therefore kept in a constant 
 tension. The old pagan gods had lost their 
 reputation, and the world was yearning for a 
 God who should fill the void in the human 
 heart. Though the most magnificent temples 
 were erected at that period, there was an utter 
 lack of true religious sentiment, and hypocrisy 
 ran high. The splendor of the temples and the 
 very attractions which the priests were com- 
 pelled to offer, were unmistakable evidence that 
 rites and ceremonies had lost their meaning, 
 and with it their influence upon the worshipper. 
 At that time, the eye of the pagan world in- 
 5
 
 Mother and Daughter. 5 1 
 
 stinctively turned toward the Jews. Their the- 
 ology was pure, their doctrines founded upon 
 philosophy, their laws just and comprehensive, 
 their rites elevating and soul-inspiring, their 
 ethics unsurpassed. Their intercourse with 
 Greeks and Romans had introduced them to 
 the world. They had multiplied, and were to 
 be found everywhere. There were as that time 
 more Israelites outside of Palestine than within. 
 Large colonies of Jews were to be found in 
 Persia and along the whole coast of Asia Minor: 
 they had settlements in Greece, in Spain, in 
 Gaul, in Italy, and especially in Rome. In 
 Egypt they were almost the masters. They 
 were the leading statesmen : they commanded 
 the armies : they were the magnates of com- 
 merce and the owners of factories. In Leon- 
 topolts they owned a temple which rivalled in 
 beauty and elegance that of Jerusalem. In 
 Alexandria they had a number of synagogues, 
 the most prominent of which is reported to have 
 been of such dimensions that the loudest voice 
 could not be heard from end to end, and that 
 therefore a flag was waved from an elevated 
 stand whenever the congregation was requested 
 to rise and to join in the Amen. But what is 
 of still greater importance, the Pentateuch had 
 been translated into the Greek language. The 
 Septuaginta, as this translation was called, had 
 become a standard work ; and all men of intelli-
 
 52 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 gence and learning had become familiar with it. 
 No wonder, therefore, that Gentiles in large 
 numbers embraced Judaism. From the interior 
 of Asia a princess came with all her family to 
 be initiated into the Jewish religion. 
 
 It is said, and it is well said, that every man 
 has once in his life an opportune moment when 
 he can make his fortune, but that only very few 
 take hold of it, while the rest let it slip from 
 their grasp. The same holds good for nations. 
 That very period was the time when Judaism 
 could have conquered the world. It would be 
 an idle play of imagination for us to conjecture 
 what our present condition would have been if 
 our ancestors had made proper and prompt use 
 of their opportunity. Alas, they did not. Per- 
 haps an all-wise Providence had destined it for 
 good reasons that they should not. There 
 were two obstacles which then hindered the 
 spreading of Judaism. In the first place, its 
 customs were too rigorous. The Gentiles, 
 though they acknowledged the correctness of 
 Jewish theology and the purity of its ethics, 
 were unwilling to submit to the Abrahamitic 
 rite, to the table laws, and to the minute pre- 
 scriptions concerning cleanliness. Judaism, on 
 its part, was not ready to compromise with them, 
 because, and this was the second obstacle, it 
 was too aristocratic. Its doctrines maintained 
 that the Israelites were a people chosen by God ;
 
 Mother and Daughter. 5 3 
 
 that the much admired laws were given to them 
 for their own welfare ; and that it was obligatory 
 for them to guard, but not to spread them. 
 Judaism, of course, would not reject the stranger 
 who would knock at its doors ; it would accept 
 him cheerfully, provided he would take upon 
 himself the whole burden of the law without 
 any haggling ; but it would not proselyte ; it 
 would not go and coax or force the stranger to 
 come in. If these two obstacles could have 
 been removed, the mastery of the world would 
 have fallen as a consequence into the lap of 
 Judaism. 
 
 There was one man living at that time who 
 saw the golden apple hanging within such easy 
 reach ; he stretched forth his arm and broke it, 
 but, alas, not for his own nation. It was Saul 
 of Tarsus, better known as Paul. To him owes 
 Christianity its life. 
 
 Paul was no rabbi. He was no scholar 
 whatsoever, nor was he versed in Jewish 
 literature. He knew the Bible in its Greek 
 version only ; he would misquote, in his let- 
 ters to the Corinthians, a passage in Isaiah 
 as occurring in the Pentateuch ; but for all 
 his ignorance in letters, he was zealous and 
 practical. 
 
 Observing that Judaism could not and that 
 it would not allow one letter of the law to 
 be changed, he embraced with eagerness the
 
 54 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 legends of the crucified Jesus, which must have 
 reached him in an exaggerated form ; and, with- 
 out having ever known him, he made him the 
 corner-stone of the building which he proposed 
 to erect. There was an old saying that the 
 Messiah would do away with the law, as he 
 would naturally usurp the power of issuing new 
 orders. Paul made use of it, and accepted 
 Jesus as the Messiah, no matter whether he 
 had fulfilled what was expected of a Messiah or 
 not. It was sufficient for him that a Messiah 
 had appeared ; for this gave him a handle to 
 change or to abolish as much of the law as he, 
 Paul, saw fit. With one stroke of the pen, as 
 we should say, he removed one of the obstacles : 
 he admitted Gentiles into Judaism without 
 the performance of the Abrahamitic rite, and 
 allowed them to eat whatever they pleased. 
 Denounced by his Jewish brethren as a law- 
 breaker, and distrusted even by the personal 
 friends of the unfortunate Galilean, who were 
 shocked to hear the words of their master in- 
 terpreted by a stranger in such a peculiar way, 
 Paul sought and found his friends among Gen- 
 tiles. Supplying a long-felt want, his career 
 became a success in spite of all the obstacles 
 which beset his way. He was the first mis- 
 sionary whom the world has seen. Christian 
 congregations grew up under the very print 
 which his foot left upon the ground.
 
 Mother and Daughter. 5 5 
 
 With him the Messianic idea, formerly local, 
 took a universal turn. The Messiah now ceased 
 to be an anointed king, expected to remove the 
 political misery of the Jewish nation. He grew 
 into a divine messenger, a son of God, sent 
 from heaven to earth to save all mankind from 
 the effect of sin. Though having been put to 
 death, he would soon return, and hold stern 
 judgment over the world. His friends would 
 be royally rewarded, his enemies unmercifully 
 punished. Thus the Messianic idea became a 
 necessity for the Paulinian Church. Without 
 it, it lacked all authority for the inroads made 
 upon the law, the grandeur of which still re- 
 mained the centre of attraction to the pagan 
 world. 
 
 It would take years should I attempt to trace 
 in weekly lectures the rise and growth of Chris- 
 tianity. May it suffice that I show to you its 
 source, and that I establish the fact that it was 
 built by Paul from sheer necessity, upon a mis- 
 taken interpretation of the Messianic idea, with 
 which it stands and falls. 
 
 In the meantime, the Jews witnessed the ap- 
 pearance of another Messiah. His name was 
 Theudas. He shared the fate of Jesus. Fadus, 
 the Roman governor, caught him and his band, 
 and beheaded him. Pilate did exactly the same 
 which Fadus did a few years later ; but nobody 
 would claim to-day that the Jews tried and sen-
 
 56 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 tenced Theudas : nobody would hold them 
 responsible for his death. Theudas, however, 
 must have gamed more notoriety than Jesus 
 ever did at his time ; for Josephus granted him 
 a considerable space in his history. 
 
 When finally the cup of misery was full to 
 the brim, and no help came from outside, the 
 people arose in arms. A short but fierce strug- 
 gle followed. Titus and his legions stormed 
 Jerusalem, laid the temple in ashes ; and with 
 the destruction of Jerusalem Israel was stricken 
 forever from the list of nations. 
 
 The seed planted by Paul had in the mean- 
 time grown up, and kept on growing. Christi- 
 anity spread from day to day ; and the daughter 
 soon severed all connections with her mother. 
 She went her own way ; for she had a mission 
 of her own to fulfil ; a mission which neither 
 Judaism nor Hellenism could have fulfilled with 
 success : she had to civilize a world of barba- 
 rians. Judaism would have failed on account 
 of its rigor : Hellenism, on account of its self- 
 ishness. Greek philosophy cared little for the 
 welfare of mankind as a species : its attempts 
 were directed toward individual happiness. But 
 it forgot that individual happiness and national 
 happiness stand in a mutual relation to each 
 other, and that the one is impossible without 
 the other. Whenever it failed to secure indi- 
 vidual happiness, it was at a loss to account for
 
 Mother and Daughter. 57 
 
 it, and advised to escape the miseries of life by 
 suicide. This was its last and only remedy. 
 Nature, however, abhors destruction : neither 
 the Epicurean nor the Stoic schools could ever 
 win the favor of the masses. A Greek philoso- 
 pher would have ridiculed it as absurd to stoop 
 down to a slave or a barbarian, in order to edu- 
 cate him to higher and better principles. Not so 
 Christianity. From her mother she had inher- 
 ited the principles of freedom and equality ; the 
 principle of one God and one human brother- 
 hood. From her she had learned the maxim, 
 Love thy neighbor as thyself. Equipped with 
 these gems from her mother's treasury, adorned 
 with the ten sparkling diamonds of the Sinaitic 
 law, she entered upon her path. What we 
 should call to elevate or civilize was called by 
 her to save ; and to save the world she was 
 bound. Let us give honor where honor is due. 
 With unexcelled heroism, the disciple of the 
 early Church would seek strange countries, 
 savage nations, always carrying his life in his 
 hands. He would fearlessly enter the cabin of 
 barbarians, suffer their scorn, their anger, even 
 death from their hands. He would never flinch 
 nor shirk his duty. And such heroism over- 
 awed the barbarian : he submitted, and bowed 
 before the new God. 
 
 There is a steel engraving, to be found in al- 
 most every large picture store, representing the
 
 58 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 following scene : Two savage-looking gladiators 
 are seen fighting in the Circus Maximus of 
 Rome, for the amusement of the masses. One 
 has succeeded in throwing the net over his 
 opponent, and in forcing him to the ground. 
 His eyes beam with passion : he craves the 
 blood of his victim. Uplifted in his sinewy 
 arm, he holds the trident, a fearful weapon, 
 wherewith to deal the deadly blow ; when, lo 
 and behold ! a disciple of the early Church fear- 
 lessly places himself between the victor and his 
 victim, with the cry, " Thou shalt not kill ! " I 
 do not know whether it is the skill of the artist 
 or the subject chosen by him which produces 
 the effect ; but I can never pass this picture 
 without emotion. Though the artist only imag- 
 ined that scene, he took it, nevertheless, from 
 life. Such scenes have occurred, not once, but 
 a thousand times, until the brute in man was 
 tamed, and the barbarian had learned, not only 
 the lesson, " Thou shalt not kill," but the still 
 greater one, " Love thy neighbor as thyself." 
 
 Christianity at the same time was accommo- 
 dating itself to the pagan world. It did not 
 ask for more than it could possibly get at a 
 time. It granted indulgences, provided some of 
 its lessons were accepted in exchange ; and 
 thus, step by step, it went further and further, 
 until it had subdued the world; until it had 
 civilized Germans, Goths, Celts, Huns, Mon
 
 Mother and Daughter. 59 
 
 gols, and all ; until princes would yield to the 
 frown of a bishop and warriors sheathe or un- 
 sheathe their swords at the command of the 
 ecclesiastical head. Every unprejudiced man 
 must acknowledge it, and I acknowledge it with 
 pleasure, that Christianity has performed some 
 remarkable deeds. It has abolished slavery, it 
 has established monogamy, it has mitigated 
 the evils of war, and by all means raised the 
 standard of civilization. 
 
 But there is nothing obtained in this world 
 without compensation. What is won on the 
 one side is generally lost on the other. Chris- 
 tianity had stooped down to the pagan world to 
 save it, it had yielded to its whims ; but in its 
 embraces it had lost its identity, and had become 
 paganized in its turn. Step by step, it was 
 dragged, let me say involuntarily, from its path. 
 The Messiah was changed into a son of God, 
 and the son soon unthroned the father. A 
 mysterious trinity replaced monotheism : super- 
 stitious idolatry raised again its head. Upon 
 the pedestals from which the early Church had 
 thrown the jolly crowd of Greek gods and god- 
 desses, the later Church erected the images of 
 their saints. A Saint Martin took the place of 
 Mars, the god of war ; a Madonna, the place of 
 a Minerva ; a Magdalene, the place of a Venus. 
 The churches were again desecrated into won- 
 der-working institutions : the Christian priest
 
 60 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 assumed the splendor of his predecessor, and 
 dressed in gorgeous style : the bishop of Rome 
 became the heir of the late Pontifex Maximus. 
 Reason was banished, and unbridled imagina- 
 tion was permitted to run riot. Paganism, it 
 is true, had been Christianized ; but during the 
 process Christianity had become paganized. 
 The world would surely have fallen back into 
 its former barbarism, as the dreary Middle Ages 
 indicated, if it had not been for Judaism. Yes, 
 indeed : if it had not been for Judaism ; and 
 this is a fact which only few seem to know. 
 Though bleeding from many a wound, though 
 despised and maltreated by her haughty daugh- 
 ter, Judaism the mother still lived ; and as long 
 as she lived, she was a living protest against 
 the frivolous conduct of her daughter. Her 
 rigor, which had made her lose the command 
 over a world, had protected her, on the other 
 hand, from the dangerous embraces of paganism. 
 She had preserved the purity of her doctrines, 
 and still clung to reason in preference to blind 
 belief. 
 
 At this juncture, it appears necessary to 
 me to say a few words about belief, now we 
 hear so much about believers and unbelievers, 
 or infidels. Belief is always resorted to to 
 offset reason ; and a great many maintain that 
 religion cannot be severed from belief. There 
 are perhaps many Israelites who do not know
 
 Mother and Daughter. 6 1 
 
 it, and therefore will be scared when I tell them 
 that Judaism is not built upon belief, but that 
 it stands upon the firm rock of reason. You 
 will never find in Jewish literature the com- 
 mand, "Thou shalt believe." This word was 
 introduced into the religious vocabulary by 
 Christianity. The mere belief in the Saviour 
 was to save from eternal damnation. Standing 
 upon a basis which could not withstand the 
 pressure of reason, it was to be supported by 
 beliefs. To believe did not mean to accept a 
 statement as true because it could reasonably 
 be expected to be true. No : to believe meant 
 to accept a statement as true, although reason 
 revolted against it. Only then the saving 
 qualities of belief would come into play. There 
 was, for instance, no merit in the belief in a 
 God whose existence, though not perceivable 
 by human senses, still stands to reason ; but the 
 belief that three are one and one three, a 
 doctrine against which reason revolts, such a 
 belief was soul-saving and meritorious. Let me 
 give you another example. To believe that the 
 sacred Scriptures were written in the same way 
 as all other books, which they may surpass in 
 diction and beauty, by human writers inspired 
 for their work, or to believe that the soul of 
 every writer, inventor, or discoverer, stands in 
 a certain relation to the source from which all 
 talent and genius spring and our spirits flow,
 
 62 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 such a belief, which stands to reason, was of no 
 merit : it was, and is still, called unbelief. But 
 to believe that God selected a certain man, and 
 dictated him, word for word, an oration which 
 he was to deliver, or a narrative which he was 
 to write, assuming the responsible editorship 
 himself, and using the man only as an amanu- 
 ensis, such a belief, against which reason rea- 
 sonably rebels, such a belief is still to-day 
 demanded. The passage in which a Church 
 Father says, Credo, quia absurdnm est, " I 
 believe, because it is absurd," was by no means 
 intended as a sarcasm : it was the only stand- 
 point of the Church. Whatever is reasonable 
 needs not to be believed ; it convinces ; and 
 the great God who has granted us the heavenly 
 light of reason can not, does not, want us to 
 exchange it for the dim lamp of blind belief. 
 A religion which cannot stand the test of 
 reason cannot endure forever : belief is a weak 
 prop only, which sooner or later must break. 
 
 Christianity, because it could never prove its 
 premises, was forced to cling to belief. Juda- 
 ism, on the contrary, was not and is not under 
 such a pressure. It accepts facts which have 
 occurred in the past as true, as long as they are 
 not unreasonable or proven to be unhistorical 
 by new developments ; and no merit is claimed 
 for it nor any reward expected for it. This 
 grants us full liberty of conscience.
 
 Mother and Daughter, 63 
 
 At every critical period in the development 
 of the Christian Church, Judaism, the mother, 
 raised her voice of warning, and this voice was 
 not to be silenced. Neither the sword of per- 
 secution nor the pyre and torture of the inquisi- 
 tion, not even ridicule, could chase away the 
 maternal ghost, which would step between the 
 daughter and her seducer at the critical mo- 
 ment. And thus the tide turned. Slowly but 
 surely the daughter retraced her steps. Protes- 
 tantism was the first step toward home. Juda- 
 ism had so long protested against image-worship 
 that the very best Christians began to listen, 
 then to think : finally to join in the protest. 
 Christian scholars secretly visited in disguise 
 the learned men of Judah. They visited their 
 miserable abodes, to be introduced by them to 
 the mysteries of the Talmud, and to read with 
 them the Bible in the original.* Here they 
 drank in full draughts from the waters of 
 life ; and when Luther nailed his theses to 
 the church door of Wittenberg, his hammer 
 sounded the death-knell to idolatry. Four 
 hundred years of retracing her steps are not 
 a long time in comparison with the fifteen hun- 
 dred years during which the Church was built ; 
 and considerable work has been done already 
 We have arrived at that stage where the dogma 
 of a trinity has been abandoned, and a Unitarian 
 platform is erected in its place. Jesus of Naza- 
 
 * Reuchlin, Sebastian Munster, Egidio de Viterbo, and others.
 
 64 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 reth, five hundred years ago the principal and 
 foremost feature of the trinity, is now to our 
 enlightened Unitarian friends not more than 
 the ideal of a man ; and I doubt whether the 
 remaining eleven hundred will be consumed be- 
 fore he will not be more and not less than the 
 carpenter's son. Hereditary sin, atonement 
 through Christ, heaven and purgatory, eternal 
 bliss and eternal damnation, all these supersti- 
 tious doctrines have already fallen ; and the sun 
 of reason breaks through the clouds, and sheds 
 its bright rays to-day over a world happier and 
 better than ever before. 
 
 Has Judaism remained unchanged during all 
 these centuries ? In its principles, yes ; in its 
 forms, no. The principle that there is but one 
 God, and none besides him, and the ten com- 
 mandments, which are the necessary conse- 
 quence of it, have remained unchanged, and 
 will remain unchanged forever, until the whole 
 human race shall have adopted them. They 
 have already adopted them in theory, but not 
 yet in practice. But in regard to forms we 
 have changed. Thank God, we have advanced. 
 The Jew of to-day is no longer the Jew of nine- 
 teen hundred years ago. We are no mummies : 
 we are alive and wide awake to the demands of 
 our time. We have learned a good many 
 things : and I praise God for it that we have 
 also forgotten a good many. The advancing
 
 Mother ana Daughter. 65 
 
 Israelite and the advanced, or, as I shall name 
 him more properly, the returning, Christian 
 stand to-day almost upon the same level. 
 There are only two slight difficulties to be 
 overcome ; one on the part of our Unitarian 
 friends, the other on both sides. The first is 
 that our friends must give up the ideal embel- 
 lishments with which Jesus of Nazareth is glo- 
 rified, and reduce him to that place which he 
 may have really filled. I know it : it will take 
 some time before they shall overcome this diffi- 
 culty ; for it is not so easy as you may think 
 to give up ideals to which you have become 
 attached from your earliest childhood ; nor 
 must we forget that then they would lose their 
 claim to the Christian name, so highly cher- 
 ished by them. The other difficulty to be over- 
 come by both sides is race prejudice. With 
 the spread of intelligence, with a better under- 
 standing between both races, and with good 
 will on both sides, I am almost certain that in 
 course of time this difficulty too will be removed. 
 Mother and daughter, who even then will 
 touch one another with the tips of their fingers 
 only, will feel the magnetic current of love pass 
 through their bodies. Nearer and nearer they 
 will be drawn to each other, until at last, after 
 a thousand years, they will be reunited in one 
 loving embrace.
 
 V. 
 
 A GENUINE MESSIAH. 
 
 EN and events are seldom v/eighed by 
 us in the scales of justice. It is the 
 successful who generally carries off the 
 admiration and appreciation of the world ; and 
 the popular adage says therefore correctly, 
 Nothing succeeds like success. Success, how- 
 ever, is a product composed of two factors ; the 
 one of which is our own ability and ambition, 
 the other an indescribable something, commonly 
 called luck. The one is within ourselves, the 
 other outside of us. We have full control over 
 the first one, but no command whatsoever over 
 the second. Nor are these two factors equal in 
 value. The product success is obtained in some 
 cases by the multiplication of great ability with 
 a small quantity of luck ; in others, by the mul- 
 tiplication of little ability with a great amount 
 of luck. No success whatsoever can be reached 
 if one of these two factors is lacking. The most 
 talented, the most enthusiastic, will fail in his 
 enterprise if luck does not favor him ; and the 
 choicest luck cannot tower up to the goal of 
 66
 
 A Genuine Messiah. 67 
 
 success if not supported by some intelli- 
 gence. 
 
 But, sad as the fact is, mankind never goes 
 behind the returns. It never takes the time to 
 examine the factors : it looks at the product 
 only. If a man is successful, it bows before him 
 in admiration : if his undertaking has been 
 unsuccessful, it turns from him with disgust ; at 
 best with pity. A people arising to break the 
 fetters which either a foreign nation or the party 
 in power has tied around its limbs has always 
 been a grand sight ; and the attention of the 
 world has always been directed toward the place 
 where such an uprising has occurred ; but it has 
 always been the final success which has influ- 
 enced the verdict. Whenever a nation has suc- 
 ceeded in liberating itself, the preceding struggle 
 has been called a revolution : if it has failed in 
 its enterprise, it has been called a rebellion. In 
 the first case, the national leaders have been 
 worshipped as heroes, and their praises have 
 been sung by the poets of their time ; in the 
 other, they have been stigmatized as traitors, as 
 ringleaders, as rebels ; and though they may 
 have sealed their love for their country with 
 their blood, either gloriously on the battle-field, 
 or ignominiously upon the scaffold, not a word 
 has been said in their favor : not a pen has been 
 stirred to transmit their name to posterity. At 
 best, they have been defended; at best, some
 
 68 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 friendly hand has attempted to wipe away the 
 stains with which their misfortune or ill luck 
 has bespattered them. 
 
 My argument will appear with greater distinct- 
 ness by the following comparison. Supposing 
 the United States of America had been unsuc- 
 cessful in their struggle against Great Britain, 
 do you think we should look at the event as we 
 do now ? You may rest assured that the glorious 
 time of a hundred years ago would be branded 
 to-day as a time of rebellion ; that the children at 
 school would be instructed to detest the rebels, 
 Washington and Franklin, and to glory in the 
 patriotism of Arnold. They would not be told 
 to memorize Longfellow's beautiful poem of the 
 midnight ride of Paul Revere ; and " God save 
 the Queen " would fill the place of the " Star- 
 spangled Banner " in the singing-books of our 
 schools. How many of us would take the trouble 
 to examine the motives, the heroism, and the 
 enthusiasm, of the noble men of '76 ? Few ; 
 for we all should silently acquiesce in the verdict 
 of the world ; or, as you may call it, in the ver- 
 dict of history, which, after all, would have been 
 influenced, not by the merit, but by the success 
 of the cause. 
 
 Will humanity ever outgrow such injustice ? 
 I have good reason to believe that the historians 
 of the future will adopt a more just measurement 
 of men and events ; that they will overhaul the
 
 A Genuine Messiah. 69 
 
 whole building which history so far has erected, 
 and that they will mete out justice unbiassed by 
 the success with which an event had been ac- 
 companied ; and I should advise you, my friends, 
 whenever you go into historical research, to 
 leave a wide margin in favor of the unsuccessful 
 party. 
 
 I shall now acquaint you with such a party, 
 and with a man who, if he had been successful, 
 would have filled the world with his renown. 
 He possessed the one factor of success, genius, 
 talent, enthusiasm ; but, alas, he lacked the 
 other. Luck went against him. I shall conjure 
 up before you the spirit of a man whom nobody 
 to-day seems to know, but who, nevertheless, 
 at his time had made a Roman emperor tremble 
 upon his throne ; whose very name spread 
 terror upon Roman soil similar to that which, 
 hundreds of years before, the name of Brennus 
 and Hannibal had caused. Would that I could 
 show you the last Jewish warrior in his full 
 glory ! Would that I could sing in loud strains 
 the praise of the last Jewish hero, who, if ever 
 a man has deserved the title Messiah, was 
 worthy of it ! If ever Messianic expectations 
 have been realized, they were realized in Bar 
 Kochba. He was, barring anointment, a Mes- 
 siah who tallied, every inch of him, with the 
 hopes which his nation harbored concerning such 
 a man.
 
 70 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 Th.e Jewish nation has been and is still blamed 
 for rejecting Jesus of Nazareth as a Messiah. 
 They have been called a stubborn people, who 
 would always maltreat its benefactors and best 
 friends. False, thrice false! The Jews were, 
 as they are still, wide-awake, and knew well how 
 to distinguish a chimera from a reality. While 
 they remained indifferent to idealistic dreamers, 
 as Jesus and Theudas may have been, they arose 
 as one man when the person appeared who had 
 all the qualifications of a Messiah. They placed 
 at Bar Kochba's disposal an army of not less 
 than half a million of well-equipped soldiers. 
 They heeded strictly his orders. There was 
 not the least discord in their ranks ; and during 
 five years more than two millions of Jews sacri- 
 ficed their lives for him and his cause. Does 
 such devotion indicate blindness or stubborn- 
 ness ? Alas ! Bar Kochba was not successful : 
 his cause did not triumph. The hero was there- 
 fore degraded to a rebel, and the last glorious 
 struggle of our nation was stigmatized as a 
 rebellion. 
 
 Jerusalem had fallen in the year 70 of the 
 new era, and Judea had been made a Roman 
 province. Years of misery followed, and the 
 hope that finally a Messiah must appear to re- 
 store their former independence grew stronger 
 every day. Even the early Christians believed 
 that the time was near when their Messiah would
 
 A Genuine Messiah. 71 
 
 return. Sixty years had passed since ; and as 
 the first exile had lasted only seventy years, the 
 conclusion was near at hand that again, after 
 seventy years, a restoration would take place. 
 
 An excellent proof that the hope in the advent 
 of a Messiah was rooted in political and not in 
 religious ground, that the Jews did not expect a 
 supernatural Messiah, but simply a man who 
 would be their leader in the struggle for liberty, 
 is that they prepared for the emergency. They 
 were practical enough to observe that arms, am- 
 munition, drilled men, and especially money, 
 must be prepared and in readiness, so that the 
 Messiah should have the sinews of war at his 
 command. They did by no means believe that 
 he was to work wonders, and do the fighting all 
 by himself. They expected in him a leader, and 
 nothing else. 
 
 The acknowledged head of the Jewish com- 
 munity at that time was Rabbi Akiba, whom I 
 cannot help mentioning, as he played a princi- 
 pal part in the tragedy of the Bar Kochbean 
 war. His history is wonderful, and reads like 
 a novel. Up to his fortieth year, he is said to 
 have been ignorant of letters, unable to read 
 or write. His occupation was that of a porter 
 in the house of Calba Sabua, the Vanderbilt of 
 his time. At this advanced age, he fell in love 
 with Rachel, his master's daughter. His affec- 
 tion was returned ; but as Rachel well knew
 
 72 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 that her proud father would never consent to 
 her marriage with a porter, and elopements 
 were not fashionable at that time, she advised 
 him, strange to say, to study law. Akiba 
 heeded her advice, and began at the bottom 
 of the ladder. He entered a primary school. 
 During the many years of his studies, Rachel 
 is said to have faithfully preserved her love for 
 him, although her father, hearing of it, disowned 
 her. She is said to have lived in such misery 
 that once she was compelled to cut off and sell 
 the braids of her hair in order to obtain money 
 for food. Finally Akiba, who had risen step 
 by step, gained renown ; and, when he returned 
 to Jerusalem accompanied by a host of disciples, 
 and the acknowledged head of the Jewish com- 
 munity, Calba Sabua laid aside his prejudice, 
 and gave him his daughter for a wife ; bestow- 
 ing upon her a rich dowry, so that from that 
 time she could live in abundance. 
 
 Do you suppose that a man of the stamp of 
 Rabbi Akiba, who not only believed in the 
 divine origin of the Bible, but even maintained 
 that every letter in it had a secret meaning : do 
 you suppose for a moment that such a man did 
 not understand the meaning of the prophets 
 in regard to a Messiah, at least as well as Chris- 
 tian clergymen of to-day, who do not tire of 
 quoting the Old Testament in support of their 
 theories? If Akiba could have made one pas-
 
 A Genuine Messiah. 73 
 
 sage, yea, even one word, of Scripture tally 
 with the appearance of Jesus as a Messiah, he 
 would surely and willingly have accepted him. 
 Or do you suppose that a man of such an iron 
 will and as practical as Rabbi Akiba must have 
 been, would have accepted the very first adven- 
 turer as a Messiah, that he would have sacrificed 
 his influence, his time, his money, his life, for 
 an impostor ? This very Akiba, a second 
 Samuel, pointed out Bar Kochba, and intro- 
 duced him to the people as the long-expected 
 Messiah. This very Akiba travelled for years, 
 visiting all Jewish colonies, levying money and 
 men for the Messiah. From one of his trips he 
 is said to have returned with thirty thousand 
 disciples, probably young men whom he had 
 enlisted for his cause. 
 
 Bar Kochba, or Bar Kosiba, which name he 
 derived from the small town of Kosiba or Kesib, 
 was the embodiment of all the qualities expected 
 to appertain to a Messiah. He was of powerful, 
 herculean build ; tall, muscular, strong. He 
 was the model of a soldier. He would sleep on 
 the bare ground, and share the coarse food of 
 his soldiers. In battle he would be seen at the 
 most dangerous points, whirling his battle-axe 
 with undaunted courage. He was a skilful 
 leader, who outgeneralled the most experienced 
 soldiers of Rome. Deep as was his hatred for 
 Rome was his love for his country. He was
 
 74 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 modest and willing to listen ; and for all this 
 his followers worshipped him. How he had 
 passed his youth, where he had obtained his 
 military knowledge, nobody knew. There he 
 was at the time when all was prepared, ami 
 people were only waiting for the leader; an-1 
 the impression which he must have made upon 
 the people was such that, without examining his 
 past record, all, the rich and the poor, the 
 learned and the simple, flocked to his banner, 
 and obeyed implicitly his commands. Within 
 the space of one year he stormed fifty fortified 
 places, and freed nine hundred and eighty-five 
 towns held by the Romans ; and when the year 
 133 dawned, not a single Roman was to be seen 
 in Palestine. 
 
 At first the Emperor Hadrian, occupied with 
 other schemes, gave little attention to the re- 
 volt ; but when the most renowned legions had 
 lost their prestige on Jewish battle-grounds ; 
 when his best generals returned defeated by a 
 foe unknown before ; when the Orient, observing 
 that the Romans were not invincible, began to 
 awaken from its slumber and to rally around the 
 victorious Messiah, he tremblingly acknowleged 
 the great danger that threatened the empire, 
 and took immediate steps to suppress the rebel- 
 lion at whatever cost. He ordered his best 
 general, Julius Severus, the Moltke of his time, 
 from England, where his presence had been
 
 A Genuine Messiah. 75 
 
 needed, to proceed at once to Palestine. He 
 gave him a large army of picked soldiers, and 
 all the supplies he wanted. Bar Kochba, on his 
 part, remained not idle during the two years 
 which Severus needed to organize his forces for 
 the task. He made an attempt to rebuild Jeru- 
 salem and the temple. He made use of the pre- 
 rogatives of a king, and issued coins stamped 
 with the inscription " Cheruth Jerusalem," 
 Freedom of Jerusalem, a few of which are still 
 to be seen. He fortified a number of cities, 
 and was so confident of his final success that he 
 is reported to have uttered the almost blasphe- 
 mous words, " O God, if it does not please thee 
 to assist us, withhold, at least, thy aid from our 
 enemies ; we shall then stand our own, and be 
 victorious." Severus did not dare to meet his 
 adversary in open battle. He adopted the same 
 stratagem which Fabius the Cunctator had 
 used against Hannibal. He refused to fight a 
 battle ; but he drew a large circle of fortified 
 camps around the whole of Palestine, from 
 which he sent his cavalry to tire the enemy in 
 small encounters, and to cut off supplies. Bar 
 Kochba had no horsemen to check the ravages 
 of the Romans ; and, in spite of all heroism, was 
 not able to break the circle which Severus now 
 contracted inch by inch. One Jewish fort after 
 the other had to surrender for want of supplies ; 
 and soon the iron band closed around the for-
 
 76 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 tress of Betar, into which Bar Kochba had been 
 forced with the flower of his army. Betar must 
 have been a city of the size of Metz ; and the 
 siege and defence of that city must have been a 
 wonder of military skill. The two greatest gen- 
 erals of their time exhausted their genius in 
 moves and counter-moves. Every inch of land 
 was contested with bravery and skill, such as 
 had seldom been witnessed before. 
 
 The Roman general finally despaired of cap- 
 turing the city. Epidemics had decimated his 
 legions ; and though he had fought for a whole 
 year before Betar, he had not gained the least 
 advantage over his foe. He was about to raise 
 the siege, when two Samaritan traitors showed 
 him a secreted aqueduct which supplied the city 
 with water. He shut the water off at once ; 
 but even the most excruciating pains of thirst 
 could not make the noble garrison of Betar 
 surrender the place. Not before the Romans 
 had found a way into the city, by enlarging the 
 same aqueduct, was the fate of Betar and that 
 of Judea sealed. On a Sabbath day, Severus 
 stormed the city. Bar Kochba, a second Leoni- 
 das, fell, sword in hand, covered with honorable 
 wounds. He would not survive the final doom 
 of his nation. A legend says that, when a man 
 brought the head of Bar Kochba to Severus, 
 and claimed that he had slain him, the latter 
 said, " If this man has not been killed by God
 
 A Genuine Messiah, 77 
 
 himself, the power of a mortal could never have 
 harmed him." Another legend reports that 
 his body, when found, was encircled by a snake, 
 which would allow nobody to harm it. 
 
 Thus died Bar Kochba, a hero and a patriot. 
 He would have sacrificed ten more lives upon 
 the altar of his country, if such had been possi- 
 ble. Although he has been almost forgotten ; 
 although the masses have never heard of him ; 
 although our Christian friends are not aware of 
 it, that the Jews once accepted a Messiah, and 
 cheerfully spilled their blood in his service, be- 
 cause he was the type of that Messiah of which 
 they had dreamed ; although no poet has sung 
 his praise, Bar Kochba is no myth. His history 
 is written in the heart-blood of the nation upon 
 the soil of Palestine. The Talmud contains 
 numerous passages referring to him. Even the 
 Gospels allude to him ; * another indication of 
 
 * Mark xiii. 5-13. Take heed lest any man deceive you. For 
 some shall come under my name, saying, I am the Messiah, 
 and shall deceive many. And when ye shall hear of wars and 
 rumors of war, be ye not troubled : for such things need be. 
 For nations shall rise against nations, and kingdom against 
 kingdom. . . . But take heed to yourselves, for they shall de- 
 liver you up to councils and in the synagogues ye shall be 
 beaten. . . . Now the brother shall betray the brother, etc. 
 
 The some (rfc) who was to assume the role of a Messiah, and 
 of whom the faithful were to beware, is Bar Kochba, whose 
 patriotism has not been without influence upon the Jew-Chris- 
 tians. The writer of Mark, who had witnessed the Bar 
 Kochba revolt, puts the graphic picture of it into the mouth
 
 78 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 the time in which they were written. A Greek 
 historian, Dion Cassius, speaks with reverence 
 of him. There are still to be seen the coins 
 which he had caused to be minted ; and even 
 the minutes kept by the Roman Senate bore 
 evidence to his greatness. When Severus re- 
 ported to the august body his final victory over 
 the enemy, he omitted the customary introduc- 
 tion, " I and the army are well." Indeed, 
 neither he nor his army was well. His victory 
 had the semblance of a defeat. Neither did 
 the Senate grant him the honor of a triumph. 
 
 Here we have a Messiah recognized by the 
 people, recognized by its representative, Rabbi 
 Akiba ; a Messiah who laid down his life upon 
 the altar of his country ; but did Judaism make 
 a God of him? Did it allow him to change 
 one of its laws? Did he or his followers 
 ever attempt to change a law, on the ground 
 
 of Jesus as a prophecy. The wars and rumors of -war and the 
 words nations shall rise against nations are not less descrip- 
 tive of the Bar Kochba revolt and remind us of the occurrence 
 of that time which Dion Cassius describes as follows : <ai *&<niv, 
 Of tlirtiv, Ktvovfilvrjs lirl ToZrif rjj$ oiicoi'plviif. The passage, for they 
 shall deliver you up to councils (<n'i//6p<a), and in the synagogues 
 ye shall be beaten, agrees with the statements of Justin and 
 Eusebius, who say that Bar Kochba had punished the Jew- 
 Christians because they would not fight against the Romans. 
 Eusebius, in his history of the I7th year of Hadrian, says : 
 Cochebas plurimos Christianos diversis suppliciis affecit, eo 
 quo noluissent proficisci cum illo pugnatum contra Romanes. 
 Compare Gratz, History of the Jews, vol. iv., note 15.
 
 A Genuine Messiah. 79 
 
 of his Messianic authority ? Has ever a cult or 
 a ceremony been instituted to commemorate' 
 his life and death ? Though the Jewish nation 
 has mourned him with bitter tears, his ill luck 
 has made him share the fate of all unsuccessful ! 
 It is due to modern research that the marvellous 
 career of Bar Kochba is brought to acknowl- 
 edgment, and his heroic patriotism duly appre- 
 ciated. 
 
 Although Rabbi Akiba had introduced Bar 
 Kochba as the expected Messiah, he never at- 
 tempted to make a tool of him. The confidence 
 of the people rested in the qualities of the Mes- 
 siah, and the recommendation of a man who 
 had been the interpreter of the law for so many 
 years only strengthened it. Rabbi Akiba sur- 
 vived the fall of Betar. It is said that he 
 miraculously escaped before its capture, and 
 that for some time he was the eye-witness of 
 the sufferings through which his nation had to 
 pass. 
 
 It has been claimed that the misery which 
 had followed the Jewisfi nation was a punish- 
 ment of God for their rejecting Jesus of Naza- 
 reth as a Messiah, and that it is a proof that 
 they must have crucified him. How can such a 
 claim be reconciled with the justice of God ? 
 How could our ancestors have acknowledged an 
 unknown man, whose name was afterward used 
 to change, if not to abolish, the law ? Did they
 
 8o Messianic Expectations. 
 
 not show their firm belief when the man ap- 
 peared who tallied with their expectations of a 
 Messiah ? Had they not all cause to believe 
 in the Messiahship of Bar Kochba, better cause 
 than they had to believe in that of the Naza- 
 rene ? Had Bar Kochba not led the life of a 
 conscientious Jew ? Had he ever attempted to 
 lead them from their inherited religion ? Had 
 he not been successful in the first years of the 
 revolt ? And as he showed all the qualities of 
 a true Messiah, could they help believing in 
 him ? Was their devotion to him and his 
 cause of no merit in the eyes of God ? Was 
 their heroism deserving of the cruel punish- 
 ment which followed ? Was it not rather de- 
 serving of reward ? The argument that the 
 Jews must have crucified Jesus because they 
 have been persecuted since is simply absurd. 
 Turn it around, and you will come nearer to 
 the truth. Our history would have run quite 
 smoothly if ignorance had not considered it an 
 act of piety to make it fit -with some alleged 
 predictions ; if our oppressors and persecutors 
 had not considered it a high distinction to 
 serve as the instruments of punishment. 
 
 But let me return to Rabbi Akiba. He was 
 finally imprisoned on the charge that he had 
 been an instigator of the revolt, and he suffered 
 martyrdom from the hands of the Romans. 
 The agonies of Jesus of Nazareth, if the narra-
 
 A Genuine Messiah. 81 
 
 tive of the Gospels is admitted, are less than 
 the sufferings of Rabbi Akiba, who was flayed 
 alive. But in the hour of death, he did not 
 despairingly exclaim, " My God, why hast thou 
 forsaken me? " He died with the words on his 
 lips, " Hear, O Israel : the Lord our God is one 
 God." 
 
 Israel has never forgotten its noble heroes 
 nor its martyrs. It has paid them their tribute 
 of tears, and mourns them still : but it never 
 made saints of them : it never worshipped 
 them : it never preserved their relics and 
 worked miracles with them ; and this is the 
 cause why the name of Bar Kochba has not 
 become as familiar a household word as has 
 the name of many another man of antiquity, 
 who was far inferior to him in genius and 
 patriotism. 
 
 The revolt of Bar Kochba was the last great 
 military enterprise of our nation. After it, it 
 ceased to be a political body ; and its future 
 history is that of a- religious sect. We do not 
 claim to-day to be a nation. The enlightened 
 Israelite of to-day does not feel in the least cha- 
 grined that he has no country of his own or a 
 king to rule over him. We are sincere and 
 patriotic citizens of the country in which we 
 live. We are good Germans in Germany, good 
 Frenchmen in France, law-abiding Englishmen 
 in England ; and in this our glorious republic,
 
 82 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 which better than any other country in the 
 world protects our liberties and our rights, we 
 are true and faithful Americans, ready to prove 
 it with our blood, if an emergency for such a 
 proof should arise. We wish for no other coun- 
 try and for no other form of government ; and 
 all our efforts are directed toward the one great 
 aim cherished by all true Americans, without 
 distinction of race, color, or creed ; the aim to 
 make our beloved country respected and hon- 
 ored all over the world.
 
 VI. 
 
 THE SPANISH INQUISITION. 
 
 THOUSAND years are in the eyes of 
 God as one day, sings the Psalmist ; 
 but in the eye of man, a millennium is 
 quite a long time. If, therefore, I should pass 
 over such a period in my research in silence, if 
 I should take one great stride from the third to 
 the thirteenth century without alluding to 
 those centuries with at least a few words, I 
 should be unjust to my task and at the same 
 time lack a connecting link. 
 
 After the defeat of Bar Kochba, Israel, as I 
 explained in my last lecture, ceased to be a 
 nation, and became a religious sect. With this 
 change, Messianic expectations lost their origi- 
 nally political character and assumed a philo- 
 sophical form. Had it not been for the young 
 Christian church, all Messianic Expectations 
 would in all probability have then died out. 
 The more, however, the church insisted upon 
 the dogma that in Jesus the Messiah had ap- 
 peared ; the more it busied itself in digging out 
 passages of the prophets which were to prove 
 83
 
 84 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 it ; the more it interpreted and interpolated the 
 Scripture to suit its purpose, the more our ances- 
 tors emphasized the doctrine that a Messiah 
 was to come. Nor must we forget that the 
 early church was actually for almost three hun- 
 dred years expecting the return of their Messiah, 
 and that thus in a natural way a similar notion 
 was strengthened amongst the Jews. When 
 finally Christ did not re-appear, the church 
 changed its front. The Messiah being apparently 
 unwilling to return to this world, his adherents 
 went to him. Heaven with all its joys and a 
 purgatory with all its infernal modes of torture 
 were created. The Malchuth Shamajim, " the 
 kingdom of heaven," originally denoting an era 
 of universal happiness upon earth, was placed 
 beyond the clouds, beyond the reach of the 
 sceptic ; and the wings of imagination, thus 
 freed from the fear of the clipping shears of 
 reason, grew and spread to an extent unknown 
 before. Judaism knew originally neither of a 
 heaven nor of a purgatory. Its laws were made 
 to deal with "one world at a time" ; and though 
 immortality was not and is not denied by it, 
 it shrank and still shrinks from the material- 
 ization or the description of a future life. 
 Though it afterward became somewhat infected 
 with these doctrines, its healthy condition did 
 not allow the disease to spread ; and intelli- 
 gent Israelites have done away with such no-
 
 The Spanish Inquisition. 85 
 
 tions as they have with Messianic expecta- 
 tions. 
 
 The more Christianity embellished, frescoed, 
 and decorated its heaven around the God-Mes- 
 siah in the centre, the more clung Judaism 
 to the belief in the advent of a secular Messiah, 
 who should restore their nationality, take away 
 the very opprobrium of their existence, and 
 make them respected again in the world. But 
 this was a mere doctrinal hope, if I am per- 
 mitted to call it so. Like morphine, it soothed 
 the pain, though it did not heal the wound. 
 All kinds of chimerical ideas therefore gathered 
 around it, as for instance, the resurrection of 
 the dead, the stern judgment which the Messiah 
 would hold over the world, and so on. It is a 
 sweet consolation for the oppressed to hope 
 against hope. Thus it afforded some consola- 
 tion to our ancestors, when they were driven 
 from country to country and were deprived of 
 their human rights, to murmur : Wait till 
 our Messiah comes ; then we shall compare 
 accounts. 
 
 During these thousand years, here and there 
 and now and then an adventurer would appear, 
 who would assume the role of a Messiah, gain 
 some renown in small circles, and then disappear. 
 In greater favor, however, were speculations as 
 to the time when the Messiah was to come ; 
 and all kinds of reckoning were indulged in.
 
 86 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 Some would count the letters of a Scriptural 
 passage, others would endeavor to find that 
 time by astrological calculations. Maimonides, 
 who at his time was a rationalist of the first 
 rank, the first philosopher after Aristotle who 
 re-admitted reason into religious speculations : 
 Maimonides, who at his time was as ferociously 
 attacked by the Orthodox wing of Judaism as 
 to-day he is enthusiastically quoted by the same 
 party as its champion : Maimonides, to whom we 
 owe the thirteen articles of creed, among which 
 we find a plank inserted in favor of Messianic 
 expectations, this very Maimonides warns 
 against giving such aspirations a practical turn. 
 In a circular letter to the congregations of Yemen 
 he proves to them that whenever these hopes 
 had ceased to be hopes and attempts had been 
 made to realize them, such attempts had always 
 been followed by evil consequences. 
 
 As I do not intend to give the history of the 
 Jews during this millennium, I shall with these 
 few remarks dismiss that subject and turn to 
 the topic which I have chosen for discussion, 
 namely, " The Spanish Inquisition " ; without 
 which my next lecture, on Solomon Molcho, 
 would be incomprehensible. 
 
 The Inquisition in general, and the Spanish 
 Inquisition in particular, is, as all fair-minded 
 people concede, an indelible stain on the history 
 of the Christian church. No matter how many
 
 The Spanish Inquisition. 87 
 
 nohle principles the church ever championed, 
 the terror of the Inquisition forces them all 
 into the background ; no matter how radiant the 
 halo is which encircles the brow of its saints, 
 the names of Innocent III., Fernando Martinez, 
 Torquemada, Ferdinand "and Isabella, hang over 
 it as a darkling cloud. The Inquisition has left 
 its autograph upon the pages of history in such 
 traces of blood that all the waters of the ocean 
 cannot wash them away. For two hundred 
 years and more hecatombs of human beings 
 were sacrificed almost daily "ad majorem Dei 
 gloriam," unto the greater glory of God. For 
 two hundred years and more the smoke which 
 arose from innumerable pyres upon which 
 human beings were burned alive darkened the 
 sky. For two hundred years and more human 
 beings were systematically tortured and killed, 
 for no other reason but that they differed in 
 opinion with their oppressors. We can hardly 
 understand to-day how humanity could have for- 
 gotten itself to such a degree ; it is well nigh 
 impossible for us to understand to-day how the 
 church, which had proclaimed itself the cham- 
 pion of brotherly love, which had promised to 
 extend love even to an enemy, could have so 
 utterly failed in the execution of its principles, 
 just when it stood at the zenith of its power. It 
 is, therefore, worth while to look into the causes 
 from which this phenomenal institution sprang.
 
 88 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 It may appear quite a paradox to say that 
 " Love " was the first cause for all the cruelties 
 of the Inquisition. But let us be just and fair, 
 no matter how much we have been the suffer- 
 ers. Love was its first cause. During the 
 twelve hundred years of its existence Christian- 
 ity had developed in a manner which its inno- 
 cent founders had never anticipated. Not to 
 speak of the establishment of the trinitarian 
 doctrine, of the changing of the Sabbath day 
 from the seventh to the first day of the week, 
 or of the introduction of saint and relic worship, 
 the dogma of eternal happiness and eternal 
 punishment, or, to call it by its right name, 
 the dogma of heaven and hell, had been worked 
 out in the most fantastic manner. The tortures 
 and flames of purgatory were depicted in such 
 terrifying colors that the stoutest heart trem- 
 bled at the mere thought of them. The church 
 maintained that man was conceived in sin ; that 
 therefore he was sentenced even before his 
 birth to an everlasting abode in these infernal 
 spheres ; that the belief in the Saviour alone 
 could snatch him from purgatory ; and that the 
 few drops of the baptismal water alone had the 
 secret power to save him from the eternal fire. 
 The rational thinker of to-day wonders that 
 nobody at that time ever questioned how eter- 
 nal punishment could be reconciled with the 
 justice of God ; but, it is a fact, nobody was
 
 The Spanish Inquisition. 89 
 
 ever struck by that idea, and for a long time 
 even the absurd question was under earnest 
 discussion, whether the souls of still-born chil- 
 dren were to burn eternally or not. How firmly 
 rooted these queer notions were, is to be seen 
 from the fact that even Protestantism could not 
 entirely part with them ; that Luther threw his 
 inkstand at the devil who appeared to him ; and 
 that even in this country witches were tried, 
 sentenced, and burned. Even to-day only a 
 small minority of our Christian friends, the Uni- 
 versalists and Unitarians alone, have practically 
 denounced the dogma of eternal punishment. 
 
 These premises granted, it was indeed an act 
 of "Love " to save a person from eternal damna- 
 tion, even against his will, and by means no 
 matter how disagreeable to him. The argu- 
 ment of the church basing itself upon this 
 hypothesis was as sound as the hypothesis was 
 absurd. The church would argue thus: The 
 surgeon will inflict upon his patient momentary 
 pain in order to save him from death ; thus it 
 is better to bring the momentary pain of the 
 torture or the pyre upon a heretic than to allow 
 him to pass into the eternal flames of purgatory, 
 from which God himself could not then save 
 him; or, as you will use the whip to drive 
 cattle from a burning stable in spite of their 
 struggles, thus the blind heretic, who does not 
 see the flames which are awaiting him for all
 
 90 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 eternity, must be driven by force into the folds 
 of the soul-saving church. 
 
 This motive of love may have actuated some 
 of the inquisitors ; and, in order to be fair, let 
 us say many of them ; for this motive is the 
 only excuse for the horrifying cruelties com- 
 mitted. But so much is sure ; it did not actuate 
 all of them. 
 
 The second motive was " Fear." The church, 
 which had built its structure upon imaginary 
 props became timid when reason began to ex- 
 amine the foundation. So far it had dealt with 
 barbarians, who were unaccustomed to rea'son. 
 The Marionite monks had clubbed Greek phi- 
 losophers to death ; but they could not as easily 
 kill reason. The spirit of scepticism with 
 which an all-wise Creator has endowed man, 
 the most beloved of all his creatures, began to 
 move ; and these motions were felt : they shook 
 the foundation of the church. The Inquisition 
 all over Christendom and also in Spain was not 
 directed against Jews as such : it was directed 
 against Christian heretics and against that ele- 
 ment which, formerly Jewish, had turned Chris- 
 tian from compulsion and had now become the 
 most troublesome and dangerous enemy from 
 within. The church attempted to stamp out 
 all rationalism. There was to be only one head 
 and one will all over the world ; namely, that of 
 an infallible Pope, who could not err, and to
 
 The Spanish Inquisition. 91 
 
 whose decrees all humanity was to submit with- 
 out giving them a single thought. But the 
 spectre of Protestantism already haunted the 
 chambers of the Vatican, and the Inquisition 
 was resorted to in self-defence. 
 
 The Inquisition in Spain had still a third 
 cause. In the beginning of the eighth century, 
 the Mohammedans had entered Spain from the 
 south and conquered it. The Christians had 
 been driven to the northern part of the penin- 
 sula or to France, whence they kept up a con- 
 stant warfare with the intruders. Though the 
 Mohammedans had firmly established them- 
 selves on Spanish soil, and had civilized that 
 country to a high degree, their days were num- 
 bered. Step by step the warlike Christians 
 regained the lost ground. One castle after an- 
 other, one city after another, was reconquered. 
 The Jews, who had been tolerably treated by 
 the Mohammedans, had arisen to a high degree 
 of culture, and formed a large part of the popu- 
 lation. They owned real estate and factories, 
 carried on a large commerce, and rivalled even 
 in chivalry their fellow-citizens, of both Chris- 
 tian and Mohammedan descent. While, how- 
 ever, the Moors could withdraw from before the 
 pressure of the Christians to Africa or Asia, 
 where their co-religionists were in power, the 
 Jews had to remain ; and their high intelli- 
 gence, and still more their wealth, were looked
 
 92 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 at with envy by the poor and rude victors. 
 They wanted their money, their houses, their 
 fields, their factories. 
 
 The father of the Inquisition was Pope 
 Innocent III., who ascended the papal see in 
 1198. He suggested a court before which all 
 heretics, that is, all who differed from him, 
 should be tried. But though at the same time 
 he persecuted the Jews, who had become a 
 living protest against the paganization of Chris- 
 tianity, the Inquisition as such had not yet 
 occasion to deal with them. Its activity against 
 Jews dates from a later period. 
 
 Ferdinand Martinez, a fanatic monk, was 
 travelling through Spain on a missionary tour, 
 preaching against all infidels in general, and 
 against the Jews in particular. On the I5th of 
 March, 1391, he preached in the market-place 
 of Seville and inflamed the mob to a riot against 
 the Jews, which, though stopped for the time 
 by the government, was soon repeated. The 
 Jewish quarters were stormed on the 6th of 
 June in the same year ; almost thirty thousand 
 Jews were killed, and their dwellings sacked. 
 Three thousand families saved their lives by 
 submitting to baptism. The example of Seville 
 infected all Spain ; and riots occurred in every 
 city, all with the same result. A part of the 
 Jews were slaughtered ; a few, after having 
 escaped with their bare lives, eked out a miser-
 
 The Spanish Inquisition, 93 
 
 able subsistence in obscure villages : the larger 
 part turned Christians. Who could blame 
 them if under such conditions they succumbed 
 to the pressure of temptation ? On the one 
 side, death or the misery of the outcast for 
 themselves and their children, on the other a 
 life of respectability and affluence. All that 
 was required of them- was to surfer the rite of 
 baptism, refrain from Jewish ceremonies and 
 customs, and adopt those of the church in their 
 stead. The Moors, who were not so scrupulous 
 in regard to apostasy, gave an inviting example, 
 and before long all Spain was full of Jewish 
 and Moorish converts. A few more years 
 and these converts had gained back by their 
 intelligence, industry, temperance, and en- 
 terprise, what the mob had taken away from 
 them. They soon formed the aristocracy, 
 filled the highest offices in state and church ; 
 in a word, they soon became the rulers of 
 the country. 
 
 It may be easy to accustom one's self to the 
 thoughtless performance of some meaningless 
 ceremony ; but it is not as easy for one accus- 
 tomed to reason to submit conscientiously to a 
 creed inferior to his former one. A man may 
 deceive others ; but he can never belie himself. 
 There was never a Jew at that time converted 
 to Christianity who conscientiously believed in 
 the doctrines of his adopted religion. They
 
 94 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 were all hypocrites, who had changed their creed 
 for earthly considerations merely. They could 
 not have been conscientious ; for, although 
 many may differ from me, I still maintain that 
 Judaism is built upon reason, and not upon 
 belief. The Jew is a born reasoner ; he is a 
 rationalist by his very nature ; he is scepticism 
 personified. The Spanish converts soon proved 
 to be the most dangerous acquisition the church 
 could ever have made. Although they went 
 to mass and practised all the rites which their 
 new religion prescribed, they did not believe 
 in its doctrines : they ridiculed them as absurd ; 
 and infected with their sarcastic doubts their 
 credulous friends. A riot once arose against 
 them from an insignificant cause, which never- 
 theless illustrates vividly the condition of affairs 
 at that time. There had been a drought in a 
 Spanish district, and a famine was feared. A 
 pious fraud produced some relic in which a 
 light could be observed ; and processions were 
 formed to that shrine in order to ask the 
 mediation of the saints for rain. While the 
 credulous and superstitious populace bowed 
 reverently before the miraculous relic, a pseudo- 
 Christian sarcastically remarked that water 
 would be better appreciated than the fire which 
 the relic contained. He and his friends were 
 mobbed. 
 
 The pseudo-Christians furthermore found a
 
 The Spanish Inquisition. 95 
 
 certain charm in secretly observing the rites of 
 Judaism. Secrecy always spreads a charm over 
 the most insignificant matter. The boy who at 
 his thirteenth year was secretly taken by his 
 father to some obscure cave, and after giving 
 several passwords was introduced to a congre- 
 gation of pseudo-Christians and had to take a 
 fearful oath that he would never betray them, 
 must have been highly impressed with the 
 unwonted ceremonies which he was invited to 
 perform. The fringed cloak, the phylacteries 
 which were given to him as a sacred trust, 
 appeared to him the very essentials of Judaism, 
 with which he now became much more infat- 
 uated than if all this secrecy had not been 
 necessary. Associating with one another by 
 means of their secret meetings, they naturally 
 intermarried amongst themselves ; and thus 
 not even their race was obliterated. Their 
 high intellectual abilities and the ambition 
 which has always been a quality of the Jewish 
 character installed them in the highest offices 
 even of the church. There were bishops 
 amongst them who would read mass in the 
 morning, and, after having withdrawn to their 
 closet, wrap themselves in their Tallis and 
 most fervently read the Sh'ma. On account of 
 their position and their wealth they were 
 distrusted and hated by the population. They 
 were called Marranos.
 
 96 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 The mystery which surrounds this word has 
 not yet been solved ; but its general meaning 
 was the accursed ones. With their former 
 brethren the Marranos lived in some sort of 
 friendship. They supplied them with teachers, 
 and kept them in constant communion with 
 Judaism. 
 
 The Inquisition found therefore in Spain a 
 larger field than anywhere else. In other 
 countries only now and then an incautious 
 heretic would venture to raise his voice ; but 
 in Spain half the population were heretics. 
 And heresy was to be stamped out at what- 
 ever cost. Whosoever was suspected of being a 
 secret adherent of Judaism was brought before 
 the inquisitory tribunal. The torture made the 
 victim not only confess his own guilt but 
 also the names of his co-religionists. Who- 
 soever was convicted of heresy was robbed of 
 his possessions, part of which went into the 
 King's treasury, another into the coffers of the 
 Inquisition, a third to the spy and traitor. If 
 a victim of the Inquisition denied his guilt, he 
 was tortured to death : if he confessed, he was 
 delivered to the flames. 
 
 During the rule of Ferdinand and Isabella, 
 the royal pair under whose government and for 
 whose benefit America was discovered, an edict 
 was issued which exiled every non-Christian,
 
 The Spanish Inquisition. 97 
 
 be he Jew or Mohammedan, from Spanish soil. 
 Torquemada, the head of the Inquisition, is 
 said to have wrung the consent to this edict 
 from the timid king. An anecdote, for the 
 truth of which I disclaim responsibility, but 
 which appears not improbable, relates that 
 while the edict was under discussion, Abrabanel, 
 a wealthy and philanthropic Jew, had offered 
 his whole enormous fortune to the king, whose 
 greed for gold was well known, if he would 
 refuse to issue the edict. The king seemed 
 favorably impressed with the offer, and hesi- 
 tated to sign the document. Torquemada at 
 this critical moment, when the life and happi- 
 ness of a hundred thousand human beings was 
 trembling in the balance, forced his way into 
 the king's cabinet. He held a crucifix in his 
 hand, and addressed the king, in an angry tone, 
 in the following words : "Jesus was sold once 
 by Iscariot : now go and sell him again." The 
 bigoted king could not withstand such a 
 pressure ; he yielded, and signed the edict. 
 
 The misery which followed defies description. 
 Imagine a hundred thousand households broken 
 up, their members deprived of all means of 
 making a living, no country in the world ready 
 to receive them, means of transportation scarce ; 
 while on the other hand it was not considered 
 sinful, but rather an act of piety, to rob, mur-
 
 98 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 der, or sell into slavery the weary wanderers. 
 Torquemada however, who thought to crush 
 the Marranos with this blow, also was mistaken. 
 Thousands of Spanish Jews perished at that 
 time ; thousands of others succeeded in reach- 
 ing other countries ; but the majority remained. 
 They embraced Christianity, and swelled the 
 ranks of the Marranos. How they must have 
 loved their new religion can easily be imagined. 
 The Jews having been removed, the Spanish 
 Inquisition had now to deal with the Marranos 
 only. The task was not an easy one, and the 
 battle was fought with skill and fanaticism on 
 both sides. Nor were the Marranos permitted 
 to convert their property into money and leave 
 the country. The very suspicion that one in- 
 tended to depart was sufficient to indict him, 
 rob him of his property, and sentence him to 
 grace the next auto-da-fe" with his presence. 
 The papal court grew rich from bribes which 
 both the Inquisition and the representatives of 
 the Marranos offered to prevent edicts in their 
 favor or disfavor. 
 
 This persecution was continued during more 
 than two hundred years, until the last of the 
 Marranos had either died in the dungeons of 
 the Inquisition, or expired on the pyre, or made 
 good his escape. And what was gained by this 
 persecution ? Reason was not suppressed ; the
 
 The Spanish Inquisition, 99 
 
 very Marranos were the secret promoters of the 
 religious revolution which was soon to take 
 place. After many a defeat, Protestantism 
 gained the victory. It had come to stay. But 
 Spain, rich in itself, and still enriched by 
 the rain of gold which America showered upon 
 it, grew poorer every day. Her population 
 grew up in ignorance and bigotry, and never 
 learned how to use money properly. Her best, 
 her most intelligent and enterprising citizens, 
 had been driven away ; and she degenerated to 
 her present condition. The Jews and the Mar- 
 ranos exiled from Spain aided the rise of Eng- 
 land and the Netherlands. In the same degree 
 that Spanish cities declined, the cities of Hol- 
 land and England grew in wealth and prosper- 
 ity. The policy of the Inquisition had been a 
 suicidal one. 
 
 The miseries through which our ancestors 
 had to pass during these two centuries in that 
 country made them naturally look for aid from 
 without ; and Messianic expectations became 
 again the order of the day. Any adventurer 
 who would have assumed the r61e of a Messiah 
 would have found a willing ear, support, and fol- 
 lowers, at that time. 
 
 Two men, on occasions working together, at 
 other times acting independently of each other, 
 produced the greatest sensation at that period,
 
 ioo Messianic Expectations. 
 
 and caused quite a stir among both Jews and 
 Gentiles. It has not yet been decided whether 
 David Rubeni and Solomon Molcho were ad- 
 venturers, impostors, or deluded partisans ; but 
 their history is so marvellous, so romantic, so 
 fascinating, and at the same time so unknown to 
 the public, that I shall, in my next lecture, give 
 a short sketch of it.
 
 VII. 
 DAVID RUBENI AND SOLOMON MOLCHO. 
 
 JSCOVERIES and inventions are of such 
 frequent occurrence in our days that noth- 
 ing less than the discovery of a road con- 
 necting the earth with the moon would startle 
 us; and even then we should easily overcome 
 the surprise and naively ask, "What next?" 
 Whenever we are informed by the press of a 
 new invention or discovery, no matter how far- 
 reaching in its consequences, we take such news 
 as a matter of course : as something that we 
 had a right to expect of the inventor or discov- 
 erer. 
 
 Such indifference may appear abnormal and 
 discouraging ; but it keeps us cool and level- 
 headed. If the reported discovery or invention 
 does not rest upon a solid foundation of proba- 
 bility, we dismiss it at once as a fabrication, and 
 give it no further attention. Imagination has 
 become subordinate to reason in our days. 
 
 A few hundred years ago such indifference 
 did not prevail, and every new discovery 
 addressed itself rather to human imagination
 
 IO2 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 than to human reason. The discovery of 
 America by Christopher Columbus set the 
 world almost wild with astonishment and sur- 
 prise. Not alone that a new continent was 
 added to the world, not alone that all the 
 former theories as to the shape of the earth 
 were at once annihilated : the newly discovered 
 country, with its strange plants, strange animals, 
 and still stranger human population, showered 
 at once such a rain of wealth upon Spain, the 
 happy land which had been instrumental in its 
 discovery, that the imagination of all Europeans 
 became heated to the highest possible degree, 
 and the most fabulous narratives of travellers 
 found eager listeners and enthusiastic believers. 
 Nothing seemed impossible after such a discov- 
 ery. The city fathers of Genoa and the princes 
 of Portugal now blamed themselves for not hav- 
 ing listened to the plans of Columbus ; and 
 they, as well as the rest of the European princes, 
 were ready to invest in the most adventurous 
 schemes, simply because they were afraid of 
 losing another chance, and because the most in- 
 credible stories now seemed probable. 
 
 The interior of Africa, though much better 
 known to-day than ever before, is still shrouded 
 in mystery ; and the exploits of the late Mahdi, 
 the siege and capture of Khartoum, the failure 
 of England to liberate the heroic Gordon, and 
 what is of still greater weight, the uncertainty
 
 David Rubeni and Solomon Molcho. 103 
 
 as to the final fate of the general, are proofs 
 that we have still to learn a great deal about 
 these far-off regions. Five hundred years ago 
 these countries were still less known to the 
 Europeans. 
 
 In the year 1524 a man arrived at Venice via 
 Palestine and Egypt, who claimed to have come 
 from the interior of Africa. He gave his name 
 as David Rubeni ; he said that he was the 
 brother of Joseph, a Jewish prince who ruled 
 over a large kingdom, the inhabitants of which 
 were no others than the descendants of the 
 tribes Reuben, Gad, and Manasse. Joseph, as 
 well as he himself, according to his genealogy, 
 was descended in a direct line from King David. 
 He was in possession of credentials of the Jewish 
 government and of letters of recommendation 
 of Portuguese residents : he also carried a silk 
 flag upon which the ten commandments were 
 embroidered, and he spoke no other language 
 than a corrupt Hebrew, which the European 
 Jews could hardly understand. He said that 
 he was charged with a message to Pope Clem- 
 ent VII., who had ascended the papal chair in 
 1523. Although he himself did not say much 
 about his errand, his attendant gave the secret 
 away, that King Joseph, David's brother, had 
 an army of three hundred thousand well-drilled 
 soldiers in readiness to fall upon the Turks and 
 to reconquer Palestine ; but that he was in need
 
 IO4 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 of fire-arms and ammunition ; and that therefore 
 he had sent his brother to ask them of the Pope 
 or of any other prince who should be willing to 
 invest in the enterprise. He furthermore re- 
 ported that gold and diamonds were in his 
 country of no value whatever, as the precious 
 metal and the costly gems were so common 
 there that people would not pick them up, and 
 children only played with them. David pre- 
 tended never to have studied any Jewish book, 
 but claimed to be a soldier by profession. He 
 bragged that he had killed with his own hand 
 forty men in one single encounter. The good 
 people of Venice listened eagerly to these re- 
 ports, and never doubted a word. David was 
 a homely looking fellow, of small stature and 
 swarthy complexion. He was no orator what- 
 soever, but must have possessed a peculiar qual- 
 ity of brazen-faced presumption. At Venice he 
 shrewdly avoided his co-religionists and re- 
 mained in the house of the sea-captain who had 
 brought him from Alexandria. His attendant, 
 however, drew attention upon him ; people 
 called at his residence and considered it a great 
 honor to be admitted into his presence and to 
 aid his enterprise with money. A rich Venetian 
 Hebrew, Mazliach or Felix by name, received 
 from him the honorable distinction of v acting 
 for him in the capacity of a banker ; that is, to 
 discount the notes which he drew on his brother
 
 David Rubeni and Solomon Molcho. 105 
 
 Joseph. After a short rest, David proceeded to 
 Rome. Riding a snow-white horse, and accom- 
 panied by his attendant and an interpreter, he 
 appeared at the gates of the Vatican, and to the 
 surprise of all was immediately admitted to an 
 audience before the Cardinal Giulio. A few days 
 later the Pope himself received him, and accepted 
 his credentials. These papers were sent to the 
 court of Portugal for examination, and were 
 promptly returned from there as genuine docu- 
 ments. The Pope thereupon treated David 
 with the honors and courtesies due to an 
 ambassador, and consulted him almost daily in 
 private conferences. 
 
 Pope Clement VII. was one of the best popes 
 who ever graced the papal throne ; but he was 
 also one of the most unfortunate. He lived at 
 a time when all Europe was in a state of chaotic 
 disorder. The Reformation, which had begun 
 with Luther, had spread all over Europe and 
 had found a stronghold in Germany. The Ger- 
 man Emperor, Charles V., being at the same 
 time King of Spain and ruler over the newly 
 discovered America a prince in whose realms, 
 as the saying was, the sun would never set 
 wished to humble Italy and to press it down to 
 a secondary position in the council of nations. 
 This made the position of the Pope difficult. If 
 he should oppose the Emperor's secular policy, 
 Charles was likely to encourage Protestantism
 
 io6 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 in retaliation for the papal resistance ; if, on the 
 other hand, Clement should win over the Em- 
 peror to his plans in regard to the suppression 
 of heresy, he would be obliged to make conces- 
 sions at the expense of the Italian prestige. 
 Nothing short of a crusade against the Turk ... 
 could help the Pope out of his dilemma. At a 
 time when the most impossible seemed to be 
 possible, when anything was believed, David's 
 story was not at all discredited by the Pope ; for 
 there was an opportunity for him which he could 
 not afford to lose. An army of three hundred 
 thousand soldiers ready to be sent against the 
 Turks was the very thing he needed. 
 
 Palestine granted to the Jews, there remained 
 the rest of the vast territory of the Mohammed- 
 ans to be divided, for which purpose a crusade 
 could easily be preached. The Pope, placing 
 himself at the head of the undertaking, would 
 regain the lost prestige of the Roman church, 
 Protestantism would be forgotten amidst the 
 din of arms, and the ambition of the Emperor 
 would naturally be turned away from Italy into 
 other channels. All these advantages could be 
 obtained for a few guns, a few barrels of gun- 
 powder, and a little toleration shown to the 
 Jews. 
 
 If the Pope, the head of Christendom, thus 
 treated a Jew, what could be expected of the 
 Jews but that they should become frantic with
 
 David Rubeni and Solomon Molcho. 107 
 
 joy ? The greater the misery which they had 
 lately suffered in Spain, and which the Mar- 
 ranos were still suffering there and in Portugal, 
 the more did they cling to the hope of restora- 
 tion held out to them, as it appears, by a 
 shrewd adventurer. This again shows that 
 the Messianic expectations of our ancestors 
 were of a political and not of a religious nature. 
 The idea that the Messiah was to remove the 
 sins of the world is a Christian invention, and 
 the most believing of the Jews never believed 
 in that doctrine. Their Mashiach was expected 
 to be a king, who should restore their political 
 independence, and nothing else. Just at the 
 time when their misery seemed unbearable, 
 when their existence was threatened with total 
 extinction, they received the welcome news 
 that there existed a Jewish king, a descendant 
 of David ; that this king commanded a large 
 army ; that he was immensely rich ; that he 
 was ready to assert his influence in their be- 
 half ; and that he was about to reconquer Jeru- 
 salem and to re-establish a Jewish kingdom. 
 No matter whether the report was true or not, 
 whether they were the dupes of an adventurer 
 or not, such were exactly the hopes which they 
 held in regard to a Messiah. And, after all, as 
 long as the Pope believed in the man and 
 treated him with courtesy never shown a Jew 
 before, why should they not believe in him?
 
 io8 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 Under the given conditions they were justi- 
 fied in expecting some grain of truth in his 
 statement, even if the bulk of his stories should 
 be fictitious. They crowded around Rubeni, 
 and supplied him with all the money he wanted. 
 David played his part in a masterly manner : 
 he kept the crowd at a respectful distance from 
 his person, showed no signs of greed for money, 
 and made such an impression upon the giver 
 that he considered himself happy when his 
 donation was accepted by David. 
 
 No practical results, however, were reached 
 by all the secret sessions which he held with 
 the Pope ; and the latter allowed him to depart, 
 when a letter of invitation arrived from the 
 court of Portugal for him. 
 
 Joao III., of Portugal, a king who ruined his 
 country by his greed and stupidity, who knew 
 of no higher policy than to fill his purse, no 
 matter at whose expense, wished to introduce 
 the Inquisition into his domain, for no other 
 reason but that it was a well-paying institution. 
 Portugal was then as full of Marranos as was 
 the neighboring Spain ; and Joao looked with 
 envy across the boundary lines at the harvest 
 which the Inquisition yielded there. The Pope, 
 however, notwithstanding his urgent demands, 
 was not ready to give the necessary permit. 
 While the Portuguese court and the Vatican 
 were in communication, and both the court and
 
 David Rubeni and Solomon Molcho. 109 
 
 the Marranos tried their utmost to get the 
 Pope on their side, Joao had heard of the ap- 
 pearance of Rubeni and of his errand. He 
 changed his policy at once, and invited him to 
 Lisbon, with the view of making a treaty with 
 him. Rubeni, who apparently must have been 
 very liberal in his promises, received from the 
 king the assurance of his aid. Five vessels 
 loaded with guns and ammunition were to be 
 given to him in consideration of an amount 
 of money and commercial advantages specified 
 in a secret clause. During the time in which 
 this important business was transacted, David 
 was treated by the king like a prince ; and 
 all the edicts against the Marranos were can- 
 celled. 
 
 This unfortunate class of people, living in 
 constant danger of losing life and property, 
 tormented by the pangs of conscience, sur- 
 rounded by bigotry, fanaticism, and superstition, 
 had finally lost all self-control. A great many 
 of them had become mentally so deranged that 
 they would believe in the most absurd notions. 
 When Rubeni appeared at the court and was 
 received with such high distinction, thousands 
 of Spanish Marranos escaped to Portugal ; and 
 they all hailed him as the Messiah who would 
 save them from their unnatural position, and 
 restore both the Jewish nation and religion. 
 All eyes were directed longingly at him, in the
 
 1 10 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 expectation of the wonderful events which were 
 to happen. 
 
 A young man of noble family of the class 
 of the Marranos, a youth of rare beauty, of 
 poetical genius, and of a commanding power 
 of speech, became so highly impressed with the 
 appearance of Rubeni, and the hopes con- 
 nected with him, that he made himself unknow- 
 ingly a tool in the hands of the adventurer. 
 Diego Pirez, born in the year 1501, was about 
 twenty-four years of age when Rubeni arrived 
 in Portugal. Born among the Marranos, he 
 had received an excellent education. He spoke 
 several languages fluently, and was not ignorant 
 in Hebrew literature. He held the office of a 
 clerk at the royal court of justice, and stood in 
 great favor with the government. Nothing else 
 was known of him before ; but no sooner did 
 Rubeni appear than Diego Pirez had all kinds 
 of dreams and visions in regard to the advent 
 of a Messiah and the future of the Marranos. 
 He approached the adventurer in order to find 
 out directly of him whether his plans would 
 correspond with his visions. Rubeni, as usual, 
 remained cold, and did not betray his plans. 
 Pirez thought he should win his confidence by 
 his open return to Judaism ; an act which was 
 punishable with death. He performed the 
 Abrahamitic rite on himself ; and the loss of 
 blood which followed caused a dangerous fever,
 
 David Rubeni and Solomon MolcJw. 1 1 1 
 
 during which Pirez had again frightful visions, 
 all relating to the appearance of a Messiah who 
 was to save the Marranos. He even thought 
 he heard the voice of an angel, who appointed 
 him for that mission. . From that time he 
 changed his name, and called himself Solomon 
 Molcho, which is about the same as King Solo- 
 mon. Having thrown aside the mask of Chris- 
 tianity, he could no longer remain at home. 
 He escaped and fled to Palestine. The young 
 enthusiastic Marrano who had had the courage 
 to return openly to Judaism created quite a stir 
 in the Orient. He gave himself out at first 
 as an ambassador of David Rubeni, but later 
 as the Messiah himself ; and his dreams in 
 which he foresaw his early death, and that he 
 should be sacrificed as a burnt offering to God, 
 were the constant themes of his lectures, which 
 were listened to by thousands of. people, and 
 afterwards (in 1529) printed in Salonica. The 
 substance of his addresses was always the same, 
 namely, that at the end of the year 5300 of the 
 world, or 1540 of the new era, the Messiah 
 would appear ; that Rome would be destroyed, 
 and Jerusalem rebuilt. His fame spread, and 
 all kinds of fantastic hopes were connected with 
 his name. 
 
 In the meantime, King Joao III. again 
 changed his policy. Without giving any cause, 
 he notified Rubeni to quit Portugal within two
 
 112 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 months, and began to urge the papal court to 
 establish an inquisitory tribunal in his king- 
 dom against the Marranos. Clement hesitated. 
 He could not arrive at conclusions, partly 
 because he abhorred the crimes committed 
 by the Inquisition, and partly because the sus- 
 pense was valuable to him, as both parties 
 appearing before him did not come with empty 
 hands. 
 
 About this time, Solomon Molcho arrived in 
 Ancona with the intention of going to Rome to 
 convert the Pope to Judaism, even at the risk of 
 his life. In Rome he secluded himself for 
 thirty days, fasting and praying, and again had 
 visions. He foresaw that a great flood would 
 submerge Rome, and that Lisbon would be 
 destroyed by an earthquake. Of these visions 
 he spoke in the synagogues of Rome every Sab- 
 bath ; and it seems that the Pope himself began 
 to believe in him. The fact remains that Clem- 
 ent VII. not only received him frequently in 
 audience, but protected him against his enemies. 
 The flood which he had predicted and the earth- 
 quake of Lisbon occurred in fact ; and the Pope 
 no longer doubted his divine mission. It is 
 said that once the Pope saved Molcho's life, 
 when the Inquisition had taken hold of him and 
 had sentenced him to be burnt in public, by 
 substituting another criminal for him, and 
 secretly aiding him in his escape.
 
 David Rubeni and Solomon Molcho. 1 1 3 
 
 In 1531, we find Molcho in Venice again in 
 company with Rubeni, who dealt with the city 
 council as he had formerly dealt with the Pope 
 and King Joao III. All of a sudden both men 
 conceived the adventurous idea of travelling to 
 Regensburg, where the Emperor had called a 
 diet, in order to convert him to Judaism. 
 Charles granted them a few audiences, but soon 
 imprisoned them and took them to Mantua, 
 where both were tried on charges of heresy 
 brought against them. Diego Pirez was sen. 
 tenced to death upon the pyre. At the last 
 moment a messenger sent by the Emperor 
 offered him his life if he would repent and 
 return to the church. Molcho answered that 
 he was pleased to offer his life to God as a 
 martyr ; that he repented one act only ; namely, 
 to have believed in his own Messiahship. He 
 died without a murmur. Rubeni, who could 
 not be sentenced as a heretic, was taken to 
 Spain, and died in the dungeons of the Inquisi- 
 tion, after the torture had made him confess the 
 names of a number of Marranos,' who were 
 burned in consequence. The hopes, however, 
 which had been linked to his name and that of 
 Solomon Molcho did not die out for some time. 
 Not before the year 1540 had passed away with- 
 out a Messiah making his appearance were these 
 hopes relinquished. 
 
 Although only a comparatively short time has
 
 H4 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 elapsed since: although the art of printing must 
 have facilitated the establishment of facts : 
 although the printed sermons of Solomon 
 Molcho and a diary of Rubeni are still extant, 
 the queer career and still queerer actions of 
 these two adventurers are still clouded in mys- 
 tery. Their connections with the Pope, with 
 the King of Portugal, with the patricians o* 
 Venice, with the Emperor of Germany, are his- 
 torical facts ; and still nothing definite is known 
 about their transactions with these influential 
 persons. Their history, fabulous and romantic 
 as it may appear, contains, however, a few 
 points which bear unmistakable evidence to 
 the correctness of the propositions which my 
 lectures on Messianic expectations are to ad- 
 vocate. 
 
 First, The Jewish conception of a Messiah, 
 as long as such hopes were indulged in, has 
 always been the same ; namely, that of a man 
 who would restore the national existence. The 
 theories of hereditary sin, of eternal damnation, 
 of redemption through the Messiah, have always 
 been rejected as absurd by the Jews, even at 
 the time of the Inquisition, when the wildest 
 confusion of ideas was prevalent on account of 
 the Marranos, who had inhaled the doctrines of 
 both Christianity and Judaism. 
 
 Second, Messianic expectations, at the time 
 of Rubeni and Molcho, show already the traces
 
 David Rubeni and Solomon MolcJio. \ 1 5 
 
 / 
 of old age. They had already lost their strength 
 
 and their fervor. Hopes were indulged in, but 
 no practical steps were taken to realize them. 
 These hopes, even, would have vanished had 
 they not been kept alive by the persecution 
 from which our ancestors were suffering at the 
 time. If Messianic expectations had not been 
 on the decline, they would have borne better 
 fruit at that peculiar historical period than the 
 fantastic exploits of Rubeni and Molcho. The 
 whole excitement did not last longer than about 
 eight years, and was confined to Spain and Italy 
 only ; and, after all, it affected the Christians 
 more than the Jews. A pope, a king, and the 
 aristocracy of a renowned city seem to have 
 been the dupes of two Jewish adventurers, 
 while the Jews only lost a small sum of 
 money. 
 
 Third, It appears to me that the Messianic 
 character which was attributed to both men was 
 an invention of their friends, a blind to cover 
 the true inwardness of their mission. It seems 
 to me that they were nothing but the secret 
 agents of the Marranos to work at the courts of 
 Rome, Lisbon, and Regensburg in their favor ; 
 and that when both had lost their lives in their 
 dangerous mission, legend took hold of them, 
 and surrounded them with a wreath of marvel- 
 lous deeds. It seems that they worked con- 
 scientiously for their cause, and not for private
 
 1 1 6 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 gain. There is no trace to be found that they 
 lived extravagantly, or that they amassed 
 money. They drew their necessary expenses, 
 which were little ; and the rest of the money 
 intrusted to them was consumed in bribing the 
 corrupt courtiers whose influence was needed 
 and could not be obtained otherwise. 
 
 These points evidently prove that Messianic 
 expectations must have been the temporary 
 hope of a merely political character, which had 
 practically died out with the occasion which had 
 produced them ; namely, with the loss of the 
 Jewish nationality. They furthermore prove 
 that these expectations never took the form of 
 a doctrine, and never supported the structure of 
 Judaism. They were fanciful decorations on the 
 outside of the building, but were never essen- 
 tial to our religion. 
 
 Another cause which perpetuated their life 
 for some time was the Kabbalah, a disease 
 which was caused by the unhealthy atmosphere 
 in which Judaism was compelled to live, a cancer 
 which had slowly but steadily spread over its 
 whole body, and almost caused its death. At 
 the very time when all Europe shook off the 
 torpor of the Middle Ages, and began to inhale 
 the morning breeze of the new day, Judaism 
 was stretched on the sick-bed with that disease ; 
 and if we have not yet gained a more respected 
 position in the communities in which we live, it
 
 David Rubeni and Solomon Molcho. 117 
 
 is due to the delay in our advancement caused 
 by that sickness. 
 
 As the Kabbalah has also produced a would- 
 be Messiah, the last one of repute, I shall intro- 
 duce his history by a lecture on the Kabbalah, 
 its origin, growth, and evil consequences.
 
 VIII. 
 THE KABBALAH. 
 
 'HERE has never been an individual or a 
 nation which has been altogether original 
 in its thoughts or actions. We call the 
 productions of an author original in so far 
 as the same subject has never been treated 
 before with the same strength and in the same 
 words ; but if you enter upon a close scrutiny, 
 you will find that the greater part of them is 
 the reflex of ideas current at the time of the 
 writer, and that even the few for which origi- 
 nality is claimed are the product of a combina- 
 tion of inherited sentiment, study, and special 
 accidental impressions. The secret of the 
 success of an able writer and speaker is not 
 to be found in his originality, but in just the 
 opposite ; in that he gives expression to the 
 ideas of his readers or hearers. 
 
 We constantly give and take. No matter 
 how secluded a person lives, his thoughts 
 will be influenced by his surroundings : no 
 matter how deeply a nation is sunk in barbar- 
 ism, it cannot withstand the influence of civ- 
 118
 
 The Kabbalah. 119 
 
 ilization brought upon it by other nations 
 with which it happens to come in contact. 
 
 There is perhaps no nation on earth which has 
 come in contact with a greater number of 
 others, and has stood in a closer relation to 
 them, than the Jewish nation. It has mingled 
 with Egyptians and Phoenicians, with Assyrians, 
 Babylonians, and Persians, with the Greeks and 
 the Romans, and with all the modern nations. Its 
 record dates from the time when the Pyramids 
 were built, and can be traced through all ages 
 to this very day. It is therefore no wonder at 
 all that its originality was affected by its sur- 
 roundings, that it has worked into its system 
 the popular notions of all the peoples which I 
 have enumerated, and that it was influenced 
 by the current ideas and philosophies of 
 the different ages. It is an undeniable fact 
 that though we have given, we have also 
 received ; that though we have influenced 
 others, we have been influenced by them in turn. 
 It is a grave mistake on the part of our friends 
 to think that Judaism has remained intact and 
 unchanged from the time of its origin until 
 now, and that the Israelites of to-day hold the 
 same views as did their great-grandparents 
 two thousand years ago. A great many ideas, 
 good ones as well as bad ones, have found 
 their way into Judaism, which were by no 
 means essential to its spirit. After they had
 
 1 20 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 been absorbed, they hardened within its system, 
 and the historian of our days, who examines the 
 phenomenon, wonders now how such a strange 
 matter could have ever grown so deeply and 
 firmly into the living wood that it is almost 
 impossible to remove it without harming the 
 tree itself. 
 
 The religion of the Babylonians and that of 
 the Persians exerted their influence upon Juda- 
 ism, as well as the Egyptian cults, which stood 
 godfather at its cradle. By degrees the theo- 
 ries held by the Parsees of God and the world 
 crept into Judaism ; and the loom of time 
 worked them into the Jewish tissue. From 
 the time of the intercourse with these nations 
 we find that a belief in the existence of super- 
 natural beings, in angels of light and darkness, 
 springs up in our religion ; that it develops, 
 and that by the side of the commandment, 
 "Thou shalt not make any representation of any 
 being, be it in heaven or on earth," the most 
 fanciful descriptions of the heavenly regions are 
 indulged in. At the very time when the Baby- 
 lonian Talmud was near its completion, a 
 mystical book appeared, the Sefer Jezirah, the 
 book of Creation, in which not only the different 
 classes of angels are named and their daily 
 duties minutely recorded, but in which the 
 writer does not shrink from describing the 
 throne of God, and from capping the climax by
 
 The Kabbalah. 121 
 
 giving a measurement of his limbs. The length 
 of his beard, for instance, is given at ten thou- 
 sand five hundred Persian miles. Such notions 
 were surely not Jewish, but still they were held 
 by our ancestors. There is not one philosophi- 
 cal system known which has not left some 
 traces in the structure of Judaism ; and while 
 at times the rational system of Aristotle pre- 
 dominated, there were times when mysticism 
 ruled supreme. 
 
 Maimonides, the exponent of the twelfth cen- 
 tury, the greatest philosopher of his time, had 
 returned to the Aristotelian system, and at- 
 tempted to interpret the Bible in a rational 
 manner. He was the outspoken enemy of mys- 
 ticism ; he denied the existence of miracles, and 
 endeavored to explain the Mosaic laws and rites 
 from a scientific point of view. This rational- 
 ism created a storm of indignation in orthodox 
 circles, which broke forth with still greater vio- 
 lence after his death. It raged for two hundred 
 years, and became finally the cause of a reaction, 
 of a return to mysticism, and of the origin of the 
 Kabbalah. 
 
 The burning question of those days was. ex- 
 actly the same one which is debated to-day, 
 namely, the divine origin of the Bible. Starting 
 from the belief that God himself was its author, 
 the question arose how its discrepancies could 
 be accounted for. How could a divine author
 
 1 22 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 admit into his book passages like that of Lot 
 and his daughters, that of Judah and Thamar, 
 and others ? What was the use of a legislation 
 which in course of time had become imprac- 
 ticable ? There remained only two courses : 
 either to say that the Bible was the work of 
 human authorship, or to find a key by which it 
 could be read in a different way. Maimonides 
 would have chosen the first way, had he lived 
 longer. The second way seemed to most the 
 best ; and, as necessity is the mother of inven- 
 tion, the key was produced. A secret meaning 
 was attributed to every word of the Bible, which 
 could be obtained by changing the letters and 
 substituting such others for them as would rep- 
 resent the same numerical value. It must be 
 understood that every Hebrew letter represents 
 a number. The first ten letters of the alphabet 
 stand for the numbers from one to ten ; the 
 next ten stand for the tenths ; and so on. Each 
 word has, therefore, a numerical value. Sup- 
 posing, now, that the letters of a word would 
 give the number 120; the Kabbalist could sub- 
 stitute any other word for it, provided its letters 
 would also count up 120. This system opened 
 the door to an unbounded mysticism. The 
 rationalism of Maimonides was silenced at 
 once : the Bible now became, in the hands of a 
 clever Kabbalist, the proof of everything, no 
 matter how absurd ; and an entirely new reli-
 
 The Kabbalah. 123 
 
 gious system began building upon this hypoth- 
 esis. 
 
 The world, imperfect as it is, was said not to 
 have been created by God, the Perfect, the Infi- 
 nite, who was called in the language of the 
 Kabbalah the " En Sof ; " but that between this 
 world and the Supreme Being there were ten 
 circles, or " Sefiroth," of which God, the En 
 Sof, formed the centre. The substance of the 
 first circle which had emanated from God was 
 similar to him, but not exactly like him : the 
 second was the effusion of the first, similar, but 
 not like it : the third of the second, and so 
 on, each Sefirah growing farther from perfec- 
 tion. The visible world was the effusion of the 
 last circle ; and by means of these circles, which 
 were flowing into one another like the colors 
 of a rainbow, man stood in connection with 
 God, and God with man. The En Sof was 
 infinite ; but the Sefiroth were finite. The En 
 Sof had no bodily form ; but the Sefiroth had a 
 spiritual and bodily form, and through their 
 medium God could appear in a visible form, 
 and reveal himself to man. 
 
 The human soul was a citizen of this higher 
 world, and stood in direct connection with the 
 Sefiroth. It could, therefore, exert an influence 
 upon them, and through them upon the highest 
 divinity. A noble soul could force the En Sof 
 to send his blessings through the channels oi
 
 124 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 the Sefiroth upon this world; while a wicked 
 soul could hinder the divine activity. Good 
 actions would facilitate, ignoble actions inter- 
 rupt, the divine effusions. Every rite and every 
 ceremony was of mystical importance : they 
 were the instruments to influence the divinity. 
 The prescribed daily prayers were positively 
 effective provided they were directed to the 
 proper Sen rah. All prayers were to be ad- 
 dressed to them, and not directly to the En Sof. 
 The formula of the prayer was alone of impor- 
 tance, not its meaning and sense. By means of 
 the prayer the Kabbalist could work miracles. 
 
 All souls were said to have been created from 
 the beginning as the residents of the Sefiroth. 
 Every soul was preordained to a union with a 
 body, and for a life in this world. In this 
 earthly career it was to prove that in spite of its 
 union with a body, it could preserve its celestial 
 purity. If a soul was successful in this life, it 
 ascended forever into the higher spheres ; but 
 if it succumbed to earthly temptations, it had to 
 return again and again to this world until finally 
 it had passed its earthly life in perfect purity. 
 Most of the souls, however, were forgetful of 
 their heavenly origin ; and thus it happened 
 that most of the souls on earth were old ones 
 who had lived there before. New ones were 
 rarely sent to the world, because, as the number 
 of souls on earth was limited, no new soul could
 
 The Kabbalah. 125 
 
 be started until an old one had returned forever 
 to a higher sphere. The Kabbalist could tell 
 at sight whether a person was a new soul or an 
 old one. Not until all souls had passed their 
 earthly existence, and had returned to their 
 heavenly abode, would the end of days be 
 reached, when all souls and all the Sefiroth 
 would again be absorbed and drawn in by the 
 En Sof. The soul of the Messiah would be the 
 last one to appear ; and his advent could, there- 
 fore, be accelerated or retarded by the goodness 
 or depravity of mankind. In all these fanciful 
 doctrines we can easily discern, not only the 
 traces of Persian mysticism, of Buddhism, and 
 of Mohammedanism, but also the prevailing 
 Christian theories ; as, for instance, the power 
 of prayer when directed to a mediator who 
 stood between God and man, and the pos- 
 sibility of an incarnation by means of the 
 Sefiroth. All these doctrines were secretly 
 transmitted from teacher to pupil. A Rabbi 
 Isaac, called " the blind," Rabbi Asriel, and 
 Rabbi Jehuda ben Jakar, and Nachmanides, 
 the most inveterate antagonist of Maimonides, 
 are named as the first teachers of the new 
 science. 
 
 This science, however, could not at first gain 
 a firm foothold ; for it lacked authority. People 
 would ask, How do the Kabbalists know all 
 these things ? How do they know that their
 
 1 26 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 key is the right one ? But this deficiency also 
 was soon to be supplied. 
 
 Rabbi Mose ben Shem Tob de Leon, born at 
 Lyons in 1250, was a man of inventive genius. 
 He eked out a miserable life by copying books. 
 He was a spendthrift, and always pinched for 
 money, at the same time unscrupulous as to the 
 means of getting it. He had learned a little 
 of everything, but had never acquired thorough- 
 ness in any study. He had studied the Kabba- 
 lah too ; that is, the few doctrines which then 
 were taught. When he found that an appetite 
 for this study was springing up amongst his con- 
 temporaries, he wrote several treatises on that 
 subject. He failed, however, to win glory or 
 money from the literary productions which ap- 
 peared under his own name. The idea once 
 struck him that a Kabbalistic book which should 
 appear under the name of a recognized author- 
 ity might have a ready sale. As author for such 
 a book, he selected Simon ben Jochai, a rabbi 
 of great renown, who had lived in Palestine in 
 the second century, and of whose ascetic life a 
 number of legends had survived. He was said 
 to have lived for nineteen years as a hermit in u 
 cave, to have fasted six days in a week out of the 
 seven, and to have received direct revelations 
 from God. The teachings of this rabbi, if writ- 
 ten in the Chaldean language, the language of 
 the Talmud, would not be doubted. Mose de
 
 The Kabbalah. 127 
 
 Leon went to work, and one day he surprised 
 his friends with a copy from a manuscript which, 
 as he said, had been discovered by Nachmanides 
 in the grave of Simon ben Jochai. He had sent 
 it to his son, but a storm had carried it to 
 Spain, and from there into his (Mose's) posses- 
 sion. 
 
 The book was entitled the " Sohar," which 
 means splendor, and was divided into sev- 
 eral chapters, having no connection with one 
 another. It was filled with the most fantastic 
 and absurd narratives. Angels and devils, Par- 
 adise and Gehenna, played a prominent part 
 therein. The souls were traced through all 
 their wanderings ; and their mystic* relations to 
 the Sefiroth and the En Sof were considerably 
 dwelt upon. All this knowledge of the spirit- 
 ual world had been obtained by revelation. 
 Simon ben Jochai, the alleged author of the 
 book, had learned these secrets from God him- 
 self. God himself had instructed him how to 
 use the key to the Bible, and how to read it 
 correctly. By means of his ascetic life, he had 
 penetrated Sefirah after Sefirah, until he had 
 been in direct communication with the En Sof. 
 
 The Messiah was not ignored ; he was to 
 appear in the beginning of the fourteenth cen- 
 tury, and by this statement the clever counter- 
 feiter betrayed himself. He ceased to be the 
 anointed king who was to restore the political
 
 128 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 status quo ante ; and he became in the Sohar a 
 mystical being, the incarnation of the En Sof, 
 the exact image of the Messiah taught by Chris- 
 tianity. And still such theories were called 
 Jewish. The demand for the book increased ; 
 but Mose de Leon did not reap the fruits of his 
 labor. He died. The original manuscript was 
 now demanded by the influential men of that 
 time, but could not be found. Mose's widow 
 insisted upon it that her husband had written 
 the whole book himself. The Sohar became, 
 nevertheless, an authority. Its origin from 
 Simon ben Jochai was never questioned. 
 Soon the new revelation overgrew Talmud 
 and Bible, and the night of mysticism lulled 
 the Jews into a magnetic slumber. 
 
 We may well ask how it was possible that 
 the common sense for which the Israelites have 
 ever been noted could have become so thor- 
 oughly suppressed as to let them accept such 
 an aberration of the mind ; a book which bears 
 the traces of fraud right on its face. 
 
 Well, it is the most impossible which is gener- 
 ally sure to happen. Our imagination is quicker 
 reached than our reason. Mysticism always has 
 had a secret charm over mankind ; and even 
 to-day, in our enlightened age, there are thou- 
 sands who, in spite of all exposures, believe in 
 Spiritualism, in clairvoyance, and other mystic 
 absurdities. At that time there were added
 
 The Kabbalah. 129 
 
 some other reasons, of still greater force. First 
 of all, the proud spirit of our ancestors had 
 been broken by constant persecution. A man 
 whose life and property are constantly endan- 
 gered loses naturally the force of reason, and 
 grows superstitious. Soldiers, sailors, and high- 
 way robbers, are as a rule the most supersti- 
 tious people on earth. The law which com- 
 pelled our ancestors to wear a peculiarly shaped 
 hat, or a yellow spot on their outside garment, 
 and thus had made them a constant target for 
 ridicule, had destroyed their self-respect, and 
 had made them low-spirited and dull. Further- 
 more, their neighbors were as superstitious as 
 they were. The spirit of mysticism at that 
 time held the whole world under its sway. 
 The Crusades had opened the eyes of the 
 western barbarians to a civilization in the east 
 of which they had never had a conception. 
 Whatever they saw of adroit mechanism in 
 Constantinople or eastern cities they took for 
 the secret work of evil spirits. For instance, 
 they could not understand why some people 
 looked up to the stars and made charts of the 
 night sky. They believed that astronomers 
 received information from the stars in regard 
 to the future of man. Astronomy was changed 
 into astrology, in which even men like Wallen- 
 stein believed. Geometry, not known before in 
 western Europe, puzzled the uncultured barba-
 
 130 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 rian ; and he thought a secret power was at- 
 tached to the triangles, squares, and circles, of 
 the mathematician. The medical art, w^iich 
 was not known in western countries, but had 
 its seat in the east, remained a conundrum to 
 the Crusaders. Every botanist and every phy- 
 sician seemed to them to be in secret communi- 
 cation with superhuman forces. The belief 
 spread that it was possible to change base 
 metals into gold ; and the cradle of our chem- 
 istry was alchemy. All these absurdities were, 
 however, the fertilizers which stimulated the 
 barren ground, and brought forth all our mod- 
 ern sciences ; but the scientist of that age had 
 to work and to experiment in secrecy. The 
 church felt instinctively the danger which 
 would arise for it from these studies, and stig- 
 matized science as the black art, as the machi- 
 nation of evil spirits. It persecuted and ostra- 
 cized as sorcerers and enchanters all those who 
 would indulge in such studies, and compelled 
 them thus to carry on their researches in secret, 
 in the darkness of the night, which aroused 
 still more the superstition of the populace. 
 
 It is, therefore, not at all surprising that the 
 same symptoms made themselves visible on the 
 Jewish body, as it suffered from the same sick- 
 ness ; the difference was that these absurdities 
 were worked out in a peculiar Jewish manner 
 by our ancestors. Numerous commentaries on
 
 The Kabbalah. \ 3 1 
 
 the Sohar were produced ; all the secret arts, 
 as necromancy, astrology, and alchemy, were 
 drawn into the Kabbalah ; and an abundance 
 of impostors arose, who claimed to be in posses- 
 sion of King Solomon's ring, and to possess 
 power over the spiritual world. These imposi- 
 tions would have done little harm had not the 
 study of the Kabbalah overtowered finally the 
 study of Talmud and Bible, destroyed reason, 
 changed the whole religious system, created 
 and introduced new ceremonies, which were 
 palmed off as truly Jewish ; so that finally 
 Judaism could no longer be identified in the 
 form in which it then appeared. 
 
 Our present orthodoxy is the last remnant 
 of the Kabbalistic age. What our orthodox 
 brethren defend as Judaism is Kabbalism. 
 Many of the prescribed prayers, the number 
 of which was not to be abrogated, are of Kab- 
 balistic origin : most of the ceremonies still in 
 use among them were produced in the age of 
 the Kabbalah. The New Year's day and the 
 day of Atonement, formerly days of joy, re- 
 ceived a gloomy character, which still prevails. 
 The Kaddish prayer, which reform has not yet 
 been strong enough to abolish, but which it has 
 at least modernized and rationalized, is a relic 
 of that age, and was supposed to hold a mystic 
 power over the souls of the departed members 
 of the family. The words of the Kaddish prayer,
 
 132 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 which in their simple form contain a glorifica- 
 tion of God, were supposed to contain an en- 
 tirely different meaning when read with the 
 key of which the Kabbalist was the owner. 
 The burial rites, with all their superstitious 
 practices, still in use among our orthodox breth- 
 ren, are an offshoot from the Kabbalah. Even 
 I remember the time when Kabbalistic amulets 
 were still in use and were placed over the 
 cradle of a new-born child to prevent evil spir- 
 its from harming it. And all these supersti- 
 tious rites were and are still called Judaism ! 
 
 The Kabbalah clung by necessity to Messi- 
 anic expectations ; but the most fantastic and 
 absurd hopes were connected with his appear- 
 ance ; and if there are still Jews living who 
 conscientiously believe in the coming of a 
 Messiah, they believe in the Kabbalistic Mes- 
 siah, and not in the Messiah originally expected 
 at the time of their political depression. 
 
 It is now about one hundred years since the 
 reform movement began (with Moses Men- 
 delssohn) ; and its blows were directed first of 
 all against the Kabbalah. From the time that 
 Israel was relieved of that incubus, it began to 
 live again and to reconquer its lost position in 
 the world. All the present difficulties which 
 we experience in the strained relations between 
 orthodoxy and reform are due to the rapidity of 
 our progress during the last hundred years.
 
 The Kabbalah. 133 
 
 We had overslept ourselves, and had to make 
 up for lost time. Our present reform does not 
 intend to harm Judaism, for it loves it ; but it 
 is compelled to blast the last remnants of Kab- 
 balism, which by the ignorant masses are taken 
 for Judaism. 
 
 The Kabbalah has produced a Messiah such 
 as could be expected of it ; a man who did more 
 harm to Judaism than any previous Messiah. 
 He was as great an impostor as the Kabbalah 
 was an imposture ; and still, men like Baruch 
 Spinoza, the greatest philosopher of his age, did 
 not know what to make of him. 
 
 Sabbatai Zwi, the last Jewish Messiah on 
 record, filled for the last time the hearts of his 
 contemporaries with the delusive hopes of 
 national restoration, and afterwards alienated 
 thousands of his followers from their religion. 
 His activity falls in the middle of the seven- 
 teenth century ; and, although his history gives 
 evidence that he was a mixture of fraud, mys- 
 ticism, and self-delusion, it is as romantic as 
 that of any of his predecessors, and gives a true 
 picture of the Kabbalistic swindle by which his 
 time was imposed upon.
 
 IX. 
 
 SABBATAI ZWI. 
 
 'HE struggle between darkness and light, 
 as witnessed at the dawn of every day, is 
 a sight well worth seeing. It seems as if 
 two giants were wrestling with each other 
 for the supremacy over the world. While the 
 eastern horizon assumes a pale roseate hue, 
 deep darkness still hovers above the western 
 sky ; and it appears as if armies of clouds were 
 despatched from there toward the east to sup- 
 press the rising light. Then a mixture of light 
 and darkness spreads for some time over the 
 world, in which all objects take on the most 
 fanciful appearance. Finally, the clouds recoil 
 from before the arrows which the rising sun 
 sends from his radiant chariot against them, 
 objects become discernible in their true form, 
 and the world hails the victorious day. 
 
 The seventeenth century is in more than one 
 respect comparable to that struggle between 
 darkness and light as experienced in nature at 
 the dawn of every day. The night of the Mid- 
 dle Ages begins to withdraw from before the 
 '34
 
 Sabbatai Zwi. 135 
 
 light of the new era, but not without a struggle. 
 That peculiar mixture of light and darkness 
 which we call twilight was then hovering over 
 the intellectual world. In its dim light, all 
 facts appeared distorted, though their true forms 
 could already be distinguished. The press, the 
 influence of which was then already felt, was 
 yet in its infancy. It was fed with nourishment 
 that had grown stale by the time it reached it. 
 A statement, fallacious or untrue, because it 
 could not be rectified at once, grew more harm- 
 ful when spread by the press than it would 
 ever have been before. Journalism, that branch 
 of the press which to-day is called the press, 
 had scarcely seen the light of the world : it 
 existed in an embryonic form, lacking both 
 hands and feet telegraphs and railroads. 
 While the names of Descartes and Spinoza, 
 of Kepler, Galileo, and Copernicus appeared as 
 the messengers of the new day on the one side 
 of the horizon, the deep night of mysticism 
 was still beclouding the world ; and both Jews 
 and Gentiles were still held in a deep slumber 
 by its magnetic influence. 
 
 In one of my previous lectures, I have already 
 stated that Christianity in its earlier days had 
 been expecting the return of Jesus ; and that 
 this notion had been the cause of similar Mes- 
 sianic expectations among the Jews. These 
 hopes, long forgotten among Christians, were
 
 136 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 all at once called into life again in the beginning 
 of the seventeenth century. The Thirty Years' 
 War, then raging in Germany, the rise of Prot- 
 estantism, the inroads which the Turks were 
 making upon Siebenbiirgen, the discoveries 
 which were so surprising to the unintelligent ; 
 all these causes combined revived these old, 
 long-forgotten hopes. The Christians, both 
 Catholic and Protestant, all at once believed 
 that the world would come to an end, and that 
 Christ would re-appear at that auspicious mo- 
 ment. From some obsolete prophecies it was 
 figured out that the fearful catastrophe was to 
 occur in the year 1666. 
 
 The Jews were soon infected with the same 
 mania ; and the Kabbalists now discovered that 
 the passage in the Sohar which had predicted 
 the appearance of the Messiah in the beginning 
 of the thirteenth century had been misinter- 
 preted, and that the proper time for his appear- 
 ance was about the same as that of their Chris- 
 tian neighbors, namely, the year 1648. Then 
 their Messiah would come, riding upon a lion, 
 reconquer Palestine in a miraculous manner 
 and without arms, and establish the Kingdom 
 of Heaven. By that time, the Kabbalists said, 
 the last lot of souls would have arrived on this 
 sublunary world, and with it the soul of the 
 Messiah; and' every thing would then be in readi- 
 ness for the absorption by the En Sof.
 
 Sabbatai Zwi. 137 
 
 From that time dates the pernicious custom, 
 which is still prevalent among the Jews of 
 Poland and Russia, of marrying off their chil- 
 dren at the early ages of from ten to fourteen 
 years. It was introduced in order to exhaust 
 the quicker the supply of unborn souls, and 
 thus to accelerate the arrival of the Messiah. 
 In Smyrna eight hundred such juvenile couples 
 were once married on one day. When Rabbi 
 Manasse stood before Oliver Cromwell and 
 pleaded the cause of his brethren, asking per? 
 mission for them to immigrate into England 
 and to settle upon her soil, one of his arguments 
 was that, after all, their sojourn would be of a 
 short duration, as the time was near at hand 
 when their Messiah would appear. This shows 
 that even practical men of the stamp of Rabbi 
 Manasse were infected with the craze and dared 
 to speak of it as a matter of course to the Pro- 
 tector of England, who in turn received this 
 reference to the current and popular belief in 
 the same spirit in which it was given. 
 
 During the war between the Turks and the 
 city of Venice, the commercial relations of that 
 city had become so unsafe that large English 
 and Dutch firms removed from there and estab- 
 lished branch offices in Smyrna. Mordachai 
 Zwi, a Jew of Spanish descent, who had re- 
 moved to the same place from the southern part 
 of Greece, opened a commission business there
 
 138 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 representing the interest of several English 
 houses. His strict honesty and his clever man- 
 agement -won for him the confidence of the 
 firms for which he acted, and made him a rich 
 man. On the Qth of the month Ab, the memo- 
 rial day of the destruction of Jerusalem, in the 
 year 1626, a boy was born to him, whom he 
 called Sabbatai. The child grew up to be a 
 handsome young man, who, both by his comeli- 
 ness and by his intellectual qualities, gained the 
 sympathies of all. He was a remarkable boy. 
 He would withdraw into solitudes where he 
 could give full swing to his imagination. He 
 never mingled with his fellows, nor would he 
 ever join in their games. For a short time he 
 studied Bible and Talmud ; but soon he left 
 these studies and was initiated into the myste- 
 ries of the Kabbalah. The ascetic life which 
 was demanded of a Kabbalist suited him ex- 
 tremely. He would pray and fast and meditate 
 and bathe at nights with such a promptness and 
 minuteness that before he had reached his 
 twentieth year he had already become the 
 master of a small circle of disciples. He had, 
 however, one peculiarity which distinguished 
 him from other Kabbalists and surrounded him 
 at the same time with a still brighter halo of 
 holiness. He was totally indifferent to the 
 other sex. Although he had married, according 
 to Kabbalistic usage, at an early age, and his
 
 Sabbatai Zwi. 139 
 
 wife was very pretty, he never lived with her as 
 man and wife ; so that she asked for a divorce, 
 to which he raised no objection. With the 
 same coldness he afterwards treated his second 
 wife. His father worshipped him, and ascribed 
 his success in business to the influence which 
 his son was able to exert upon the En Sof. 
 This made Sabbatai conceited ; and as a Mes- 
 siah was expected about that time by all, it oc- 
 curred to him that he and no other was that 
 distinguished personage. On his twenty-second 
 birthday, in the year 1648, he made himself 
 known to a select circle of friends and disciples 
 as the long-expected Messiah, by pronouncing 
 the four-lettered name of God as it is written. 
 The Kabbalah had predicted that the Messiah 
 alone would dare to pronounce this name in the 
 same manner as it was pronounced before by 
 the high priest. When the rabbies of Smyrna 
 heard of it, they grew indignant ; and their col- 
 lege, the Beth-Din, excommunicated him and 
 his followers. The fact was that they loved to 
 dream and to talk about Kabbalistic nonsense, 
 to hope and to pray for a Messiah, but were not 
 ready to face the creations of their own imagi- 
 nation when they appeared before them in broad 
 daylight. After a quarrel which lasted for sev- 
 eral years, he and his disciples were exiled from 
 Smyrna. 
 
 The prompt action of the rabbinical college
 
 140 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 Ought to have nipped all his Messianic aspira- 
 tions in the bud ; but it had just the opposite 
 effect : it stiffened his backbone. The concep- 
 tion of a suffering Messiah, borne and tenderly 
 nourished by Christianity, had crept by that time 
 into Jewish thought : he considered his persecu- 
 tion to be an essential part of his Messianic mis- 
 sion ; and being well supplied with funds by his 
 father, he scorned the interdict of the rabbini- 
 cal synod of Smyrna; and his illusions grew 
 with every new day. 
 
 It is not exactly known where he stopped 
 and what he did during the next fifteen years. 
 A few traits only have survived. On his travels 
 he once met a wandering preacher who at the 
 same time was a copyist of note. His name 
 was Abraham Jachini. From him he received 
 a piece of old parchment, upon which the follow- 
 ing inscription could be seen, in old-fashioned 
 Hebrew characters : " I, Abraham, was impris- 
 oned in a cave for forty years, when I heard a 
 .voice saying, In the year 5386 of the world 
 (that is, 1626) a son shall be born whose name 
 shall be Sabbatai. He shall humble the 
 dragon : he is the true Messiah : and he shall 
 wage war without arms." 
 
 It is not known whether this piece of pen- 
 manship had been made to order, or whether 
 Jachini, who had heard of Sabbatai's assump- 
 tion, had written it for the sake of mystifying
 
 Sabbatai Zwi. 141 
 
 the mystifier. Sabbatai accepted the document 
 as genuine, preserved it, and proved by it his mis- 
 sion. In the year 1653 we find him in Salonica 
 surrounded by a host of admirers. Here he 
 prepared a peculiar farce. He celebrated his 
 wedding with a scroll of the law such as you 
 can see in any Jewish synagogue. On this oc- 
 casion he proclaimed himself as the Messiah, 
 and, mark me well, as the son of the En Sof, 
 who by order of his father was to marry the 
 law, the daughter of heaven. This scene, car- 
 ried out with theatrical pomp, so enraged the 
 sober part of the Jewish population of Salonica 
 that he was driven ignominiously from that 
 place. 
 
 He then travelled through Greece ; but the 
 congregations, which had heard of his ex- 
 communication and his vagaries, would not 
 allow him to stay with them. Strange as it 
 may appear, all these difficulties tended to in- 
 crease his presumption and to raise his cour- 
 age. From there he went to Egypt. In the 
 capital, Cairo, there lived at that time a 
 wealthy Israelite. He held the highest office 
 in the land ; for he had leased the revenues 
 and taxes of all Egypt. Raphael Joseph 
 Chelibi was as charitable as he was rich, and 
 as credulous and superstitious in matters of 
 religion as he was shrewd in business affairs. 
 Fifty Kabbalists were supported by him year
 
 142 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 in and year out ; and whosoever was in want 
 appealed to him. He was the Rothschild of 
 his time. While he was transacting an im- 
 mense business, he fasted and prayed and 
 chastised himself with a lash made of wire, all 
 for the sake of hastening the advent of the 
 Messiah by his ascetic life. Sabbatai initiated 
 him into his secrets, and made a faithful friend 
 of him. In 1663 he went to Jerusalem ; as it 
 seems without any reason, and for no purpose 
 whatsoever. As the year 1666 was approach- 
 ing, he probably believed that his presence 
 might be needed in the Holy City at that event- 
 ful time, and that perhaps some miracle would 
 occur in his behalf upon the sacred soil of Pales- 
 tine. But though he observed the most rigor- 
 ous asceticism, though he bathed in the Jordan 
 river, and visited the graves of the patriarchs, 
 no miracle occurred. His circle of admirers 
 even did not widen to any extent ; when all of 
 a sudden an accident happened which made 
 him famous at once. An oppressive tax had 
 been imposed by the Pasha upon the Jews of 
 Palestine, which they were unable to pay. 
 They were threatened with extermination if 
 the money should not be paid at the appointed 
 time. Sabbatai offered his services as a mes- 
 senger to the charitable Raphael Joseph in 
 Cairo. His embassy, as could be expected, 
 was crowned with success ; for the charitable
 
 Sabbatai Zwi. 143 
 
 gentleman subscribed the amount which was 
 needed ; which, however, was attributed to the 
 influence of Sabbatai, the Messiah, upon Ra- 
 phael. But he obtained even another oppor- 
 tunity to prove his Messiahship. 
 
 In far-off Poland a whole Jewish colony had 
 been butchered years before by the Cossacks. 
 One little girl only had been saved, by accident. 
 She had been found the next day by a benevo- 
 lent person half starved and almost frozen to 
 death, who gave her up to the sisters of a neigh- 
 boring nunnery. Here she grew up to be a 
 maiden of rare beauty ; and though she had 
 been instructed in the tenets of the Christian 
 religion, she still remained, so she said, a Jewess 
 at heart. One night this girl was found by 
 some Israelites almost naked on their burial 
 place. She claimed that the spirit of her 
 father had taken her in the stillness of the 
 night and carried her through the air from the 
 cloister to this place. He had told her that 
 she was to become the bride of the Messiah. 
 To the astonished Jewish women she even 
 showed the finger-marks which her father's 
 spirit had left on her body. The Jews, being 
 afraid to get into trouble for her sake, did not 
 investigate the matter, but sent her to Amster- 
 dam, where, she said, she had a brother. She 
 remained for a few years in Amsterdam ; then 
 went to Frankfort-on-the-Main, and later to
 
 144 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 Livorno, always claiming that she was to be .the 
 bride of the Messiah. She did not, however, 
 lead such a life as would be becoming to such a 
 distinguished person ; for in all these cities she 
 bore an ill name. Whenever the inconsistency 
 of her behaviour was shown to her, she would 
 say that because she was to become the wife of 
 the Messiah her irregularities had been allowed 
 to her by divine revelation. The story of her 
 adventures had reached Cairo ; and Sabbatai at 
 once corroborated her story, claiming that he 
 had been waiting for her appearance as she had 
 for his. He sent for her, and in the hduse of 
 the generous Raphael their nuptials were con- 
 summated in gorgeous style. This marriage 
 made him at once a Messiah, and he justified his 
 queer action by referring to the prophet Hosea, 
 who likewise had been ordered by God to marry 
 a lewd, woman. His fame spread, and his 
 glory was still increased by an addition of a few 
 satellites who were pleased to shine by his side. 
 A Kabbalist called Nathan Ghazati assumed 
 the role of the prophet Elijah, who was to be 
 the forerunner of the Messiah, and two other 
 Kabbalists, Sabbatai Raphael and Mathatias 
 Bloch, travelled for him, preached in his name, 
 and proclaimed him as the true Messiah. About 
 this time Sabbatai began to bring system into 
 his enterprise. He kept a regular court, in 
 which Sarah figured as queen. He withdrew
 
 Sabbatai Zwi. 145 
 
 himself from the gaze of the populace, and 
 appeared only on high festive occasions in 
 public. He employed a private secretary, who 
 sent official documents in the name of the 
 Messiah to all Jewish congregations in Europe, 
 Asia, and Africa. He now returned to his 
 native city, entered it triumphantly ; and on 
 the New Year's day, 1665, he proclaimed him- 
 self publicly in the synagogue of Smyrna by 
 the sound of the Shofar as the long-expected 
 Messiah. The enthusiasm soon developed into 
 a craze. Men, women, and children began to 
 prophesy : miracles occurred every day and all 
 over the country, and the mania spread like wild- 
 fire. In Holland, England, Germany, and Poland, 
 wherever a Jew lived, whom the glad tidings of 
 the appearance of the Messiah reached, the 
 wildest hopes arose : business was neglected ; 
 estates sold out ; and delegates loaded with 
 money were despatched to the court of the 
 Messiah. The greater the number of these 
 legations grew, the greater appeared the dignity 
 of the Messiah ; and as every delegate could 
 truthfully report the conflux of people, and the 
 magnificence of the court, and as these reports 
 of unbiassed eye-witnesses could not be doubted, 
 the mania spread wider and wider, and the 
 Messianic fever grew more intense. A banker 
 in Amsterdam who had uttered some irreverent 
 remarks about the Messiah suddenly fell down
 
 146 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 dead, and the belief of the credulous crowd in 
 the miraculous and far-reaching power of the 
 Messiah could never be shaken after this acci- 
 dent. In England bets were made for and 
 against him, and the betting stood one hundred 
 to ten in his favor. Heinrich Oldenburg, a 
 German scholar of great renown, did not know 
 what to make of it, and predicted a great 
 change in all public affairs. Even Spinoza, the 
 Pantheist, acknowledged the possibility that 
 the Divinity might again have chosen Israel as 
 the bearer of the moral law. Christians began 
 to doubt their own religion. If Sabbatai was 
 the true Messiah, as he then appeared to be, 
 what was Jesus of Nazareth ? Many Christians 
 turned Jews in order to be on the safe side in 
 1666. 
 
 There was only one man at that time who 
 remained sober in the general delusion. Rabbi 
 Jacob Sasportas of Hamburg raised his voice of 
 warning, which, however, was drowned in the 
 frantic turmoil of that peculiar time. 
 
 If Sabbatai had been a man of some sense, if 
 he had possessed some character and some 
 power of will, he could have made something 
 out of the feverish enthusiasm which then had 
 taken hold of everybody ; but he was no man of 
 ability or of genius, he was a self-conceited im- 
 postor. He did nothing ; he lived in dulcejubilo 
 from day to day, waiting for a miracle. He
 
 Sabbatai Zwi. 147 
 
 divided the world among his followers. To one 
 of his friends he gave Poland, to another Ger- 
 many, and Raphael Joseph Chelibi received 
 Egypt for his share. So firm was the belief of 
 his deluded followers in him that they would not 
 sell their shares for enormous sums of money, 
 which, in fact, were offered to them. He pre- 
 tended to know the souls which inhabited their 
 bodies. One of his friends was the soul of 
 King Solomon, another that of King Joas. He 
 furthermore changed the Jewish holidays ; he 
 made the ninth of Ab, his birthday, a day of 
 rejoicing, and did away with the day of Atone- 
 ment. He gave himself out finally as the incar- 
 nation of the En Sof ; that is, in plain words, 
 he said he was God himself. 
 
 The swindle had now lasted long enough in 
 Smyrna ; and the Sultan, or rather his vizier, 
 Achmed Kopriti, thought it high time to see to 
 it. Sabbatai was summoned to appear before 
 the Sultan, in Constantinople. At the beginning 
 of the year 1666, he set sail for that city. After 
 a stormy voyage, he landed near the Golden 
 Horn, and was immediately imprisoned by the 
 Turkish authorities. When questioned about 
 his Messianic pretensions, the coward denied 
 them, and said he was merely a Jewish rabbi 
 who had been delegated to collect alms for 
 Jerusalem. Kopriti, who at that time was in 
 need of Jewish money for the wars which he
 
 148 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 was waging with several European powers, and 
 who had the good sense of not making a martyr 
 of a man who was a harmless impostor, gave 
 him the small castle of Abydos as his place of 
 residence, where he was to be kept as a prisoner 
 of state, under guard of a Turkish officer. The 
 castle now became a second Mecca. From all 
 parts of Europe pilgrims arrived ; and a rain of 
 gold was showered over the whole neighbor- 
 hood. The leniency with which the Sultan 
 treated him was interpreted by the admirers of 
 Sabbatai to mean that he was powerless to harm 
 the Messiah, who had dared to approach him 
 unarmed and unaided by an army. The belief 
 spread that the Sultan would soon abdicate in 
 Sabbatai's favor; and it almost seems as if 
 Sabbatai himself had believed in his super- 
 natural power. His impudence, however, led to 
 his early downfall. Ambassadors had come 
 from the interior of Poland to ascertain the 
 truth of the Messianic rumor. They told him 
 that in their own country a man had predicted 
 the coming of a Messiah, but had named another 
 person. Sabbatai haughtily ordered these dele- 
 gates to send that man to him. Nehemia 
 Cohen, the Polish prophet, obeyed the order, 
 and appeared before him. After a long conver- 
 sation which he held with the Messiah, he 
 denounced him as an impostor. Sabbatai's fol- 
 lowers, to avenge the insult, attempted to mur-
 
 Sabbatai Zwi. 149 
 
 der Nehemia, who, however, escaped from their 
 hands, went to Constantinople, turned Moham- 
 medan, betrayed to the Sultan the secrets of the 
 Messiah, and gave him advice how to put down 
 the excitement at once without making a mar- 
 tyr of the swindler. Then he escaped from 
 Constantinople, returned to Poland, became 
 again a conscientious Jew, and vanished from 
 the public as suddenly as he had appeared. 
 
 The Sultan, acting on the advice of Nehemia, 
 demanded of Sabbatai a token of his Messiah- 
 ship. He would shoot three bullets at him at 
 close range. If he should remain unhurt, he 
 would acknowledge him as the Messiah ; if not, 
 he should be killed at once, if the bullets had 
 not yet finished him. 
 
 Sabbatai, as could be expected, most respect- 
 fully declined the honor of being used as a 
 target for the royal rifle-practice, and instead 
 turned Mohammedan. He took the name of 
 Mehmed Effendi, and received a good salaried 
 office at the court of the Sultan in exchange. 
 The Jews throughout the Ottoman Empire were 
 punished with a heavy taxation ; and Sabbatai 
 was used as a tool to convert them to the reli- 
 gion of Mohammed. When, after some years, he 
 was found out to be rather lax in his devotion 
 to his new religion, he was banished to a far-off 
 village, where he died unnoticed and in obscu- 
 rity, in the year 1676.
 
 150 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 But the mania of which he had been the ex- 
 ponent and the cause did not die as soon. His 
 admirers could not believe, and would not be- 
 lieve, that the Messiah had betrayed them. 
 They announced the dangerous doctrine that it 
 was allowable to change the form of religion ; 
 and thousands of Jews, who had lost their prop- 
 erty during the mania, and were now ridiculed 
 into the bargain, after the bubble had burst, 
 turned Christians or Mohammedans. Others 
 were still expecting the return of Sabbatai ; 
 they still clung to the Kabbalistic nonsense, 
 which, however, had now lost forever its former 
 strength. 
 
 After this Messianic failure, Messianic hopes 
 fell to the freezing-point. They were upheld 
 theoretically, they found expression in prayers, 
 they were uttered mechanically with the lips ; 
 but they were discarded practically, and found 
 no longer an echo in the hearts of our ances- 
 tors. 
 
 This era of mysticism was the last struggle 
 between darkness and light. The sun of reason 
 rose higher and higher, and all these spectres 
 vanished from before it. Kabbalism, too, had 
 to go. Mendelssohn and his contemporaries 
 destroyed it with their logic. Even Christianity 
 changed its front. The American and French 
 Revolutions gave freedom to the Jews, and 
 offered them full citizenship, which so long had
 
 Sabbatai Zwi. 151 
 
 been denied to them ; and with this offer, not 
 only their homesickness, their yearning after 
 a land of their own, vanished, but also all 
 Messianic hopes passed quietly away. 
 
 At the very same moment when the old bell- 
 man's grandson shouted up to the belfry, " Ring, 
 ring, grandpa ! Oh, ring for liberty ! " and when 
 the old state-house bell of Philadelphia spread 
 with its metal tongue the news that the United 
 States had declared their independence, the 
 Messianic idea heaved its last sigh. At that 
 auspicious moment its soul passed away, and 
 what was left of it was a lifeless corpse, which 
 has for some time lain in state, but which now 
 is buried for good.
 
 X. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 'HE human mind is the manifestation of 
 God in man. It is as infinite as is the 
 source from which it sprang. Though 
 chained to a body of clay, it rises above 
 space and extends beyond time. Time and 
 space, the limitations of the body, cannot im- 
 prison the mind. Carried by the wings of 
 imagination, we can roam not only through all 
 the periods of past history but also through all 
 the ages which are still to come. In an instant 
 we can travel thousands of miles ; and with- 
 out experiencing any unpleasant sensation we 
 can change our residence from the frigid north 
 pole to the torrid equator. 
 
 The moments when our mind, escaping 
 from the prison-cell of the body, roams through 
 the infinitudes of time and space are the 
 happiest in its earthly existence : they are 
 marred only by the thought that it must soon 
 return into the cage, and exhaust itself again in 
 its daily work, in the treadmill of reality. 
 '52
 
 Conclusion. 153 
 
 In a series of these mental excursions we have 
 followed the trail which an idea, the Messianic 
 idea, has left upon earth from the time of its 
 inception to that of its demise. 
 
 Let us now draw the conclusions, now that 
 all the evidence has been brought in. 
 
 We have found, first of all, that the Messianic 
 expectations of the Israelites assumed shape 
 not merely once, but several times, and in 
 different historical periods ; a fact which is 
 not known to the public in general. Four or 
 five men, from out a large company, have 
 gained renown as Messiahs : Jesus of Nazareth, 
 Bar Kochba, Rubeni, Molcho, and Sabbatai 
 Zwi. Their careers varied in particulars, but 
 there is an astonishing resemblance to be found 
 in the main features of their lives. The early 
 history of all of them is shrouded in darkness. 
 Like the gods in Greek mythology, they 
 step forth suddenly out of the mist of a cloud. 
 They appear, and nobody knows whence they 
 come. After a life of short duration they all 
 disappear in a similar manner. With the 
 exception of the last one, none of them died a 
 natural death. Jesus died despairingly on the 
 cross ; Bar Kochba heroically on the battle- 
 field ; Molcho was roasted alive ; Rubeni died 
 in a dungeon ; and Sabbatai Zwi died ignomini- 
 ously in exile. None of them reached an ad- 
 vanced age. Sabbatai, the oldest of them, died
 
 1 54 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 at the age of forty-one years ; Solomon Molcho, 
 the youngest, at thirty-one. Jesus is said to 
 have died at the age of thirty-three years. Bar 
 Kochba's age cannot be ascertained ; but he 
 must have died a young man. None of them, 
 with the exception of Sabbatai, was married, 
 and none of them left children. 
 
 Neither was any one of them a creative genius.. 
 They never dominated their time : on the con- 
 trary, they were carried away with the current. 
 They never moved the masses; they rode on 
 the crest of the popular wave. They were 
 merely the supply to a public demand. Their 
 Messianic assumptions, sincere or hypocritical, 
 became possible only on account of a popular 
 hope in the appearance of such a person. None 
 of them appeared at a time of national pros- 
 perity ; they all without exception stepped upon 
 the stage in times of calamity. They could 
 grow only upon ground fertilized by misery. 
 Whenever the national wretchedness had be- 
 come unbearable, whenever the spirit of the 
 people had become so depressed that they 
 despaired of themselves, the hope sprang up 
 that help must come from outside, from above : 
 that a man must appear who would improve 
 their condition. But at such times of calamity 
 the human judgment becomes biassed, and the 
 reasoning powers lose their normal strength. 
 A drowning man will cling to a straw : so a
 
 Conclusion. 155 
 
 nation in despair will cling to the most childish 
 hopes. 
 
 None of the Messiahs ever improved the 
 state of affairs : on the contrary, they all left 
 the nation in a still greater misery than they had 
 found it. This, too, is a cause why so very little 
 is known of any of them. Had they lived in 
 times of prosperity, when their actions could 
 have been judged in calmness ; had they been 
 able to improve the condition of their friends, 
 morally or materially, we should have heard 
 much more of them. The facts would have 
 been sifted ; and we should have received them 
 in an authentic form. But the hardship of their 
 times was so great that nobody thought of fixing 
 dates or of establishing a historical fame for 
 them ; and after the clouds had passed away it 
 was too late to collect the material and to clear 
 the truth from fiction. 
 
 The Messianic idea is the child of Judaism 
 thus far only, that during the time when our 
 ancestors formed a small nation and their politi- 
 cal existence was threatened with extinction by 
 mighty oppressors, they hoped that a man would 
 appear among them who would liberate them 
 from the yoke of the foreigner and restore 
 their national independence. After the defeat 
 of Bar Kochba, when the last glimmer of that 
 hope was extinguished, the child naturally died ; 
 but Christianity the daughter, be it to console
 
 156 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 her mourning mother or be it for a more selfish 
 reason, exchanged the dead body for that of 
 another child, to which she herself had given 
 birth. This grandchild, sickly as it was, was by 
 mistake nourished by its grandmother thereafter 
 until now this child died too. All Messianic 
 expectations which were indulged in by the 
 Jews after Bar Kochba were un-Jewish, and 
 were excusable only on the plea of homesick- 
 ness, from which our ancestors suffered for sev- 
 enteen hundred years, owing to the inexcusable 
 treatment which they received from the hands 
 of their prejudiced neighbors. 
 
 I can understand Messianic vagaries of a 
 political character, I can understand that a 
 nation oppressed by a mighty foe, and unable to 
 break the yoke by its own efforts, experiences a 
 certain consolation in the hope that some one 
 will come and liberate it ; but after a people 
 has lost its national existence, after its children 
 have been scattered all over the earth, and have 
 lived as citizens of other countries, for almost 
 two thousand years, it is absurd even to think 
 of a national restoration. I fail to see the ben- 
 efit which the Jews would derive from the re- 
 establishment of a Jewish commonwealth. The 
 mere attempt to realize such fantastic hopes 
 would be followed by evil consequences. Pal- 
 estine, to the possession of which we are said 
 to be entitled, is not as large as Massachusetts :
 
 Conclusion. 157 
 
 it could hold two or three millions of inhabitants. 
 What, now, would become of the seven millions 
 of Jews which could not find room therein ? 
 Furthermore, in what respect would our con- 
 dition be improved ? Could a Messiah uphold 
 our civil rights better than President Cleveland 
 did in his first message ? Behold the dependent 
 position of the small Danubian countries ; 
 behold how these princes are mere puppets in 
 the hands of their stronger neighbors, and 
 how the resources of these countries are squan- 
 dered in wars which will never benefit them ; 
 behold these conditions, which would be our 
 own, and then compare them with our standing 
 as free citizens of this free republic. Do we 
 not share the legislative power with our fellow- 
 citizens ? Do we not hold the ballot in our 
 hands ? Do not Israelites hold offices in the 
 municipal and national government ? Are not 
 life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness granted 
 to us as well as to any other citizens of this 
 country ? 
 
 It is told of Julius Caesar that he once dis- 
 played his ambition by saying he had rather be 
 the first magistrate in a small village of Gaul 
 than the second in rank in Rome. I say, and 
 every intelligent American Israelite will support 
 me, that we would rather be plain citizens of the 
 United States of America than the leading states- 
 men of a Jewish commonwealth in Palestine.
 
 158 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 Two important points, however, yet remain 
 to be answered. One is generally brought for- 
 ward by our Christian friends ; the other by 
 our co-religionists. 
 
 Our Christian friends claim that we are mis- 
 taken in tracing the Messianic expectations of 
 the Jewish nation to a political basis. Although 
 they concede that at the time of Jesus the 
 Israelites may have expected a politician or a 
 soldier as their liberator, they uphold the 
 theory that such a Messiah was not needed : 
 that the mission of a Messiah is not a local 
 one, but that it is universal. The Jews, they 
 say, in their eagerness for national redemption, 
 overlooked the fact that the messenger of God 
 had come to redeem the whole world. 
 
 Now, in order to show that we are not hasty 
 in our conclusions, that we feel keenly the 
 gravity of this question, and that we are willing 
 to handle it with all possible care and tender- 
 ness, let us suppose for a moment that the 
 Christian sources are authentic : let us sup- 
 pose that our Christian friends of to-day do 
 know better what our ancestors needed eighteen 
 hundred years ago than they did themselves : let 
 us suppose that the gospels were written by 
 Jewish eye-witnesses, and were never tampered 
 with by copyists ; and that the life, the words, 
 and the deeds, of Jesus are correctly repre- 
 sented therein. Let us furthermore suppose
 
 Conclusion. 159 
 
 that it was his mission to redeem the whole 
 world not politically, but from its sins and 
 iniquities. 
 
 Starting from this supposition, are we not 
 justified in expecting of such a divine mes- 
 senger that first of all he would reveal to the 
 world new laws, better than the former ones, 
 new doctrines, superior to those to which the 
 people adhered before ? Now, were the utter- 
 ances of Jesus new ? A very large part of 
 what he is reported to have said had been 
 said before him : and he repeated it. Many 
 and many of his teachings can be traced to 
 previous Jewish sources. What he taught was 
 Judaism plain and unalloyed. Not one para- 
 graph in his sermon on the mount contains 
 anything that could have been new to his 
 hearers. He was not even a reformer ; for he 
 is reported to have said distinctly that he was 
 not come to change or to abolish the Mosaic 
 law. Not one attempt was made by him to es- 
 tablish a new religion or to lay down a plan for 
 the redemption of the world. Although he 
 does not conceal the traces of mysticism which 
 his connection with the Essenes had left upon 
 him, he lived and died a conscientious Jew ; 
 and none of his followers derived from him the 
 least right to deviate from the example which 
 he had given to them. It is a fact conceded by 
 our Christian friends that he did not realize the
 
 160 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 hopes of his contemporaries, not even those of 
 his disciples ; that he did not improve the con- 
 dition of his nation, either by his life or by his 
 death. But did he save the world ? Did he 
 remove sin ? Has humanity become perfect 
 through him? 
 
 Think of the barbarism of the Middle Ages ; 
 think of the paganization of Christianity ; think 
 of the atrocities which have been perpetrated 
 in his name ; the cruelties which have been 
 committed for his glorification ; the wars which 
 have been waged for the* propagation of the 
 religion named after him. Observe human 
 passions still impeding the path of virtue : read 
 the list of crimes committed every day ; and 
 then say that the world has been redeemed 
 of all evils : speak it out unblushingly, if you 
 can, that sin has been removed and that hu- 
 manity has become perfect since the time of 
 his death. The best proof that the alleged 
 Messiahship of Jesus was a failure on earth is 
 that its result, the predicted redemption of the 
 world, has been removed to heaven, to spheres 
 of which we have no knowledge whatsoever. 
 Whatever our fate may be after death, be it 
 immortality or annihilation, it is in vain to go 
 into any controversy about it, as none of the 
 disputants know the least thing about it. I 
 wish, however, with all my heart, that the 
 hopes of our Christian friends in regard to the
 
 Conclusion. 161 
 
 soul-saving qualities of their faith may be real- 
 ized in what they call heaven, as completely 
 they have so far been a failure on earth. 
 
 If mankind has advanced in knowledge, if the 
 standard of morality has been raised, such has 
 not been the work of Jesus, nor that of Chris- 
 tianity alone. Thousands of good and noble 
 men and women, and all religions on earth, 
 from superstitious fetishism to radical agnos- 
 ticism, have worked together for that end. If 
 we have progressed, if humanity is better to-day 
 than it ever was before, if a better sense of jus- 
 tice prevails, if the cruelties of war have been 
 mitigated, if crimes have been suppressed to 
 some extent, we must not fail to consider the 
 enormous influence of the host of inventors who 
 have discovered the secrets of nature, and have 
 made its powers the obedient servants of man. 
 The inventors of steam-power, of electricity, of 
 gaslight, of machinery, of the printing-press, 
 they have been among the real saviors of 
 humanity ; for they have removed, though in- 
 directly, more sins than the combined efforts 
 of all religions have been able to weed out. 
 They have stormed and broken down the barri- 
 ers of caste and creed ; they have wrenched 
 the sceptre from the hands of despots, both 
 secular and spiritual, and have caused the es- 
 tablishment of the right of every individual to 
 participate in the government of his own affairs.
 
 1 62 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 They have alleviated the wrongs of life, so that 
 the poor of to-day is a wealthy man compared 
 with the poor of the past. Their rails and 
 electric wires have tied humanity into one 
 large community, and through their agency 
 all human beings have learned to regard one 
 another as brethren, and to share the joys 
 and woes of their fellow-beings from pole to 
 pole. 
 
 It is a fallacy to regard the past as the time 
 when people were better, nobler, happier, than 
 they are to-day ; it is a mistake to seek for 
 ideals only in the past, after which to shape our 
 conduct in the present. Not disregarding filial 
 devotion which is due to a parent, I claim that 
 we are better and happier than were our ances- 
 tors, and that future generations will be still 
 better and happier than we are. The ideal of 
 the present man ought to be the man of the 
 future, not the man of the past. 
 
 Thus the Messianic idea of universal redemp- 
 tion, brought forward by Christianity, collapses. 
 Jesus has not been the savior of his nation ; 
 and, as far as the last eighteen hundred years 
 have proven, he has not saved the world. Our 
 ancestors, provided they had known of him, 
 could not accept him as a national Messiah, be- 
 cause he did not tally with their expectations ; 
 and we cannot now or ever accept him as a uni- 
 versal Messiah, as the savior of the world, be-
 
 Conclusion. 163 
 
 cause he is not the ideal which we have to-day 
 of such a person. 
 
 The other point raised by our co-religionists, 
 who, as it seems, only for the sake of opposition, 
 will not concede that the Messianic idea is dead 
 and has been finally buried with Sir Moses Mon- 
 tefiore, is of apparently still greater importance 
 than that which I have discussed just now. 
 
 The preservation of Israel, they say, would 
 be a waste of providential care : the sacrifices 
 which our ancestors have made upon the altar 
 of their religion, the miseries which they have 
 patiently endured, the blood which they have 
 spilled, would all be in vain, if our cause should 
 not finally triumph ; if in the end we should not 
 only regain a political independence, but even 
 become the aristocracy of the world. The 
 whole drama would close abruptly without the 
 grand finale in which our patience and endu- 
 rance should be rewarded. 
 
 There appears to be some logic in this point ; 
 but appearances frequently deceive. First of 
 all, it is absurd to speak of a waste of providen- 
 tial care. There is no waste in nature nor in 
 the whole government of the universe. The 
 term " waste " is applicable only to human 
 affairs. The purpose for which a being is 
 preserved is not always that which we in 
 our human blindness expect. We may call it 
 as well a waste of providential care if an oak
 
 164 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 tree that had been growing for a thousand 
 years, and had withstood the storms of ages, is 
 consumed by a forest fire instead of being sawed 
 into beams and boards, and used for building 
 purposes. 
 
 The sacrifices which our ancestors have 
 made, and the miseries which they have en- 
 dured, were made and endured by them for 
 their own sake, and not for the sake of the 
 future. They could not submit to the views 
 which another religion wished to press upon 
 them ; and, therefore, they rather suffered than 
 yield. We would do the same to-day ; and 
 there is no religious sect which has not done 
 the same. It is a poor argument to say that 
 we must be Jews, and suffer humiliations of all 
 kinds, merely because our parents have been 
 Jews, or because our great-grandchildren will 
 sometime receive the reward for our patience 
 and endurance. We cling to Judaism because 
 that religion suits us best ; because it answers 
 all our purposes. We transmit this religion to 
 our children not for the sake of aiding God in 
 the accomplishment of some purpose, but be- 
 cause we think they will be as happy in this 
 religion as we have been, are, and shall ever 
 be ; that they will become noble members of 
 the human society by adhering to its principles. 
 If a man is not sincerely a Jew, if he does not 
 firmly hold that Judaism rests upon a solid foun-
 
 Conclusion. 165 
 
 dation, he commits a wrong if he hypocritically 
 instils into his children principles which he does 
 not subscribe to himself ; and if he should think 
 that another creed than the one he has inherited 
 is better and more likely to make him or his 
 children better and nobler, he ought to embrace 
 it, the sooner the better. 
 
 There is an inconsistency in these Messianic 
 hopes. On the one hand, it is expected of the 
 Messiah to introduce a government of peace and 
 equality, a time when all shall do the good for 
 the sake of doing good ; when all passions shall 
 be silenced, when love shall unite all humanity 
 in one great brotherhood, and when the same 
 God shall rule over a happy world. On the 
 other hand, however, it is hoped that there 
 would be some distinction after all; namely, 
 that we should be raised to the highest plane, 
 that our opinions should prevail, that our God 
 should be the God. If the rest should not be 
 inclined to acknowledge our superiority, then, 
 of course, we should regret it exceedingly if we 
 were compelled to make them submissive by 
 some sort of punishment. It may be a pleasing 
 play of our imagination to dream of a time when 
 we could speak to our fellow-citizens somewhat 
 in the following strain : You have never be- 
 lieved that we were right ; you have never been 
 ready to grant us the position to which we were 
 entitled. Now, the tables are turned ; now, we
 
 1 66 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 are the masters : but we shall not pay you in the 
 same coin ; we shall be satisfied with the mere 
 acknowledgment of our superiority over you. 
 Such dreams may gratify our vanity ; but they 
 are idle. Those who expect to indulge in such 
 selfish vanities will be greatly disappointed. If 
 it should ever come to pass that the religious 
 thoughts of mankind became uniform, you may 
 rest assured that at such a time none of the 
 present religious systems would be prevalent. 
 The religion of the future will be neither spe- 
 cifically Jewish nor Christian nor Mohammedan. 
 It will be an entirely new system, in which the 
 immortal parts of all the present religions will 
 be represented, but at the same time so equally 
 balanced that none will dare to claim superior- 
 ity. A Messianic period with one of the pres- 
 ent religious systems dominating is an absurdity, 
 and a contradiction of itself. 
 
 We may, however, boast, if boast we must, 
 that, as Christianity and Mohammedanism are 
 the daughters of Judaism, and their vital parts 
 are essentially Jewish, our religion will thus both 
 directly and indirectly help to shape the religion 
 of the future. We may furthermore maintain, 
 if this can add to our happiness, that Judaism, 
 on account of its flexibility and its rationalism, 
 will flow with greater ease than any other of the 
 present religious systems into the religion of the 
 future, and thus become its mainstay.
 
 Conclusion. 167 
 
 With these explanations I should like to close 
 my researches; but I cannot dismiss the sub- 
 ject without answering one more question, which 
 has frequently been asked of late by my hear- 
 ers, both Jews and Gentiles, the question, 
 What is Judaism ? It would take another course, 
 of at least ten lectures, should I endeavor to 
 solve this question otherwise than metaphori- 
 cally. You must, therefore, be satisfied with a 
 figurative explanation. 
 
 Fables tell of a bird, of great beauty, which is 
 so rare that only one specimen of its race exists 
 on earth, and which is neither male nor female. 
 The Phoenix is said to live to a very old age ; 
 but when he feels that death is near, he lines 
 his nest with all kinds of odorous plants, sets 
 fire to it, and burns himself with it. Out of 
 the ashes, however, rises a new bird, young, 
 vigorous, and still more beautiful than was his 
 ancestor. 
 
 Judaism is such a phoenix. It is the con- 
 stantly changing but ever living religion of hu- 
 manity. 
 
 Whenever it feels that a change is needed, 
 that its body has outlived its usefulness, it sets 
 fire to its earthly environment ; and, purified 
 by the flames, it rises from the ashes in a new 
 guise, but chanting the same old song, 
 
 There is but one God, and all human beings 
 are brethren.
 
 1 68 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 It is quite natural and therefore pardonable 
 in a reader of these ten lectures to ask the fol- 
 lowing questions : 
 
 1. Does the author represent therein what 
 all Israelites think of the Bible, of the Messiah, 
 and of the hope in a return to Palestine ? 
 
 2. If not, does he voice the opinion of at 
 least a small number of Israelites ? or 
 
 3. Does he stand all alone by himself and un- 
 supported by any of his brethren, merely ex- 
 pressing his own individual views on these 
 topics ? 
 
 The author most decidedly disclaims to speak 
 in behalf of all Israelites collectively ; though 
 he feels confident that most of his views are 
 shared by all intelligent American Israelites. 
 To ascertain their number would be a rather 
 difficult task, because cultured people, as a rule, 
 do not make a public display of their religious 
 opinions. 
 
 Supposing, however, that the number of his 
 supporters is a small one, that they form only 
 an infinitesimal fraction of the whole Jewish 
 population, what does it matter? Does not 
 one intelligent, cultured person who sides with
 
 Note. 169 
 
 him more than outbalance a host of unintelli- 
 gent, unlearned, and superstitious people who 
 may rise in opposition to his declarations? 
 
 As a proof, merely, that he does not stand 
 entirely alone and unsupported, he has added 
 the following two lectures to the previous ten, 
 from which the reader will learn that not an 
 inconsiderable number of rabbies, who are re- 
 nowned both for their profound scholarship and 
 their high moral character, and who officiate in 
 the largest and most celebrated Jewish congre- 
 gations in America, have recently agreed upon 
 a platform of principles every plank of which 
 tallies exactly with the views expressed by the 
 author. 
 
 The two lectures on " The Pittsburg Confer- 
 ence" will, therefore, prove interesting reading, 
 and speak for themselves.
 
 XI. 
 
 THE PITTSBURG CONFERENCE: ITS CAUSES. 
 
 77" f PON the urgent solicitation of the Rev. 
 i@J Dr. Kohler, of New York city, about six- 
 teen rabbies, all belonging to the re- 
 formed wing of Judaism, assembled four weeks 
 ago in Pittsburg, Penn. ; and after a lively de- 
 bate, they passed, without one dissenting vote, 
 a set of resolutions which they termed a declara- 
 tion of principles. 
 
 The learned gentlemen had come to the 
 meeting of their own free will and accord ; they 
 had paid their own expenses : they had not 
 been sent by their congregations or by any 
 other body of Israelites to represent their views, 
 and their utterances were therefore the utter- 
 ances of private individuals, who could claim no 
 other authority for them save that which sound 
 judgment, intelligently and sincerely exercised, 
 always carries with it. 
 
 The proceedings of the meeting were spread 
 with electric rapidity all over the country ; and 
 the principles declared by them are now running 
 the gauntlet of public criticism. 
 170
 
 The Pittsburg Conference. 171 
 
 It matters little in what proportion the number 
 of rabbies who assembled in Pittsburg stands to 
 the number of Jewish congregations in America : 
 it matters little whether these gentlemen voice 
 the sentiment of the members of their several 
 congregations : it matters little whether they are 
 old or young, or whether they come from the 
 East or the West ; their declaration of principles 
 is entitled to the attention of every intelligent 
 American Israelite. 
 
 Whenever a number of men, in open assembly, 
 boldly assert an opinion which runs counter to 
 current ideas, but which impresses us with the 
 sincerity of their purpose and the purity of 
 their motives, we are in duty bound to give 
 them a hearing. Experience ought to have 
 taught us that a new truth never was cham- 
 pioned by the many, but by the few, and that 
 the great number of devotees is not always a 
 true criterion of the worthiness of a cause. We 
 ought to have learned by this time to be the 
 more careful about condemning a measure the 
 greater the opposition is which rises against it. 
 The very greatness of that opposition is the 
 best proof that something of vast importance 
 must be hidden in the measure, calling for it. 
 Men do not use heavy artillery to demolish 
 houses built of cards. The bomb-shells which 
 so far have been fired at the results of the con- 
 ference, by the orthodox press or by over-zealous
 
 172 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 pulpit orators, are sufficient proof that the prin- 
 ciples declared at Pittsburg are not made of 
 pasteboard, but of solid masonry. 
 
 An assembly of sixteen intelligent men, who 
 are all highly educated and well versed in the 
 history of Judaism; who all have made theology 
 the study of their lives ; who all are supposed 
 to represent the views held by the most promi- 
 nent congregations of America, such an as- 
 sembly, be it authorized or unauthorized, carries 
 some weight at least with it. The views which 
 these gentlemen so freely expressed in their 
 declaration of principles ought, therefore, to be 
 studied by every conscientious Israelite, and 
 neither be judged in an angry mood nor con- 
 demned in haste. 
 
 Although personally I am ready to subscribe 
 to every paragraph of the Pittsburg platform, 
 and although I feel now extremely sorry that 
 circumstances over which I had no control pre- 
 vented me from being present at that momen- 
 tous meeting, I do not wish you to be biassed in 
 your decision by me or anybody else, nor to 
 look at only one side of the shield. 
 
 It becomes my duty to lay the whole matter 
 before you, and to discuss it with all possible 
 impartiality ; but it is as well your duty to 
 grant to such an important matter some of 
 your leisure time, to think about it, and to 
 discuss it in the circles of your friends. If you
 
 The Pittsburg Conference. 1 73 
 
 should become convinced of the timeliness and 
 the soundness of the principles declared by 
 the conference, you ought to ratify them, to 
 strengthen the cause morally by your approval, 
 and to encourage the bold leaders of the 
 movement by your acclamation : if, on the 
 other hand, you should detect the least fallacy, 
 the least inconsistency, in them, you ought to 
 denounce them openly ; but we should both 
 grossly neglect our duty, you as members of 
 this congregation and I as its leader, should we 
 pass with indifference or in silence over a 
 measure which cuts so deeply into the flesh, 
 and to the very bone of what some call Judaism ; 
 and which may in course of time revolutionize 
 the whole structure of our religion. 
 
 It may appear to many that the Pittsburg 
 Conference and the subsequent declaration 
 of principles was an unnecessary movement, 
 premature, and entirely uncalled-for. Nobody 
 had invited these rabbies, or urged them to 
 formulate their platform : apparently, there was 
 no reason whatsoever for their meeting, or for 
 their agressive policy : apparently, in the very 
 midst of peace they have raised the battle-cry, 
 and have fired the first shot over the peacefully 
 slumbering Jewish communities. Apparently, 
 the platform resolved upon is a novelty, which 
 is expected to produce a desirable effect. 
 
 But the Pittsbarg Conference is not a cause,
 
 174 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 which is to produce an effect : on the contrary, 
 it is an effect, which had been produced by a 
 cause. It is not an uncalled-for measure : on 
 the contrary, the members of the conference 
 were forced into it by the pressure of their 
 consciences. The hypocrisy and inconsistency 
 of the present state of religious affairs had be- 
 come too great for them to be borne any longer. 
 For years the most prominent of these gentle- 
 men had in vain endeavored to reconcile the 
 past with the present, to patch up the outworn 
 religious garment, and to fit it to a body which 
 had outgrown it. No soonor had they stretched 
 it on the one side when it shrank on the other: 
 no sooner had they mended it in one place 
 when it burst open somewhere else. They 
 finally came to the conclusion that a new gar- 
 ment was needed ; and therefore they cast 
 away the old shreds. 
 
 A flash of lightning is the discharge of a 
 quantity of electricity which has been accumu- 
 lating in the clouds for some time : thus is the 
 Pittsburg Conference merely a discharge of 
 new thought which had been silently growing 
 and ripening in the minds of people during the 
 last fifty years. 
 
 Before, therefore, we enter upon a discussion 
 of the actual work of the conference, before we 
 take up the declaration of principles in para- 
 graphical order, I consider it of the greatest
 
 The Pittsburg Conference. 175 
 
 importance to acquaint you with the causes 
 which have produced such an astonishing 
 result, and to disclose to you a few glimpses 
 of the history of American Judaism ; a history 
 which is yet too young to have found a historian. 
 
 Every species of plant is subdivided into 
 families, which, though they are alike in their 
 main features, differ from one another in minor 
 points. This difference in the size of the 
 foliage, in the color and the odor of the blos- 
 som, is sometimes caused by climatic influences. 
 The same law of nature prevails in the animal 
 kingdom. A similar one holds good in the 
 realms of thought and religion. The highest 
 productions of the human mind are not exempt 
 from it. Every religion is influenced not only 
 by the political and social condition of its ad- 
 herents, but by the very climate in which it lives. 
 The very same religion assumes a different 
 form in different countries. Both Catholicism 
 and Protestantism have a far different appear- 
 ance in northern and southern countries ; upon 
 European and upon American soil. 
 
 This law of nature once known and qualified, 
 it will be easily understood why Judaism has 
 been divided into so many families ; why the 
 Portuguese Jew differs so widely from the 
 German, the German again from the Polish, 
 English, or Dutch Jew. It will be easily under- 
 stood to be quite natural that a new kind of
 
 1 76 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 Judaism must spring up upon American soil, 
 which, though it may carry all the marks of 
 the species, may still differ widely from the 
 other families in its structure. 
 
 The seed of Judaism which had been brought 
 across the ocean to the shores of this continent 
 found a soil here far different from that upon 
 which it had been accustomed to grow. Take 
 a plant which you have kept in a vase of sand 
 and in a dark cellar, and transfer it to the 
 fertile ground of a garden, where light and air 
 and moisture are to be had in abundance ; and 
 you will soon observe a marked change in its 
 structure and foliage ; and after a few genera- 
 tions it will differ widely from its prototype. 
 
 The time when Judaism was transplanted to 
 American soil will in the future be considered 
 a turning-point in its history. At the most 
 favorable periods of its existence it had never 
 been more than a tolerated creed. In the 
 most enlightened and humane countries of 
 Europe, Asia, and Africa, our ancestors had 
 been only tolerated ; and it had been only 
 tolerance for which they had dared to beg. In 
 no country of the world have they ever been 
 embraced by the general legislation : from the 
 time of the Roman Caesars to this very day 
 they have stood under separate laws, which 
 were extended, contracted, or annulled, accord- 
 ing to the favor or disfavor which they found in
 
 The Pittsburg Conference. 177 
 
 the eye of the ruler. America is the first 
 country which has no such word as tolerance 
 in its political dictionary. It is the first country 
 which has practically severed the connection 
 between church and state, and which acknow- 
 ledges no denominational differences before its 
 laws. The codes of this country ignore every 
 distinction of race and creed, and thus place 
 the Israelite upon a level with his fellow- 
 citizens. 
 
 As a plant which has been kept in the dark- 
 ness of a cellar straightens its stem and spreads 
 its foliage when transplanted into a sunny gar- 
 den, thus the Israelite, as soon as the free air 
 of America fanned his face, and the sunlight of 
 liberty warmed his stiffened limbs, lifted up his 
 head, which he had been compelled to bend sub- 
 missively in Europe. He stretched himself to 
 the full extent of his growth, and accustomed 
 himself to his new surroundings. Unhampered 
 by adverse legislation, he soon succeeded in 
 establishing for himself and his dear ones a 
 comfortable home in the land of his adoption ; 
 and by his honesty, his industry, and his tem- 
 perate habits, he won in general for himself the 
 respect of his fellow-citizens. 
 
 His spiritual progress, however, his advance- 
 ment in religion, did not keep pace with his 
 outward prosperity ; it was perhaps retarded 
 on account of it. In the old country he had
 
 178 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 been compelled by the state or by common 
 usage to belong to some religious community. 
 He had become accustomed there to let others 
 think for him ; and if he had ever dared to 
 hold a view of his own, he would have been 
 afraid to express it. Upon American soil all 
 this was changed. No pressure whatever would 
 force him to join a religious community. It was 
 left to his own free will to associate with whom- 
 ever he pleased. He had, furthermore, the 
 right, not only to think for himself, but to 
 speak out his opinion. He learned to argue a 
 point, and to submit only to better judgment. 
 Rationalistic tendencies, which are the inherit- 
 ance of every Israelite, developed rapidly under 
 the favorable conditions which were granted to 
 him upon American soil. 
 
 This freedom, as I said, became dangerous to 
 his religious advancement. Like a schoolboy 
 in vacation, he did not know what to do with 
 himself ; there was no authority which he would 
 or could respect. He did not yet understand 
 the true mission of congregational life ; he did 
 not yet see how great a power of morality and 
 respectability a religious union is. He was not 
 yet aware that if he desired to rise in the 
 estimation of his fellow-citizens he must be 
 represented before them also in his higher aspi- 
 rations. In the hurly-burly of a busy life he 
 lost sight of religion, and kept aloof from all
 
 The Pittsburg Conference. \ 79 
 
 religious affairs. And, after all, what had reli- 
 gion been to him before? Nothing but a bun- 
 dle of forms, a fardel, which he threw from 
 his shoulders as soon as the power which com- 
 pelled him to carry it had lost its grip upon 
 him. 
 
 Some of these forms, however, though bur- 
 densome, had become dear to him by long cus- 
 tom ; there were some rites which he considered 
 necessary to his well-being. He observed the 
 table laws as well as he could ; he had the 
 Abraham itic rite performed on his children 
 whenever it was possible ; and, no matter how 
 he had lived, or with whom he had associated 
 during his lifetime, some superstitious fear made 
 it desirable for him to be buried amongst his 
 brethren, in a Jewish burial-ground. It was for 
 the sake of maintaining a graveyard, and not 
 for the sake of moral elevation, that the first 
 Jewish congregations were formed in America. 
 Our congregational life, indeed, was born upon 
 burial-places ; most of our proud temples have 
 been' erected upon graveyards. No wonder, 
 therefore, that the stillness of death hovers over 
 them. 
 
 When public worship was added to the in- 
 ducements which a congregation held out to the 
 member, the spirit of freedom became a new 
 obstacle to the development of our religion. 
 The different elements which had gathered here
 
 1 80 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 from all parts of the world could not agree with 
 one another. Every one had brought a certain 
 usage from home to which he had been accus- 
 tomed ; and this Minhag, as he called it, he 
 would never give up. In the old country he 
 could be compelled to adopt the ritual sanc- 
 tioned by the state or by rabbinical authority ; 
 but what in the world could compel him here in 
 this free country to give up any of his fancies ? 
 If the congregation would not suit him, he 
 would simply resign and start a new one which 
 would be more pliable. It may be ludicrous to 
 speak of race distinctions in a people which has 
 preserved the purity of its blood with such great 
 care as the Jews have ; but, all the same, there 
 it was. The German, Polish, Dutch, and Eng- 
 lish Jews could not agree with one another ; 
 they were prejudiced, I cannot tell by what, 
 against one another, and they carried their 
 distrust even into religion. They split, there- 
 fore, into numerous small congregations, none 
 of which was able to support itself decently, 
 or to show efficient work ; none of which would 
 give up one iota of its whims and join the next 
 one in a body. 
 
 Now, what did the Jewish clergy do during 
 all this time ? There was none. In a country 
 where the President holds office for only four 
 years, and where the power .of high state or 
 city officials is limited to one year, the rabbi,
 
 The Pittsburg Conference. 181 
 
 no matter how learned and conscientious, could 
 win no influence over his people. He was the 
 paid official, who had to fulfil certain duties de- 
 fined in a written contract. It was his first 
 duty to please the secular leaders of the congre- 
 gation. He had to carry out their wishes ; and 
 any opposition to them was tantamount to his 
 dismissal. Fifty years ago there was no Jewish 
 clergy to speak of in this country. All these 
 conditions, however, changed. The emigration, 
 which since the year 1848 has increased with 
 every year, brought an energetic younger ele- 
 ment to these shores ; and a new generation 
 had in the meantime arisen in this country, 
 which had passed through the amalgamating 
 process of our public schools ; and these two 
 elements found allies in each other. American 
 Judaism began to speak. A Jewish press made 
 its appearance ; and, though its struggles were 
 hard, it succeeded in spreading enlightenment 
 and in removing somewhat the impediment of 
 race prejudice. 
 
 The lack of pressure from without was made 
 good by the urgent demand from within for 
 centralization. Orders and societies for all 
 kinds of purposes sprang up, around which the 
 straying elements gathered, and by means of 
 which they became disciplined. The congrega- 
 tions profited by the general activity ; and the 
 reform movement imported from Germany now
 
 1 82 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 found a warm reception, and exactly the ground 
 which it needed for its development. 
 
 Although the opposition to reform had been 
 very powerful, and had seemed to be almost 
 invincible, the liberal movement carried the 
 day ; and the most orthodox of American con- 
 gregations seems radically reformed if compared 
 with similar congregations in Europe. The 
 clergy which filled the pulpits of the reformed 
 denomination worked itself step by step into 
 recognition. Its conscientiousness, its learning, 
 its earnest will, its ability, made an everlasting 
 impression upon the laity ; and thus the influ- 
 ence of the Jewish rabbi upon the formation of 
 American Judaism was somewhat increased. 
 
 However, the whole structure of reform which. 
 had arisen so suddenly under the impulse of the 
 moment had been built upon sand. It lacked a 
 foundation ; it lacked principle. Reform had so 
 far been a compromise between the past and 
 the present, and had, therefore, given satisfac- 
 tion to neither party. Reform had so far 
 changed the outward appearance of our re- 
 ligion ; it had so far removed nothing but cere- 
 monies which had outlived their usefulness ; 
 but it had never touched the root ; it had never 
 attempted to examine whether or not some of 
 the underlying principles had become obsolete. 
 
 On the one hand, modern researches, modern 
 science, and modern philosophy, had revolu-
 
 The Pittsburg Conference. 183 
 
 tionized the world ; they had thrown a search- 
 ing light upon the history of mankind ; and by 
 this light a great many errors were discovered 
 which formerly had been covered by the night 
 of ignorance. All religious denominations had 
 been compelled to change their front, and Juda- 
 ism, rational and flexible as it is, could not re- 
 main in the rear. On the other hand, customs 
 and usages which had lived for thousands of 
 years are not so easily thrown aside ; even if 
 we become convinced of their uselessness, we 
 revere them as relics, and dislike to part with 
 them. 
 
 This anomaly soon became evident. Congre- 
 gational life retrograded on account of it. The 
 most gorgeous temples, the most artistic music, 
 and the most elaborate sermons, failed to attract 
 an audience. There was a discrepancy between 
 the official sermon of the rabbi and his private 
 utterances ; there was a discrepancy between 
 the teachings of the temple and the practices of 
 the home. This inconsistency created hypoc- 
 risy, and alienated the most intelligent part of 
 the Jewish population from religion. 
 
 For want of a platform upon which an intelli- 
 gent man could build up his religion, many 
 turned away from Judaism and joined the ranks 
 of the atheists. The fervor with which Ameri- 
 can Jews hailed the establishment of a society 
 for ethical culture, gave evidence, on the one
 
 1 84 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 hand, of a strong and warm religious sentiment ; 
 on the other, of the dissatisfaction of the think- 
 ing part of the Jewish population with the 
 patchwork of reform. 
 
 A definition of what modern Judaism is, was 
 needed. It became evident that we must cut 
 loose from the sinking ship, or be drowned 
 with it. 
 
 Impressed with the urgency of the demand 
 for a new platform, for a definition which 
 should finally establish a basis for our future 
 development, the gentlemen who assembled at 
 Pittsburg rose to the emergency. They spoke 
 out simultaneously what they had harbored for 
 years in their hearts, but had not dared to 
 utter. They defined modern Judaism and 
 opened the way for its progress. Without 
 losing the connection with the past, they made 
 Judaism the religion of the future. Upon the 
 Pittsburg Platform every intelligent man can 
 stand without the fear of breaking through it. 
 It stands elevated above superstition, and will 
 never be reached by the waves of atheism. 
 
 The change which Judaism by necessity had 
 to undergo upon the new soil has now been ac- 
 complished. American Judaism has now passed 
 its first stage ; and the Declaration of Princi- 
 ples laid down by the conference is the seed 
 from which a new plant will grow, which, 
 though differing in structure, foliage, and color,
 
 The Pittsburg Conference. 185 
 
 from the European family, will still bear the 
 marks of the same species. 
 
 The Pittsburg Conference was the natural 
 outcome of years of religious indifference and 
 stagnation : it was the reconciliation of modern 
 thought with religious sentiment : it was the 
 proof of the immortality of Judaism. It was 
 rather the closing scene of a past period than 
 the opening scene of a new one. 
 
 The bristling caterpillar and the gold-winged 
 butterfly are one and the same insect, though 
 they differ widely in their form and mode of liv- 
 ing. The caterpillar, preparing its own coffin, 
 transforms itself therein into the new creation. 
 When its transformation is perfected, the but- 
 terfly bursts the cocoon and unfolds its wings, 
 forcing its way into liberty, into the balmy air, 
 to play with sunshine and flowers. 
 
 The Pittsburg Conference marks in like wise 
 the bursting of the old and outgrown bonds of 
 Judaism, and the emergence therefrom of its 
 new and nobler phase.
 
 XII. 
 THE PITTSBURG CONFERENCE: ITS WORK. 
 
 N my last lecture I discussed the causes 
 which in my opinion led to the Pittsburg 
 Rabbinical Conference. Speaking now of 
 its work, I know of no better introduction 
 than to give the platform which has been con-, 
 structed by the rabbies who formed that mem- 
 orable conclave. The following is its full text : 
 
 In view of the wide divergence of conflicting 
 ideas of Judaism to-day, we, as representatives of 
 Reform Judaism in America, in continuation of the 
 work begun in Philadelphia in 1869, unite upon the 
 following principles : 
 
 I. We recognize in every religion an attempt to 
 grasp the infinite ; and in every mode, source, or 
 book of revelation held sacred in any religious sys- 
 tem the consciousness of the indwelling of God in 
 man. We hold that Judaism presents the highest 
 conception of the God idea as taught in our Scrip- 
 tures and developed and spiritualized by the Jewish 
 teachers in accordance with the moral and philo- 
 sophical progress of their respective ages. We 
 maintain that Judaism preserved and defended, 
 amid continual struggles and trials, under enforced 
 isolation, the God idea as the central truth for the 
 whole human race. 
 
 1 86
 
 The Pittsburg Conference. 187 
 
 II. We recognize In the Bible the record of the 
 conservation of the Jewish people to its mission as 
 priest of the one God, and value it as the most potent 
 instrument of religious and moral instruction. We 
 hold that the modern discoveries and scientific re- 
 searches in the domain of nature and history are not 
 antagonistic to the doctrines of Judaism ; the Bible 
 reflecting the primitive ideas of its own age, and at 
 times clothing its conceptions of divine providence 
 and justice dealing with man in miraculous narra- 
 tives. 
 
 III. We recognize in the Mosaic legislation a 
 system of training the Jewish people for its mission 
 during its national life in Palestine ; and to-day we 
 accept as binding only the moral laws, and maintain 
 only such ceremonies as elevate and sanctify our 
 lives, but reject all such as are not adapted to the 
 views and habits of modern civilization. 
 
 IV. We hold that all such Mosaic and rabbini- 
 cal laws as regulated diet, priestly purity, and dress, 
 originated in ages and under the influence of ideas 
 altogether foreign to our present mental and spiritual 
 state. They fail to impress the modern Jew with a 
 spirit of priestly holiness ; and their observance in 
 our days is apt rather to obstruct than to further 
 modern spiritual elevation. 
 
 V. We recognize in the modern era of universal 
 culture of heart and intellect the approach to the 
 realization of Israel's great Messianic hope for the 
 establishment of the kingdom of truth, justice, and 
 peace, amongst all men. We consider ourselves no 
 longer a nation, but a religious community; and 
 therefore expect neither a return to Palestine, nor a 
 sacrificial worship under the sons of Aaron, nor the 
 restoration of the laws concerning the Jewish state. 
 
 VI. We recognize in Judaism a progressive reli- 
 gion, ever striving to be in accord with the postulates 
 of reason. We are convinced of the utmost necessity 
 of preserving the historical identity with our great
 
 1 88 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 past. Christianity and Islam being daughter religions 
 of Judaism, we appreciate their providential mission 
 to and in the spreading of monotheistic and moral 
 truth. We acknowledge that the spirit of broad hu- 
 manity of our age is our ally in the fulfilment of our 
 mission ; and therefore we extend the hand of 
 fellowship to all who operate with us in the estab- 
 lishment of the reign of truth and righteousness 
 among men. 
 
 VII. We re-assert the doctrine of Judaism, that 
 the soul of man is immortal : grounding this belief 
 on the divine nature of the human spirit, which for- 
 ever finds bliss in righteousness and misery in wick- 
 edness. We reject, as ideas not rooted in Judaism, 
 the beliefs both in bodily resurrection and in Gehenna 
 and Eden (Hell and Paradise) as abodes for ever- 
 lasting punishment or reward. 
 
 VIII. In full accordance with the spirit of Mosaic 
 legislation, which strives to regulate the relations 
 between rich and poor, we deem it our duty to par- 
 ticipate in the great task of modern times : to solve, 
 on the basis of justice and righteousness, the prob- 
 lems produced by the contrasts and evils of the 
 present organization of society. 
 
 A French statesman of the last century is 
 credited with the paradox that the human lan- 
 guage was invented for the sake of concealing 
 one's thoughts, and that his remark must have 
 been founded upon some sharp observation, and 
 is not altogether absurd, is again substantiated 
 by the eight paragraphs of the Pittsburg Plat- 
 form. Indeed, the greater part of their phrase- 
 ology is merely ornamental ; and if it had 
 not been for the purpose of concealing some 
 thoughts, it would have been superfluous. But
 
 The Pittsburg Conference. 1 89 
 
 the task of the Convention was a difficult one. 
 It was to speak the truth before a community 
 unaccustomed to its sound, and unwilling to 
 hear it. It became therefore necessary to 
 sugar-coat the bitter pill which the patient was 
 to take ; and instead of criticising the verbosity 
 of the eight paragraphs, let us simply do, what 
 I suppose the framers wish us to do, remove 
 the shell and lay bare the kernel. 
 
 It was quite natural that the first and most 
 prominent plank in the platform of a religion 
 must be a definition of the God idea. Unless a 
 religion denies the existence of a God, it must 
 give some approximate description of its con- 
 ception of the supreme being. However, this 
 very conditio sine qua non has once before led 
 to a rupture and break-up of a rab.binical con- 
 ference. Some of the divines composing it 
 objected to the theory of a personal God ; 
 others to that of an impersonal divinity. 
 
 Guided by this sad experience, the Pittsburg 
 Conference, though maintaining that the exis- 
 tence of a God stands above any doubt, refrained 
 from defining the indefinable. It maintained, 
 rightly, that religion is only an attempt to grasp 
 the infinite ; that all definitions of the supreme 
 being which have come down to us so far by 
 means of a so-called sacred literature are sim- 
 ply the proof of our consciousness of the in- 
 dwelling of God in man. It furthermore main-
 
 igo Messianic Expectations. 
 
 tained that Judaism has held the highest con- 
 ception of God at every period of its existence ; 
 that it has developed and spiritualized it in 
 accordance with the moral and philosophical 
 progress of the successive ages. 
 
 If this first paragraph is to be translated into 
 plainer language, it says no more and no less 
 than that our conception of God has been the 
 product of numerous evolutions ; that the God 
 of Moses was evolved from that of Abraham ; 
 that the God of Isaiah was an improvement over 
 that of Samuel ; and that consequently our con- 
 ception of God to-day must be higher, grander, 
 and purer, than that of past generations, in the 
 same proportion as humanity has advanced 
 morally and intellectually and its mental hori- 
 zon has been extended. The theory of evolu- 
 tion adapted to the God idea places us far 
 above our ancestors, and suggests the hope 
 that future generations will come still nearer 
 to its true conception. It furthermore grants 
 to every individual the right of defining God as 
 he pleases and is able to ; and this is a conces- 
 sion which has never been made before, but 
 which is the basis for a universal religion, for 
 the religion of humanity. Let us understand 
 this point well. 
 
 There are no two persons who hold exactly 
 the same conception of the divinity. Their 
 ideas may tally in some points ; but they will dif-
 
 The Pittsburg Conference. 191 
 
 fer in others. The greater the difference in their 
 intellect and their education is, the greater and 
 the more marked will be the difference between 
 their Gods. Heretofore every religious system 
 has had a well-defined God idea, the knowledge 
 of which it claimed to have obtained by special 
 revelation ; and therefore it promulgated it as 
 the only correct one, even at the point of the 
 sword, and compelled its adherents, and, if pos- 
 sible, its opponents even, to submit to it and to 
 acquiesce in it. Human reason, however, re- 
 volted against such compulsion. The God idea 
 of Moses towered far above that of his contem- 
 poraries ; still, he found it impossible to elevate 
 his people to his ideas, and it took more than 
 half a millennium before his conception of God 
 had become popular. Just as impossible would 
 it have been for the people to drag Moses down 
 to their low standpoint. 
 
 Place a man of the stamp of an Emerson by 
 the side of a man who, though he may be the 
 most honest and conscientious of mortals, has 
 not received a training in abstract thinking. 
 Place two such men side by side, and demand of 
 them to grasp the selfsame God idea. Although 
 God, the Infinite, is the same being that he has 
 been and shall ever be, although our conception 
 of him does not change a particle of his es- 
 sence, such a demand would be absurd. The 
 one will follow the vestiges of God through the
 
 192 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 immensities of the spheres ; he will see his 
 grandeur in the turbulent waves of the history 
 of mankind ; he will detect his presence in his 
 consciousness of self, and philosophically ana- 
 lyze his essence as it presents itself in the dif- 
 ferent departments of the human mind. The 
 other will behold in him merely the giver of his 
 daily bread and the stern judge of his actions ; 
 he will unburden his heart before him in 
 prayer, and expect of him, his best and most 
 powerful friend, that he will intercede in the 
 trivial affairs of life ; he will live and die in 
 what he calls the fear of God. What right 
 would the first one have to force his world-em- 
 bracing ideas of God upon the second one ? 
 And by what right could the second one compel 
 the first one to accept his anthropomorphic 
 theories ? All religious dissensions which have 
 disunited the human brotherhood, all religious 
 persecutions and wars which have soiled the 
 record of humanity, had their origin in the belief 
 that their own God idea alone was the correct 
 one; that all others, being erroneous, were an 
 insult to God, which the holders of the true idea 
 must by right avenge. 
 
 But from the time that Lessing wrote his 
 " Nathan the Wise," and in the fable of the three 
 rings made him utter the remarkable words, 
 " The genuine ring has perhaps been lost, and 
 ye all three are deceived impostors (betrogene
 
 The Pittsburg Conference. 193 
 
 Betruger)," from that time a change of thought 
 came over the world. Intelligent men allowed 
 to others their own conceptions of God, but de- 
 manded the same privilege for themselves. 
 Religious controversies disappeared, or lost 
 their sting. The God idea of a man was tested 
 by the way he realized it in his life. If it had 
 the result of making him an honest man, it was 
 called genuine, no matter how high or how low 
 its standard was ; if it contained no such force, 
 it was rejected as wrong, no matter how scru- 
 pulously that man performed the ceremonies of 
 his church, and how hypocritically he proclaimed 
 his belief in God. 
 
 As intelligent men, we can no longer adhere 
 to the theory that the God ideas of an Abraham, 
 a Moses, or Isaiah, were the only correct ones ; 
 that the conception which our ancestors had 
 of God is exclusively the only true one ; 
 that, to speak in the words of the fable, we 
 alone own the genuine ring. Religion is for us, 
 as the Conference grandly defines it, "an at- 
 tempt merely to grasp the infinite ; " and with 
 every step which humanity has advanced, with 
 every evolution through which the history of 
 Israel has passed, these attempts have grown 
 bolder and more successful. Led by the van of 
 philosophers and thinkers of all nationalities, 
 the great bulk of humanity has progressed, 
 though slowly, in its religious views. The
 
 194 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 monotheistic God idea has won the victory, and 
 has replaced polytheism and pantheism. The 
 average conception of God has become purer 
 and more sublime than it ever was before ; and 
 there is no doubt that it will receive its highest 
 development and its loftiest spiritual ization, 
 provided full freedom is left to the individual 
 mind to grasp the infinite to the extent of its 
 compass. As the first of the Mosaic laws was 
 a proclamation of freedom, so the first para- 
 graph of the Pittsburg Convention removes the 
 shackles of a uniform and unchangeable God 
 idea, and claims the liberty for every man to 
 form his own idea concerning the great Ehejeh 
 asher Ehejeh ; or, in other words, gives him full 
 liberty in his attempts to grasp the infinite. 
 
 Upon this plank the intelligent of all sects 
 and denominations can unite. It is a plank for 
 the religion of the future. 
 
 The Conference found it necessary to devote 
 several paragraphs to its definition of the Bible. 
 The Bible is a book which has been in the pos- 
 session of our nation for not less than twenty- 
 three hundred years. Its old age alone makes 
 it venerable to us ; but it has a value for us 
 besides its antiquity. It is an inexhaustible 
 mine of wise and profound thought. Its pages 
 are full of the noblest sentiment ; its philosophy 
 is comprehensive, its poetry soul-inspiring, its 
 ethics both ennobling and practical. As a lit-
 
 The Pittsbiirg Conference. 195 
 
 erary production, the Bible stands unsurpassed. 
 If we had stopped right here, I believe that 
 never a word would have been uttered against 
 the venerable book. But we did not stop there. 
 The Bible, probably on account of its sublimity, 
 was pronounced to be the direct work of God. 
 It was stated that God himself wrote, or at 
 least dictated, every word of it ; that he dis- 
 tinctly expressed his sovereign will by means of 
 it ; that, therefore, not one of the laws contained 
 therein could be abrogated, changed, or abol- 
 ished ; that we may interpret its wording, but 
 are not allowed to question one of its statements. 
 The belief in the divinity of the Bible was made 
 an article of creed. Down to the end of the 
 last century, no religious system ever questioned 
 the principle of revelation by means of a book ; 
 on the contrary, every religious system thought 
 it to be a matter of utmost necessity to prove 
 its genuineness by such a book. Christianity 
 brought forth the New Testament to match and 
 offset the old one ; Mohammed produced the 
 Koran ; and even the present Mormonism at- 
 tempted to prove its divine mission by docu- 
 mentary evidence. 
 
 The development of science, however, has 
 undermined in the course of time the belief in 
 the divinity of the Bible. As a book of human 
 origin, reflecting the ideas of past generations 
 and treasuring up the wisdom of humanity in a
 
 196 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 condensed form, common sense could revere 
 the book ; but it revolted against its alleged 
 divine authorship. Grand as is the Bible when 
 considered as the product of man, it reflects 
 little honor upon a divine author. While the 
 creations of God are all perfect, the Bible is 
 imperfect. It requires a strong dose of credu- 
 lity to cover its deficiencies and discrepancies. 
 Science and modern research became, therefore, 
 the most implacable enemies of the Bible ; but 
 not in so far as the Bible itself is concerned ; in 
 so far only as a divine authorship is claimed for 
 it, and its errors are presented to us as undenia- 
 ble truth on the strength of it. 
 
 All attempts to reconcile with modern 
 thought the statements and narratives of the 
 Bible taken literally have so far failed ; and 
 while on the one hand we were afraid to haul 
 down the flag and accept the conditions of 
 the victor, our daily life brought us on the 
 other hand in conflict with and in constant di- 
 vergence from both the historical part of the 
 Bible and some of its laws. A shameless 
 hypocrisy, which undermined all religious fer- 
 vor, was the consequence of it. It became 
 evident that this unnatural state of affairs 
 was to be brought to an end unless the best 
 and sincerest element were to be lost for 
 religion. There were only two ways before 
 us, one of which must be chosen : either the
 
 The Pittsburg Conference. * 197 
 
 Bible was the direct word of God, in which 
 case every one of its prescriptions must be 
 fulfilled by us, no matter whether it was appro- 
 priate or not ; we had no right to change any 
 of them either by way of interpretation or 
 interpolation; if they were the laws of God, 
 they must stand for all times and all countries. 
 Or, the Bible was the product of human genius, 
 in which case we could easily account for its 
 deficiencies. We could easily comprehend that 
 the writers, without the remotest idea of de- 
 ceiving us, had explained things to the best 
 of their knowledge ; we could subtract poetical 
 exaggeration and reduce facts to their pos- 
 sibly true basis ; we could admire the legisla- 
 tion of the past, and accept of it what was 
 useful and practicable for us ; we could claim 
 the right of legislating for ourselves as former 
 generations did for themselves. Thus all antag- 
 onism against the Bible would cease at once, 
 and it would become again the book of the 
 world. 
 
 This bold step has been taken by the Pitts- 
 burg Conference. The doors have been thrown 
 open to a normal progress of religion and to the 
 development of new forms which will corre- 
 spond better than the former with the demands 
 of the hour, and will tend to elevate and sanctify 
 our lives. The prevailing hypocrisy, the child- 
 ish playing with antiquated forms which had
 
 198 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 been substituted for earnest, practical, religious 
 work, have been done away with ; and the prin- 
 ciple, once boldly asserted and proclaimed, will 
 soon give practical results. 
 
 It is with you to indorse or reject the defini- 
 tion of the Bible as given by the Pittsburg Con- 
 ference. Your acceptance will open a new era 
 in your religious life ; it will cause you to deter- 
 mine for yourselves, and to work practically for 
 religion ; it will elevate you and sanctify your 
 lives ; it will make you zealous and enthusiastic 
 in the service of a cause which will indeed be 
 your cause. Your rejection of it would be tan- 
 tamount to the former drugging indifference 
 which has lulled all religion into sleep ; it 
 would mean empty churches, disorderly Sab- 
 bath-schools, discord between parents and chil- 
 dren, moral weakness, and final extinction of 
 morality. 
 
 These two points were the most important 
 ones which came before the Conference. They 
 rise above the trivialities of the Sabbath ques- 
 tion and others of the same character. In fact, 
 they include them. Freeing you from the 
 slavery of the past, they give you the power of 
 legislation, and leave it with you to adjust all 
 religious forms in accordance with the dictates 
 of your common sense and your conscience. 
 
 The other points are all of minor importance. 
 These two points once understood, it becomes
 
 The Pittsburg Conference. 199 
 
 evident that we form no nationality, but a reli- 
 gious sect ; that we reject all hopes in the ad- 
 vent of a personal Messiah ; and, if the word 
 " Messianic " is needed in the religious vocabu- 
 lary, we express by it the hope in a time when 
 all humanity will have reached its highest de- 
 velopment. In the meantime, and this the 
 eighth paragraph lays to our heart, we must 
 not divorce religion from life ; we must partici- 
 pate as a body in the solution of all the prob- 
 lems of the day ; we must lend a helping hand, 
 as a body, to the re-organization of society and 
 to the removal of all the evils which the present 
 system carries with it. We must participate, as 
 a body, in the amelioration of the condition of 
 our less fortunate brethren ; and the work of 
 charity must become one of the noblest branches 
 of religious activity. 
 
 The hope of immortality, too, was inserted as 
 a plank in the Pittsburg platform. Its existence 
 was acknowledged ; but no definition was at- 
 tempted in a matter which defies definition. 
 All those superstitious fancies which have crept 
 into Judaism, as that of heaven and hell, have 
 been rejected ; the Conference has dealt with 
 "one world at a time." 
 
 This has been the work of the Conference ; 
 and every intelligent Israelite can stand upon 
 its platform, for it is truly Jewish in its spirit. 
 It acknowledges the one God, the common
 
 2OO Messianic Expectations. 
 
 Father of mankind ; it acknowledges the great 
 services which Israel has rendered to humanity, 
 in spreading the monotheistic idea ; it pro- 
 claims liberty of thought ; it appreciates in the 
 Bible a literary treasure, venerable by its age, 
 and admirable on account of the inexhaustible 
 stores of wisdom which it contains ; it makes 
 us co-workers in the great work of humanity, 
 and bids us to help build up the grand dome of 
 human civilization ; it inspires us with the hope 
 of immortality, without exciting our sensuality 
 or our fear. 
 
 As could not have been expected otherwise, 
 this work has been furiously attacked. But by 
 whom ? By all such as could not or would not 
 think ; by all such as preferred indifference to 
 active work ; by all such as have been accus- 
 tomed to look at one side of a question only ; 
 by all such as would profit by their hypocrisy, 
 and lose materially if a new avenue were 
 opened. An army, no matter how large, if re- 
 cruited of a lazy, timid, and ignorant element, 
 will be as easily put to flight by a small body of 
 courageous men, as was the contingent which 
 Falstaff led into the field. 
 
 I could close my discussion of the subject right 
 here, were it not that the work of the Confer- 
 ence has been misrepresented by its foes ; were 
 it not that, ignoring its true inwardness, they 
 have picked up two trifling points which had
 
 The Pittsburg Conference. 201 
 
 been mentioned informally only at the Confer- 
 ence in connection with the main principles, and 
 attempted to scare all true Israelites from it. 
 These two points are the Sabbath question and 
 the performance of the Abrahamitic rite. Let 
 us face these two questions fairly and squarely. 
 There is a certain timidity observable as soon 
 as they are touched upon even in private con- 
 versation ; but if it is true that they are indeed 
 the main pillars of Judaism, they ought to be 
 strong enough to bear the light of a fair discus- 
 sion at least. I fail to see why we should re- 
 frain from treating these points publicly : as 
 the modern rabbi is no infallible Pope, and 
 grants his hearers the privilege of differing 
 from him. 
 
 In regard to the Sabbath, the Conference 
 could not but acknowledge the historical Sab- 
 bath our Sabbath ; but it warned against 
 the customary hypocrisy of naming one day of 
 rest and of keeping another, or none at all. 
 The main principle of the Sabbath is not that 
 we visit a temple and listen to a sermon ; it is 
 our actual abstinence from work. The divine 
 worship on that day is a secondary considera- 
 tion. Leaving the power of decision in your 
 own hands, the Conference merely advised to 
 adhere to a principle ; that is, to rest from 
 work, and consistently with it to call that day 
 your Sabbath on which in reality you abstain
 
 202 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 from labor. The Sabbath has been instituted 
 for the sake of man, not for the sake of God ; 
 and even if the latter were the case, what pleas- 
 ure could the supreme being derive from your 
 theoretical adherence to one day and practical 
 observance of another or none. It was further 
 more maintained that there is no reason why 
 religious services should not be held on any day 
 in the week in addition to the Sabbath service, 
 and that therefore no objection could be raised 
 if a congregation decide to meet on Sunday too. 
 The prevailing hypocrisy, which wishes to work 
 all seven days of the week, and therefore is 
 more than pleased with the present shameful 
 state of affairs, arose against the truthful and 
 conscientious stand taken by the members of 
 the conference in an informal debate. 
 
 The second point is the Abrahamitic rite ; in 
 regard to which Dr. Kohler of New York has 
 alone expressed himself. Let us argue this 
 point also. The sometimes dangerous opera- 
 tion can be justified by two reasons only. The 
 one is that it is believed to be a token of the 
 covenant made between God and Abraham ; 
 that it is firmly believed that the supreme 
 being demanded the surgical and painful opera- 
 tion of Abraham. That such has indeed been 
 the case is proven by no other evidence than 
 the Bible. I have repeated it frequently that it 
 is in vain to argue with one who wishes to be-
 
 The Pitts burg Conference. 203 
 
 lieve. Before belief all arguments become 
 powerless. The man, therefore, who has this 
 operation performed on his child, because he 
 believes firmly that God has made it the signa- 
 ture to a contract between himself and man 
 such a person is perfectly justified in his act 
 before God and man. I shall always respect 
 him for it. 
 
 But this standpoint has been given up long 
 since. It appeared too absurd to think of God, 
 the Infinite, demanding such an operation ; the 
 religious fort, the only tenable one, was evacu- 
 ated, and the pious intrenched themselves be- 
 hind another bulwark. They said it is a san- 
 itary measure. They quoted medical authorities 
 in favor of it : they claimed that not only had 
 this operation been necessary in former ages, in 
 a warmer climate, but that even to-day it is a 
 preventive of diseases brought about by im- 
 morality. 
 
 Thus they build their arguments upon the 
 basis that, as immorality was to be expected, 
 the well-deserved punishment for it ought to be 
 frustrated. This is their logic. I shall not speak 
 now of numerous cases where children have died 
 on account of the operation : on the contrary, I 
 shall accept for a moment the standpoint of the 
 defenders of the ceremony, namely the sanitary 
 view of it. Vaccination is surely as much a pre- 
 ventive of a disease as can be claimed for cir-
 
 2O4 Messianic Expectations. 
 
 cumcision. Vaccination prevents an epidemic 
 which comes over the individual without his 
 fault, and which in many cases results in death ; 
 while the Abrahamitic rite prevents diseases 
 caused by immorality, and not easily resulting 
 in death. But who would dream of making 
 vaccination a religious rite of high importance ? 
 Who would claim that a person not vaccinated 
 could not be admitted into a religious commu- 
 nity, or that religion is in danger, if vaccination 
 is neglected ? If circumcision is merely a san- 
 itary measure, what has it to do with religion ? 
 We must, then, grant liberty to every parent to 
 do as he sees fit. If he chooses to have his child 
 circumcised, why not ? We should hold him re- 
 sponsible only that the infant be not harmed by 
 an unskilled practitioner. If the parent should 
 choose otherwise, why reject him or his children 
 from religious intercourse with us ? Either 
 standpoint is weak. The whole ceremony is 
 to-day but a matter of custom ; and indiffer- 
 rence or some superstitious fear makes parents 
 allow it. Such customs die slowly ; and we 
 have no right to interfere with the conscience 
 of anybody. Let everybody do as he pleases ; 
 but it behooves us to speak out the truth and 
 to say that this usage has nothing to do with 
 religion. This is much better than to play hide- 
 and-seek behind intrenchments which have been 
 demolished by the fire of logic.
 
 The Pittsburg Conference. 205 
 
 Liberty is the first principle of Judaism. 
 Liberty stood godmother at its cradle : liberty 
 has nursed it, and every postulate of liberty is 
 therefore Jewish and strictly Jewish. Grant lib- 
 erty to all also in regard to these two points, 
 and you need not be afraid of losing the firm 
 ground of Judaism. I maintain that liberty and 
 Judaism are identical. 
 
 NOTE. No sooner had the preceding twelve 
 lectures been delivered, and abstracts of them 
 published in the daily papers, than the author 
 was importuned by numerous letters, pouring 
 upon him from all parts of the country, to ex- 
 press himself more fully in regard to his version 
 of what modern Judaism is, as well as in regard 
 to some other theological questions which the 
 writers made free to ask. 
 
 At that time, the author found it an abso- 
 lutely impossible task to answer every one of 
 these letters ; but, in order to give to his corre- 
 spondents some satisfaction at least, he has 
 now added to this book, and for their special 
 benefit, the following five lectures (previously 
 delivered by him at different occasions), in which 
 they will find not only all the information which 
 they desire, but also the answers to their very 
 queries.
 
 XIII. 
 
 MODERN JUDAISM. 
 
 'HE universe is a book of riddles, which 
 God seems to have presented to human- 
 ity in order to keep it busy, and mankind 
 indeed has ever busied itself in solving 
 them one after another. No sooner had it de- 
 ciphered one of the problems contained therein 
 than it would joyfully clap its hands in a child- 
 like manner and look proudly around as if to 
 say : Now, am I not a clever fellow ? and with 
 new energy and without a moment's rest it 
 would turn to the next enigma. 
 
 The more of these riddles will be solved, the 
 higher will the standard of human civilization 
 rise, and not until a solution shall have been 
 found for the last problem : not until the last 
 law of nature shall have been discovered, will 
 humanity come to rest and to peace with itself. 
 It is indeed both gratifying and encouraging 
 to peruse the many pagefuls of riddles which 
 mankind has deciphered so far ; it is a pleasure 
 to read all the answers so carefully marked with 
 indelible ink under every one of these problems, 
 206
 
 Modern Judaism. 207 
 
 which before have puzzled the human mind; 
 but must we not be astonished the more when 
 we find that one riddle which occurs in an end- 
 less variety, on almost every page, has been left 
 without an answer ? How has this happened ? 
 How could it have happened ? Has this one 
 riddle been overlooked, or has it been intention- 
 ally disregarded ? 
 
 For three thousand years a nation has been 
 living upon earth ; it has lived and prospered in 
 every zone, it has associated with every nation ; 
 its life has been open to research, but even 
 to-day, as three thousand years ago, this nation 
 has still remained a mystery to the world. 
 To-day, as three thousand years ago, the Jew is 
 an unsolved riddle to friend and foe, the mys- 
 tery of his existence has never been cleared up, 
 the secret of his endurance has never been di- 
 vulged, the importance of his mission has never 
 been understood. 
 
 When Abraham, the first of the Hebrews, 
 appeared in Canaan, he was a riddle to the 
 people of that country. They transacted busi- 
 ness with him, they allied themselves to him 
 in peace and war ; but they never understood 
 him. The ancient Egyptians never understood 
 the children of Israel, who are said to have 
 sojourned amongst them for more than three 
 hundred years. The Jew was a mystery to the 
 Persians, the Greeks, and the Romans, and he
 
 208 Modern Judaism. 
 
 has remained to be an unsolved riddle even to 
 all the modern nations to this very day. Our 
 enlightened contemporaries do not know us ; 
 they have no measurement for our character ; 
 they are ignorant of our best qualities ; they do 
 not know how we live, how we act, how we feel. 
 They know nothing of our true sentiments, of 
 our predilections, of our hopes and aspirations. 
 They gauge the nation by the individual with 
 whom chance brings them in contact. When- 
 ever they find a noble specimen of our race, 
 they imagine that all the rest is like it : when- 
 ever their acquaintance is low-bred, they think 
 that the rest is no better than he. There 
 stands the Jew, with his grand history, with his 
 immense literature, still an enigma, an interro- 
 gation point in human society. 
 
 There has never been an author or an actor 
 who has been able to represent the Jew as he 
 is. They either lionized and idealized him, or 
 made a caricature of him. Neither Shake- 
 speare's Shylock nor Dickens' Fagin is a true 
 representation of a Jew nor is Lessing's 
 Nathan. They all are creations of fancy, to 
 which never a true prototype was found amongst 
 our race. 
 
 The very same mystery enshrouds our reli- 
 gion. Judaism, too, is a riddle to the world. 
 It impressed Malchizedeck with the same awe 
 as it did afterwards Darius, Alexander the
 
 Modern Judaism. 209 
 
 Great, and the Roman Caesars. It gave birth 
 to the religions of to-day, to Christianity and to 
 Islam ; but these children were never able 
 to comprehend their mother. They gazed at 
 her with awe, but even at their most advanced 
 age they failed to understand her stern grand- 
 eur. There it stands after an existence of 
 three thousand years, after a continuous strug- 
 gle of three thousand years, still as youthful 
 and vigorous as ever, but still the same mystery 
 to the world as before. 
 
 It is not mere phraseology, and by no means 
 an empty oratorical turn, when I say that Juda- 
 ism is still to-day an unsolved riddle, that even 
 in our enlightened age it is as unknown to the 
 world as it was in the dark ages of antiquity. 
 One illustration will prove it. 
 
 Our friend, the Rev. Minot J. Savage, a gentle- 
 man, as you all know^ combining profundity of 
 thought with rare eloquence, who is renowned 
 both for his deep scholarship and for the liberal- 
 ity of his views, lately addressed his congregation 
 on the question, "Which religion is fitted to sur- 
 vive?" In a masterly exposd he willingly con- 
 ceded that it is not Christianity which will sur- 
 vive. " It is not the most beautiful flower," he 
 said in his introduction, " it is not the most val- 
 uable grass, it is not that which is of the most 
 possible service to man, it is not that which is 
 ideally best from man's standpoint, which of
 
 2IO Modern Judaism. 
 
 necessity survives. The fittest here means at 
 its best that which is best fitted to its condition. 
 In religion it is that theory which is best adapted 
 to the advancement of the people that will sur- 
 vive." Then he maintained that all the different 
 religions, Christianity included, will evolve and 
 advance side by side, that they all will cast off 
 their crude forms, their superstitions, their fal- 
 lacies, and thus finally blend into that one reli- 
 gion which will survive as the fittest of all. It 
 was well said. The same old Jewish doctrine 
 of the Messianic time, of a time when all nations 
 will acknowledge and adore the same God, was 
 brought forth with full strength though in a 
 modern garb but not with a single word did 
 the orator refer to the one religion which appar- 
 ently always has been best fitted to its condition ; 
 not with a single word did he refer to that theory 
 which has always been best adapted to the ad- 
 vancement of the people. He had not a single 
 word for the religion which for three thousand 
 years has withstood the pressure of time, -the 
 ilj-will, yea, the persecution, of all the nations 
 of the world, and which for three thousand 
 years has constantly been casting off one crude 
 form, one superstition, one fallacy, after another, 
 without changing its principle. He had not a 
 single word for Judaism. And why not ? Be- 
 cause he does not know it, a fact for which we 
 must not think less of him, nor hold him respon-
 
 Modern Judaism. 2 1 1 
 
 sible. Judaism is a mystery, and no one outside 
 its pale has ever been able to comprehend it. 
 He shares his lack of knowledge of Judaism 
 with the rest of mankind. 
 
 A still greater mystery surrounds what we 
 now call "Modern Judaism." It is a term 
 which defies interpretation. Modern Judaism 
 is still less known to our Christian friends than 
 ancient Judaism ; the most liberal, the most ad- 
 vanced, the most erudite of our contemporaries 
 do not know what to make of modern Judaism. 
 One thinks it is an approach to Christianity, an- 
 other claims that it is the death-rattle of Juda- 
 ism, and a third that it is a transition to atheism. 
 And not one of these versions is correct. 
 
 Even to our own people modern Judaism is a 
 term the meaning of which is beclouded. Even 
 the Jews of to-day do not know what to make 
 of it, and we meet generally with the most 
 absurd conceptions of it. To many it seems as 
 if modern Judaism has no essentials, no consis- 
 tency whatever, and is a trifling and playing 
 with outward forms merely. They think that 
 an organ and choir, the uncovered head, the 
 abolition of the ancient prayer-book, and a Sun- 
 day-Sabbath are the sole requirements of mod- 
 ern Judaism ; they feel attracted or repelled by 
 it in the measure in which their personal incli- 
 nations favor indifferentism or sensationalism. 
 But they too are mistaken.
 
 2 1 2 Modern Judaism. 
 
 I think the mystery begins with the adjective 
 " modern." We speak of modern improvements, 
 and mean by them all those contrivances which 
 have been invented during the last few years 
 to save time and labor, to make our surround- 
 ings more comfortable and pleasant ; we speak 
 of modern languages, and mean by them all 
 those languages which at present are spoken by 
 civilized nations. We speak of modern sciences, 
 and mean by the term all those branches of 
 knowledge which lately have risen into promi- 
 nence. In one word, the term modern implies 
 something that is new, and is always used in 
 opposition to the term ancient. 
 
 But " modern " does not qualify Judaism in 
 this sense. Modern Judaism is not a new kind 
 of Judaism lately invented. Judaism has always 
 been modern ; Judaism always has been in 
 advance of its time. 
 
 When Abraham entered Canaan and pro- 
 claimed the El Shaddai, his religion was surely 
 a modern one. When Moses appeared before 
 the people of Israel proclaiming the great I AM, 
 his religion was modern Judaism. When King 
 Solomon built and endowed the temple, and 
 assumed duties which formerly had been the 
 privilege of the priesthood, his Judaism was 
 modern Judaism. When the prophets thundered 
 against the custom of offering sacrifices, their 
 religion surely was the modern Judaism of their
 
 Modern Judaism. 2 1 3 
 
 age ; when Ezra introduced the reading of the 
 law, and when Rabbi Jochanan ben Saccai, 
 after the destruction of the temple, substituted 
 prayers for sacrifices, they were by all means 
 the advocates of modern Judaism. In fact, 
 Judaism has changed with every generation, 
 and consequently has always been, so to say, 
 modern. 
 
 The advocates of free religion claim that all 
 the religions of the world are honest efforts on 
 the part of men groping in darkness to find the 
 secret of this life and the knowledge of all that 
 pertains to God. But if this be true, we could 
 as well begin to build a house from the roof 
 downwards. The knowledge of God and the 
 disclosure of the secret of life is the beginning 
 and not the end of religion ; Judaism therefore 
 begins with the proposition that there is a God ? 
 it starts with disclosing the whole secret of exis- 
 tence, which is to love God above all, and our 
 neighbor as ourselves, and, while walking in the 
 pure sunlight of this fact, it dispels, step by 
 step, degree by degree, the darkness which 
 overshadows the world. Judaism has there- 
 fore been the only religion which could cast off 
 one garment after another, which could adapt 
 itself to the customs, the usages and opinions 
 of each century, which could absorb every new 
 philosophy and accommodate itself to every 
 new theory without harming or endangering its
 
 214 Modern Judaism. 
 
 essentials. All the other religions lost their 
 identity as soon as they came in contact with a 
 new truth, and each of their sects was split in 
 two as soon as a difference of opinion arose 
 between them. Judaism always remained in- 
 tact ; in Persia it became Persian, in Greece 
 Grecian, in Italy Roman, in Germany German, 
 in Russia Russian, and here it has become 
 American, but it remained everywhere strictly 
 Judaism. Thousands of years ago it absorbed 
 with the same ease the philosophy of Aristotle 
 as to-day it absorbs the theories of Darwin 
 and Huxley. It remained always the same 
 ancient, or, better, the same modern Judaism. 
 
 Our modern Judaism is not more or less than 
 the adaptation of Judaism to the present age, 
 to the present mode of living, to the present 
 standard of knowledge. If all our institutions, 
 our social and political order were to-day in a 
 settled shape, we should find that modern Juda- 
 ism too would appear in a more finished condi- 
 tion, and we should be better enabled to give 
 a clear conception of it. But the social and 
 political order of things is at present in a state 
 of fermentation, the period in which we live is 
 characterized by its chaotic aspect ; and float- 
 ing upon such unstable times modern Judaism 
 sometimes appears to us rather shaky. 
 
 The invention and introduction of steam and 
 electric power has changed not only the former
 
 Modern Judaism. 21$ 
 
 order of things, but also the surface, the ge- 
 ography, the history, even the philosophy, of 
 the world, in such a degree that humanity has 
 not yet been able to keep step with it. A new 
 order of things is preparing, old landmarks are 
 changing, powers small and unnoticed before 
 are rising into prominence, while others are on 
 the decline. The struggle between labor and 
 capital enters every day into new phases, com- 
 munism and nihilism cannot any longer be talked 
 out of existence ; in a word, the whole world is 
 becoming upset and revolutionized. The old 
 house threatens to fall to pieces, and the new 
 house is not yet ready. The world seems to be 
 in labor pains, and still the hour for the birth of 
 a new order has not yet struck. 
 
 How can it be expected that Judaism shall 
 find its proper form under such circumstances ? 
 As a magnetic needle is not expected to stand 
 still during a storm, but gives satisfaction when, 
 though trembling from right to left, it again 
 returns for a moment to its true position pointing 
 northward, thus Judaism, though moving at pres- 
 ent between extremes, still points out the right 
 way. When the storm shall have subsided, 
 when the waves shall have been smoothed down, 
 Judaism will be found again in its proper place 
 and in a more settled shape the only religion 
 fitted to survive. 
 
 Speaking of modern Judaism we must care-
 
 216 Modern Judaism. 
 
 fully distinguish between those forms which 
 are the mere garment of religion, and those 
 which pertain to its body. The soul of religion 
 is still a creation for itself. Every religion has 
 a soul, a body, and a vestment for this body. 
 Judaism too has such a body, and this body was 
 never found in want of a garment. But in a 
 religion destined to survive, not only the gar- 
 ment is cast off from time to time, but the body 
 itself changes, as the human body does from 
 year to year. In the measure as the body ex- 
 pands the garment must be made larger. All 
 those ceremonies which usually, but wrongly, 
 are taken for the embodiment of a religion are 
 its garment only, and adjust themselves from 
 time to time to the body proper. Of Judaism 
 both the soul and the body are immortal ; the 
 soul remains unchangeable, the body assumes 
 from time to time different forms, the garment 
 alone is allowed to wear away and to be replaced 
 by a new one. The whole temple service, with 
 priests and sacrifices, with breast-plates and 
 altars, has been a mere cloak to cover the 
 body of Judaism in its youth. 
 
 This body was the anthropology of that 
 early age. God was represented as the king of 
 the universe, and although no visible image of 
 the deity was tolerated, the human mind of 
 that time was unable to form a higher concep- 
 tion of the Almighty. With the dawn of a bet-
 
 Modern Judaism. 2 1 7 
 
 ter and higher conception the body expanded, 
 the garment fell away, and the measurement 
 for a new suit of clothes had to be taken. 
 
 The researches of the last century have again 
 so vastly changed the body of our religion that 
 a new garment is in demand. This garment 
 is not yet ready, it is making ; and as soon as 
 the proportions of the new body shall be un- 
 derstood, and a correct measure of them shall 
 have been taken, the new cloak will be finished 
 at once. The present discord in regard to cere- 
 monies, the present experimenting with all 
 kinds of formulas, the feeling of discomfort 
 which as a consequence pervades at present our 
 religious life, are caused by the late expansion 
 of the body of our religion and our desire to 
 cover the bare places. We may for a time at- 
 tempt to patch the old garment wherever it 
 tears, but it is a poor policy, love's labor lost. 
 A new one is needed. 
 
 As I cannot define what modern Judaism is, I 
 will at least direct your attention to some great 
 changes which have expanded the body of Juda 
 ism and have therefore caused the demand for 
 a new garb. 
 
 One is the change of opinion in regard to the 
 origin of the Bible. For centuries the belief 
 had been current, and seemed to have been 
 the backbone of our religion, that the Bible was 
 the direct word of God, that he had dictated
 
 2 1 8 Modern Judaism. 
 
 every word literally to the authors of the differ- 
 ent books, and that consequently no error or 
 mistake could have occurred therein. If a pas- 
 sage would not agree with our common sense, 
 we would spare no trouble to interpret it so as 
 to make it fit. If our efforts were unsuccessful, 
 we would simply bewail human blindness and 
 our inability to see the true light, but we would 
 never harbor the least doubt as to the literal 
 truth of the Bible. 
 
 All our ceremonies, therefore, adapted them- 
 selves to this body. The reading and expound- 
 ing of the law became the centre of the divine 
 service. The very place in which the scroll of 
 the law was kept, the very parchment upon 
 which it was written, were held sacred. When 
 a fire occurred in a synagogue, people would risk 
 their lives to save the scrolls ; not because it 
 was a great expense to them to obtain new 
 ones, but because they were considered holy. 
 The preacher would discuss dark passages con- 
 tained therein, and the text quoted from the 
 good book was used by him as a foundation for 
 his arguments. No human power could shake 
 that evidence, and from it there was no appeal. 
 
 This belief has now vanished. The body of 
 Judaism has assumed an entirely different form. 
 We believe to-day that, in a certain degree, all 
 literature is inspired by the divine being. We 
 know that no author could write a line unless
 
 Modern Judaism. 2 1 9 
 
 under divine inspiration. All that we call 
 invention, discovery, progress, advancement, is 
 a revelation. The new idea which flashes upon 
 the mind of a great thinker, of an inventor or 
 discoverer, the light which he perceives, while 
 the rest of humanity does not yet see it, is a 
 revelation of God. God speaks to men to-day 
 as he has spoken before to them ; he speaks 
 louder and more distinct to the one than to the 
 other, but he speaks always in the language of 
 their time, in order to be understood by them. 
 The truth of a revelation remains the same, 
 though the wording of it may become erroneous 
 on account of the medium through which it has 
 to pass. 
 
 Thus the Bible is an inspired book, but not 
 more inspired than any other. To us, it is, be- 
 sides, a literary treasure accumulated by our 
 nation, showing us how it has been evolved from 
 its earliest days to the time when the last edi- 
 tion was revised. It is sacred to us on account 
 of its antiquity, on account of the grand ideas 
 expressed therein ; but it has ceased to be in- 
 fallible. We have ceased to cling to its letter, 
 though we accept its spirit. All that is true in 
 it we adopt ; all that is erroneous we discard. 
 We do not say any longer that a fact is true be- 
 cause it is recorded in the Bible ; but we claim 
 that a great many facts have been embodied in 
 that book because they were thought to be true.
 
 22O Modern Judaism. 
 
 We know to-day that the five books of Moses 
 were written several hundred years after Moses, 
 not by one but by several authors ; that they 
 were written in a different order ; that they were 
 re-edited and revised. Concerning the other 
 books, we know still less, even the names of 
 their authors may be fictitious. 
 
 On account of this change in the body of our 
 religion, our present ceremonial will not fit any 
 longer. The whole system of our public wor- 
 ship has ceased to give satisfaction on account 
 of it. A new garment is making. A hundred 
 years from now our ceremonies will have been 
 changed to fit the new condition of things. If 
 we should live to see that time, we should pos- 
 sibly feel quite uncomfortable ; we should possi- 
 bly not call the new creation Judaism ; but 
 Judaism it will be as long as the soul remains 
 intact, which is, " Hear, Israel, the Lord thy 
 God is one God." 
 
 Islam could not survive the destruction of 
 the Koran. Christianity totters to-day on 
 account of the blows which liberal thinkers 
 direct against the divinity of the New and Old 
 Testament, and it will soon fall, as all the liber- 
 als concede, on account of having no other foun- 
 dation but the one ; but Judaism will exist for- 
 ever, even if its Bible shall be placed on the shelf 
 with other books of the same grandeur or value. 
 The structure of Judaism does not rest upon
 
 Modern Judaism. 221 
 
 the Bible. Judaism existed before a letter of 
 the Bible was written. Israel's mission is 
 indeed not written upon combustible parchment 
 and with a perishable pen ; it is written with 
 the finger of God, upon the indestructible pages 
 of human history. 
 
 Long before the authority of the Bible had 
 been shaken, that of the Talmud had vanished 
 away. The Talmud is a work of great histori- 
 cal value. With its commentaries it is the pet- 
 rified life of our nation during more than a 
 thousand years. It is difficult to give a correct 
 description of what the Talmud is. I can give 
 you at present a metaphor only. Take the 
 leading newspapers of our country, file them 
 away day by day for a couple of hundred years, 
 bind them into volumes without reference to 
 time or place, and then commence to study 
 from these books the history, laws, and customs 
 of our country. For a long time the opinions 
 of the ancient rabbies, as laid down in the Tal- 
 mud, were considered valid and binding; our 
 time, however, claims that we ought to know as 
 much about the works of our present time as 
 they knew about theirs, and as we may be in- 
 competent to-day to legislate for the past and 
 the remote future, thus have our wise ancestors 
 been incompetent to provide for us. In a word, 
 we claim the same right which they claimed at 
 their time to provide for the present needs.
 
 222 Modern Judaism. 
 
 This again materially changes the ceremonial 
 part of our religion. Another change which of 
 late has taken place is, that we have given up 
 all our claims to political existence. It took a 
 long time before the land of our forefathers was 
 forgotten. The persecution under which Israel 
 suffered for many long centuries, the limited 
 geographical knowledge which was possessed 
 by all people, made us sigh and long for a res- 
 toration of the old country. But this phantom 
 of political independence has vanished entirely. 
 Modern Judaism has torn up the old titles which 
 it held on Palestine. We hold to-day that we 
 are the true sons of that country in which we 
 live, and which protects our liberties and our 
 rights ; and if a few obsolete prayers referring 
 to the old hope still linger in some old prayer- 
 books, it is merely on account of conservative 
 instincts, if not of ignorance of their meaning. 
 It matters, indeed, little whether the prayers for 
 the re-establishment of the Jewish nationality 
 are rehearsed by our orthodox brethren, they 
 are no longer even a true expression of their 
 hopes. 
 
 Modern Judaism is by no means indifferent- 
 ism. It means work. It acknowledges the his- 
 toric mission of Israel to be the banner-bearer 
 of truth and to proclaim to the world the doc- 
 trine of one God and one humanity. It claims 
 that he worships God the Heavenly Father best
 
 Modern Judaism. 223 
 
 who bears in his heart the greatest love for His 
 children, and manifests the same by deeds of 
 charity. Modern Judaism endeavors to foster in 
 the hearts of the rising generation the pride of 
 being Israelites, by removing all such empty 
 customs, which would lower us in the estimation 
 of intelligent men, without profiting our reli- 
 gion. Only he who believes in the immortality 
 of Judaism, and is proud of being a son of Israel, 
 can enter with enthusiasm upon the noble work 
 in store for us. 
 
 In a word, all those who love Judaism are 
 modern Israelites ; all those who join in the 
 glorious mission of Israel are believers in mod- 
 ern Judaism.
 
 XIV. 
 THE SINAITIC REVELATION. 
 
 H ETHER it is on account of the weak- 
 ness of the human mind, or on account 
 of its strength, I cannot tell ; but it is a 
 fact that our intellect loves to wed events with 
 places, buildings, and objects of every kind and 
 description. The latter, insignificant as they 
 are in themselves, gain by this marriage at once 
 the respect and the reverence of the world, 
 which otherwise they would never have been 
 able to command, and the former receive in 
 exchange a stronger grip upon the memory of 
 men than they otherwise would have ha'd force 
 enough to obtain. Both events and objects are 
 winners by their union. The old rusty sword, 
 for which the junk-dealer would have hardly 
 paid a penny, becomes at once a valuable object, 
 and is placed on exhibition, because some cele- 
 brated general brandished it on a certain memo- 
 rable occasion. The site of the house where 
 Benjamin Franklin was born, the place where 
 Warren fell, the tree under which Napoleon 
 met with Bismarck after the battle of Sedan, 
 224
 
 The Sinaitic Revelation. 225 
 
 the cannon from which the first shot was fired 
 upon Fort Sumter, all these places and objects, 
 as well as a thousand others, which in them- 
 selves are of no value whatever, rise at once in 
 esteem on account of the events connected with 
 them, while the historical fact receives new 
 force and is revived with new strength in the 
 mind of the public at the sight of these relics. 
 About in the centre of the peninsula which 
 stretches between the horns of the Red Sea, lies 
 a wedge of granite rock rising from eight to nine 
 thousand feet above the level of the sea. Its 
 scenery is far from being picturesque, its useful- 
 ness to agriculture amounts to little or nothing; 
 not even from a strategical point of view is that 
 mountain-ridge remarkable. Its height is far 
 from awe-inspiring, there is not the least trace 
 of a volcanic eruption, which at some distant 
 time might have produced such grand and terri- 
 fying scenes as Mount Vesuvius does from time 
 to time ; not even a river of some importance 
 is born within its domain. This very mountain 
 wedge, however, has become more renowned 
 and celebrated than any other mountain in the 
 world, its name has become more familiar to the 
 human tongue than that of any other place on 
 earth, on account of an event which is said to 
 have taken place about three thousand years 
 ago on this very spot. Who, in the civilized 
 world, has never heard of Mount Sinai and of
 
 226 Modern Judaism. 
 
 the remarkable event to which its renown is 
 due? 
 
 When, in the days of my childhood, I read the 
 biblical description of the Sinaitic Revelation, I 
 always imagined Mount Sinai to be a cone rising 
 up to some height in the midst of the desert, 
 sloping evenly down on all sides. Around it I 
 saw the people of Israel pressing toward the 
 fence which Moses had been commanded to erect 
 around the base of the mountain, eager to witness 
 the grand scene which was to occur. I saw Moses 
 going up and down the mountain, now convers- 
 ing with God, now with the people ; I beheld 
 him, the great man, at the summit, enveloped in 
 dark overhanging clouds, from which lightnings 
 were bursting forth with unwonted brilliancy ; 
 I heard the peals of the thunder which followed 
 every flash, and out of the midst of the fire and 
 from out the noise and turmoil of nature I heard 
 the divine voice give forth the Decalogue : " I 
 am the Lord thy God, who have brought thee 
 out of the land of Egypt." 
 
 How I longed to see that remarkable spot ! 
 I imagined that I could find and discern every 
 feature of the mountain, that I -could draw the 
 very line to which the people had been permitted 
 to approach ; yea, even that I could trace the 
 footprints of Moses ascending and descending 
 the mountain. 
 
 I cannot describe to you, my friends, my dis-
 
 The Sinaitic Revelation. 227 
 
 appointment when for the first time I saw a 
 true picture of Mount Sinai and read a geo- 
 graphical description of the place. This moun- 
 tain range, with a circumference of many, many 
 miles, with three peaks instead of one, with 
 roads leading from village to village, with hills 
 and slopes, with ravines and valleys, this was not 
 the Mount Sinai which" I had imagined. Why, 
 it must have taken Moses a whole day, if not 
 longer, to ascend this mountain, and, according 
 to the Bible, he ascended it twice on the same 
 day, not speaking of the time his return to the 
 people must have consumed. And when I fur- 
 thermore read that amongst men of science it 
 is still an open question upon which of the three 
 peaks of Sinai the revelation took place, my 
 belief in the literal narrative of the Bible suf- 
 fered a severe shock. 
 
 Not until my experiences had multiplied; not 
 until I had found that events wedded to some 
 places or objects do not stand in any essential 
 connection with them, and are by no means in- 
 fluenced and shaped by them ; not until I had 
 learned the lesson that their union is only ficti- 
 tious, and is produced by our imagination solely ; 
 not until I had observed that a sword is a piece 
 of iron, no matter by whom and on what occa- 
 sion it was handled ; not until I had lost faith 
 in all relics, did I recover from that shock, did I 
 understand that the Decalogue and Mount Sinai
 
 228 Modern Judaism. 
 
 were not at all related with one another, that 
 the one could not lose or win anything by its 
 alliance with the other. The Decalogue is the 
 most divine revelation to the human mind, no 
 matter whether pronounced upon the summit of 
 a mountain or in a valley, whether during the 
 time of a storm or in pleasant weather, whether 
 it was ratified by a large concourse of people, 
 or originated in the soul of one man and had 
 forced its way to general recognition and accep- 
 tation step by step, degree by degree. 
 
 We are assembled here to-night to commem- 
 orate not so much the time and the place of an 
 event, but the event itself, which, in general 
 parlance, is known as the Sinaitic Revelation. 
 We have set this day apart as a festival of joy, 
 as a day on which to rejoice that the light of 
 reason has won a victory over the darkness of 
 superstition ; that mankind has lifted itself from 
 the low standard of the brute to the height of 
 civilized humanity, by acknowledging the prin- 
 ciple of law and order ; and that the first step 
 in that direction was taken by our nation. The 
 Decalogue in its entirety originated with the 
 Israelites ; or, as we may say in other words, it 
 has been revealed by God through the people of 
 Israel. 
 
 To understand this in its liberal sense let us 
 first examine what revelation means. A great 
 many people have lost their faith in revealed
 
 The Sinaitic Revelation. 229 
 
 religion, for no other reason than that they 
 could not accept the coarse interpretation given 
 to the word. The terms revelation and dis- 
 covery are about synonymous ; they cover about 
 the same ground. Both presuppose an object 
 which has always been in its place, but which 
 has not been seen by us ; both presume that at 
 a certain time a certain hand pushed the curtain 
 aside which stretched between us and the ob- 
 ject and barred our way to it. There is only a 
 slight difference between these two terms. 
 Speaking of revelation we think that it was the 
 hand of God which drew the veil aside ; speak- 
 ing of a discovery, we hold that it was the 
 human hand which lifted the cover. 
 
 The coarse interpretation of revelation is that 
 God, the invisible, made himself perceptible to 
 the eye or the ear of some man or woman whom 
 he selected for that purpose, and that he in- 
 structed them as to his will and wishes ; that he 
 pushed aside the veil which prevents man from 
 seeing a truth, and showed him the path of life 
 in bright daylight. The Sinaitic revelation, 
 coarsely interpreted, means that God made his 
 existence and presence felt in a peculiar way to 
 the whole people of Israel, and that every Israel- 
 ite, man, woman, or child, though they could 
 not see any form, heard a divine voice, out of the 
 midst of a column of fire, distinctly pronouncing 
 what are known as the Ten Commandments.
 
 230 Modern Judaism. 
 
 The most refined conception of the word, 
 however, coincides with that of the other term, 
 with that of discovery : the divine hand lead- 
 ing the human hand to lift the curtain which 
 hides the object for which we are in search. 
 The distinction between the two terms has 
 been kept up theoretically only ; practically, we 
 have arrive'd at the conclusion that every revela- 
 tion has been a discovery, and that every dis- 
 covery is a revelation. The story of the Sinaitic 
 Revelation is to be taken by us as a poetical 
 description, both of the grandeur and impor- 
 tance of the Decalogue, and of the impression 
 which it made upon humanity ; and, indeed, the 
 writer remained far behind the actual revolu- 
 tions and convulsions which these command- 
 ments have produced. To what does the peal 
 of thunder, the flash of lightning, or the quak- 
 ing of the earth, amount in comparison with 
 the spiritual transformation of the human race, 
 which began with the discovery of the ten 
 principles upon which human welfare rests ? 
 Mankind had felt the existence of each of 
 them singly long before, by instinct : some of 
 them were no news to the people. And, in- 
 deed, they all must have been called into exis- 
 tence with mankind, as the laws of gravity, of 
 electricity, and thousands of others, must have 
 originated with the objects to which they refer ; 
 but they had not yet been understood : they
 
 The Sinaitic Revelation. 23 1 
 
 had not yet been gathered into one common 
 focus. Degree by degree the human race had 
 to approach that light; and finally, a great man, 
 born in a peculiarly gifted nation, was to tear 
 away the last wraps which were hanging be- 
 tween it and mankind. Divine inspiration 
 forced him to collect the scattered rocks and 
 build of them a huge pedestal upon which the 
 statue of human happiness could safely rest. 
 
 The Ten Commandments were not given to 
 Israel alone ; they were given through Israel to 
 the world. The Ten Commandments are non- 
 sectarian ; they hold good for every race and 
 denomination, for every century, for the past, 
 present, and future, for every country, for every 
 form of government, for every climate and evefy 
 zone ; they are a charter given to humanity at 
 large. 
 
 There can be no doubt that the Ten Com- 
 mandments are of divine origin ; that they were 
 enacted by the same supreme being who created 
 the world and framed all the laws by which 
 nature is governed. They have received ac- 
 knowledgment these three thousand years ; 
 they have been adopted as the groundwork of 
 all human legislation and religion : they have 
 been tried at the poles of the earth and at the 
 equator ; and at no time or place has ever a 
 change been needed. Not one of them has 
 ever been abrogated or abolished ; and what is
 
 232 Modern Judaism. 
 
 still a greater proof of their divinity, no amend- 
 ment to them has ever been thought of. We 
 take some pride to-day in the wisdom of the 
 framers of the constitution of this country ; 
 but barely one century has passed by, when we 
 find that fifteen amendments have been needed, 
 and consequently added to it. 
 
 If we to-day celebrate the great event of the 
 Sinaitic Revelation, we do not celebrate it 
 as Israelites merely, but as members of the 
 human family ; not for the sake of commemorat- 
 ing a supernatural, but a decidedly natural 
 event. This festival is not a mere Jewish 
 festival ; it is a festival on which the whole 
 world ought to rejoice, and in the celebration 
 of which it will ultimately join. 
 
 The enemies of Judaism have frequently at- 
 tempted to rob it of the fruits of its labors ; and 
 the claim that the Ten Commandments did not 
 originate with the Israelites, but existed in part 
 amongst other nations, is not a new one. But 
 did not the law of gravitation exist long before 
 Newton found a formula for it ? Did not the 
 laws which govern the electric current exist 
 long before Franklin found a definition for 
 them ? Did not this continent exist before 
 Columbus discovered it ? 
 
 There is not one commandment of the ten 
 which by right ought not to have governed the 
 human race from its very start ; but the grand-
 
 The Sinaitic Revelation. 233 
 
 eur of the Decalogue does not consist in the 
 novelty of its laws, but in the completeness of 
 their compilation ; and, after all, only a few of 
 these laws were known amongst the nations of 
 antiquity. The acknowledgment of one God, 
 the vanity of imagery, the necessity of one 
 day's rest out of seven, the command to honor 
 father and mother, and, above all, the pro- 
 hibition of envy, the root of all evil, had never 
 been pronounced before with such distinct- 
 ness. 
 
 To sum it up : the Ten Commandments are 
 coherent with humanity, they were born on the 
 same day when the human race sprang into 
 existence, they are of divine make and bear the 
 stamp of the divine maker on their face, and we 
 Israelites have no other claim on them than 
 that our nation has been the medium through 
 which the light has been spread over all the 
 nations of the earth, that the Jews were the 
 first discoverers and expounders of these re- 
 markable laws. 
 
 But if they are of divine origin, and we, their 
 discoverers, have been destined to be their 
 guardians ; if, furthermore, we rejoice to-day in 
 that glorious mission, and assemble to celebrate 
 an event of the greatest moment ever recorded 
 in history, ought it not be our sacred duty at 
 once to ascertain how near we have come to 
 the realization of the wishes of God : how near
 
 234 Modern Judaism. 
 
 we have come to the goal of human happiness 
 marked by these very laws ? 
 
 While suns and stars, the roaring thunder, 
 and the destructive lightning, while all th'e 
 forces of nature obediently and reverently bow 
 before their Creator, and submit to the laws 
 which he has given for their guidance, man 
 alone keeps on revolting and rebelling against 
 the divine will. For three thousand years the 
 Ten Commandments have been the guide of hu- 
 manity; but three thousand long years have 
 not yet convinced the feeble being called man 
 that his happiness and his woe depend on the 
 obedience or disobedience to these laws. For 
 three thousand years these beneficial laws have 
 been known to man, and for three thousand 
 years they have not been heeded. 
 
 Ah ! my friends, we can easily learn these 
 commandments by heart, we can easily imprint 
 them upon the memory of our children ; but to 
 live up to them is quite another thing. What 
 is the use of celebrating festivals in honor of 
 these laws, of acknowledging their divinity, if 
 in our daily life we act contrary to their com- 
 mands, if we are unmindful of the lesson which 
 they instil ? 
 
 For three thousand years it has been known 
 to the world that there is but one. God; but 
 behold how difficult it is for some of our 
 most enlightened contemporaries to tear them-
 
 The Sinaitic Revelation. 235 
 
 selves from a threefold God and for others from 
 the shallows of atheism ? Three thousand years 
 ago the law was promulgated, "Thou shalt 
 have no other gods besides me," and behold 
 people are still worshipping the vanities of life, 
 Gold, Power, Honor, to the exclusion of the 
 true God. For three thousand years mankind 
 has been experimenting with the Sabbath ques- 
 tion, and the wisest and best men of all reli- 
 gions have conceded that one day of rest out of 
 seven, exactly as provided by the fourth com- 
 mandment, is needed for the welfare of hu- 
 manity ; and still the Sabbath is ignored. You 
 work seven full days in seven ; and if it only 
 were possible, you would work eight. For three 
 thousand years the commandment, " Honor 
 thy father and mother" has- been taught by 
 every parent to the rising generation, but alas ! 
 theoretically only, not practically. For if every 
 man had honored his father and mother, the 
 sad experience would not press itself daily upon 
 us that fathers or mothers can raise seven 
 children, while as many children cannot sup- 
 port one father or mother in their old age. 
 
 The commandment, " Thou shalt not kill," is 
 three thousand years old, but behold the most 
 flourishing factories in the world are those 
 where instruments of war are forged, and the 
 fat of almost every country is consumed by 
 large standing armies of trained men-slayers,
 
 236 Modern Judaism. 
 
 more courteously called soldiers. " Thou shalt 
 not steal " is another of the divine laws by 
 which human society would surely be benefited, 
 but our prisons are overflowing, not to speak of 
 those thieves who manage to evade the arm of 
 human justice. 
 
 Nor during these three thousand years has 
 the slanderous tongue been silenced, or the 
 envious eye been blinded. 
 
 At first sight it seems as if these ten com- 
 mandments had been a failure, because every 
 one of them is boldly broken by us ; but alas, 
 what fools these mortals be ! We do not see 
 that a law stands high as a law, no matter 
 whether it is obeyed or not ; we do not see 
 that all human misery, all our anguish and 
 agonies of life, all our mortifications, are the 
 consequences of and the punishment for our 
 disobedience to these very laws. 
 
 Divine laws need no police to enforce them ; 
 their punishment of the disobedient rests with 
 them. They protect themselves automatically 
 against infringement. 
 
 Let us therefore not allow this remarkable 
 day to pass by without reflecting earnestly 
 upon the grand lesson which it instils. Ten 
 commandments, so simple that every child can 
 understand them, have been given to humanity. 
 On our obedience to them depends our happi- 
 ness and that of our children. They are not
 
 The Sinaitic Revelation. 237 
 
 the whims of an irritable God, they are not the 
 property of one sect or race : they are universal 
 and endorsed by common sense as well as by 
 an experience of three thousand years. Let us 
 not ignore them : let us live up to their full 
 meaning. Let us show to the world that to 
 observe these commandments involves no hard- 
 ship, no self-denial, no abnegation whatever. 
 Let us prove to the world that the Jew is still 
 the guardian of these laws and is benefited by 
 their strict observation. These ten command- 
 ments are the foundation of Judaism, they will 
 or can never be changed ; but they are at the 
 same time the foundation of humanity, and 
 Judaism therefore will and must exist until all 
 mankind shall have submitted to these laws. 
 It is with us to shorten the time which lies 
 between us and the age when all nations shall 
 form one large family, and the festival of to-day 
 calls upon us to fulfil our duty ; namely, to prop- 
 agate these ten commandments not as arti- 
 cles of creed, but as living deeds ; not as theo- 
 ries, but as practical achievements ; not one 
 or some as we may select them, but all in their 
 entirety. 
 
 As the summit of this tabernacle is adorned 
 with the two tablets containing the Ten Com- 
 mandments, as such two tablets crown the 
 edifice of this temple without, so must these 
 ten commandments tower above all our inner-
 
 238 Modern Judaism. 
 
 most thoughts and outward actions, and their 
 strict performance be the ornament and the 
 most precious crown of our life. 
 
 This is the lesson of our festival to-day, this 
 the result which ought to come from the com- 
 memoration of the Sinaitic Revelation.
 
 XV. 
 
 MOSES. 
 
 'N inventive genius is said to have con- 
 structed a machine which not only had 
 the appearance of a man, but could walk, 
 talk, eat, drink, work, and act automatically 
 like a man. He is said to have finished this 
 man-machine in the best style, and so similar to 
 a real man that, after it had been set in motion, 
 it moved amongst men for years, without ever 
 being detected as a counterfeit. 
 
 After a few weeks of intercourse with real 
 human beings, the man-machine, however, be- 
 came dissatisfied with itself : it perceived that 
 its master had forgotten to supply it with a 
 soul ; and it wanted a soul. Day after day, 
 from early dawn to the hours of night, it would 
 plague him for a soul. The master finally tired 
 of it, and, wishing to avoid his tormentor, re- 
 moved to other quarters. But the very next 
 morning the artificial man would enter his 
 room, with the words : " Please, sir, give me a 
 
 soul." 
 
 239
 
 240 Modern Judaism. 
 
 It was of no avail that he removed to 
 another city, that he hid himself in obscure 
 villages ; the machine would find his hiding- 
 places, and was sure to approach him with the 
 words : " Please, sir, give me a soul." He re- 
 solved at length to place several thousand miles 
 of sea between himself and his creature, and 
 went to Australia. " I shall now be at rest," 
 thought he, when he sat down at the breakfast- 
 table in his hotel in Sydney. But he had 
 scarcely touched the meal before him, when the 
 door opened, and his machine, hat in hand, and 
 humbly bowing, respectfully approached him : 
 "Good morning, sir ; please give me a soul." 
 
 The absurdity of this anecdote lies in the 
 impossibility of constructing such a machine, 
 of creating a body which would crave a soul ; 
 but turn the table, and you will find that al- 
 most daily in every one of us souls are created 
 which constantly follow us with the demand : 
 " Please give us a body." You will find that it 
 is utterly impossible for you to escape these 
 tormentors; that they will travel with you, 
 cross oceans and deserts with you ; and that 
 there is nothing left for you but to give them 
 the body which they demand. 
 
 There are souls which have no vitality what- 
 ever, and, therefore, die soon after their birth ; 
 there are others, however, who enjoy a healthier 
 constitution, and struggle with one another
 
 Moses. 241 
 
 for preference ; and there are still others of 
 such strength and vigor that the man who is 
 haunted by one of them is compelled to sacri- 
 fice all that is near and dear to him his time, 
 his personal happiness, his family connections, 
 his prosperity, his health, yea, often his life, 
 in the work of constructing a body for that soul. 
 
 To speak more plainly, every idea, every wish, 
 which, like a spark of fire, flits up in our heart, 
 is such a soul. They all crave a body realiza- 
 tion. Some of our wishes die in the very hour 
 of their birth ; they are those foolish wishes, 
 which either are of no momentum, or are easily 
 realized. If you wish for a new garment, a new 
 book, a new ornament, or a new toy, and you 
 have the means of giving a body to such a soul, 
 you can easily rid yourselves of it ; but there 
 are wishes which are of momentum, and the 
 realization of which is not so easy. They will 
 follow you wherever you go ; they will torment 
 you constantly ; they will enter your dreams, 
 and disturb your nightly repose. They are 
 the wishes which refer to the improvement of 
 our worldly affairs, to the bettering of our 
 present condition, to the gratification of our 
 ambition. 
 
 Every man wishes to enlarge the circle of 
 his usefulness, to build up his business, to be- 
 come famous ; and these are legitimate wishes, 
 souls of a legitimate birth. They, too, crave
 
 242 Modern Judaism. 
 
 realization ; and in your efforts to supply them 
 with a body, your best years pass by, yea, 
 your whole life is spent. 
 
 But there are souls of still greater dimen- 
 sions, before which all the rest must give way ; 
 they are the great ideas, which are born in the 
 minds of great men ; ideas which encompass the 
 welfare of all humanity, and the realization of 
 which therefore is so difficult that it seems well 
 nigh impossible. 
 
 Read the biographies of all the great men 
 who have ever lived on earth, who have spent 
 their lives in the service of humanity, and you 
 will find that all have the same features in 
 common. 
 
 A grand idea of universal importance flashes 
 through their mind ; a great soul is born to 
 them, and this idea, this soul, haunts them day 
 and night through all their life. In vain do they 
 attempt to throw the burden from their shoul- 
 ders, in vain do they attempt to escape their 
 persecutors ; the idea, craving realization, fol- 
 lows them, pitifully begging : " Please, sir, give 
 me a body," and they must return to their 
 duty, whether they will or not ; they must plan, 
 and prepare, and form, and carve a body for that 
 soul. Suffering from the ingratitude of the 
 world, despised, ridiculed, persecuted, on ac- 
 count of their strange work, now rejoicing, 
 now despairing, now surrounded by flatterers,
 
 Moses. 243 
 
 now forsaken by their best friends, they must 
 toil on. The divine model stands before them ; 
 and after its pattern they cut, and carve, and 
 chisel a body so great, so harmonious, so beau- 
 tiful, that the world, after thousands of genera- 
 tions, is still bound to admire their skill, to 
 bend the knee before their great genius, to love 
 them for all the self-denials and sufferings 
 which they have undergone so patiently. 
 
 Assembling here to-night, celebrating the 
 Passover Festival, we evidently wish to pay our 
 tribute of admiration to one of the greatest 
 benefactors of humanity, to appreciate his ser- 
 vices, to manifest the love which we bear to him 
 on account of all his struggles and self-denials. 
 Although Judaism has never idolized or deified 
 a man, although it has ever claimed that adora- 
 tion is due to God alone, we cannot celebrate 
 this festival without remembering our great 
 teacher and lawgiver, Moses ; the man who has 
 not only given birth to one of the grandest 
 ideas ever produced by a mortal, but who spent 
 his whole life in framing a body for this soul, a 
 body of such greatness that it still towers 
 above similar structures ; of such strength that 
 it has outlived similar creations ; of such har- 
 mony and beauty that other masters have mod- 
 elled their works after its pattern without ever 
 reaching the original. 
 
 I do not propose to-night to revamp the his-
 
 244 Modern Judaism. 
 
 tory of Moses as narrated in the Bible. I hold 
 that the writers of the Bible, in their simplicity, 
 have not done him justice enough ; they wrote 
 a history of Moses the prophet, and not of 
 Moses the man ; they surrounded him with 
 supernatural miracles and thus robbed him of 
 the best fruits of his individual efforts. They 
 wrote in the light and after the taste of their 
 time : let us read between the lines, let us allow 
 our imagination a freer scope, and let us review 
 the life of this great man in the light and after 
 the taste of our time. We shall arrive, how- 
 ever, at the same conclusions, though by a dif- 
 ferent route, namely, that every great man is the 
 chosen instrument of God, and that every great 
 idea which ever flashed upon the mind of such 
 a man is a revelation of God, a soul, for which 
 he was compelled to form a body. 
 
 At so great a distance of time, and without 
 the necessary authentic sources to draw from, 
 it is rather difficult to describe the earlier years 
 of the life of Moses. The biblical record, 
 though romantic and pleasing, does not satisfy 
 us ; modern criticism rebels against any miracu- 
 lous intervention of God in human affairs. Ro- 
 mantic and pleasing the story is, indeed, that 
 Moses was saved from a watery grave by the 
 love of his mother, and then by the Princess of 
 Egypt, that he was brought up at the royal 
 court, and thus initiated in the wisdom of
 
 Moses. 245 
 
 Egypt ; but it lacks probability. The princess 
 would have shown great humanity, and would 
 have been deserving of the greatest praise, if 
 she had simply protected the life of the found- 
 ling, and had restored him to his family. In a 
 country in which the spirit of caste prevailed to 
 such a degree as in Egypt ; in a country where 
 customs and laws prohibited the entrance of a 
 member of one caste into another, it must have 
 been impossible even for a princess to introduce 
 a member of the lowest, most degraded, and 
 most despised of all castes into the highest and 
 most respected, and for no other reason than 
 that she had found the child years ago in the 
 river. Granted that the momentary impulse ot 
 the princess when she found the child had been 
 that of adopting it, we know only too well that 
 afterthoughts, and especially a lapse of four or 
 five years, change such impulses. But suppos- 
 ing even that he had been admitted into the 
 royal household, how is it that the princess 
 could not save her protege when he had slain 
 the Egyptian ? Could her mighty influence not 
 have secured the best lawyers for his defence ? 
 Could he not have been released on the plea of 
 self-defence ? And why had he to stay away 
 from home, as the Bible tells, for forty long 
 years, until all his enemies had died ? Who 
 were all his enemies ? 
 
 Let us rather take things as they occur fre-
 
 246 Modern Judaism. 
 
 quently and in reality : let us divest the facts of 
 their romantic garment. In one of the lowest 
 Egyptian castes, in a nation held in serfdom by 
 the Egyptians, a bright boy is born, in humble 
 surroundings. He grows up, and with him his 
 inborn talents, his inborn genius. He sees 
 what others do not see : he observes as others 
 do not observe. Does he need a schooling ? 
 No ! the whole universe is the school in which 
 a genius is trained. The stars in the sky, the 
 plants on the earth, the animals in the fields, 
 the murmuring brooks, the surging sea, are his 
 teachers. Great men seldom had teachers, and 
 never needed any ; their greatness is within 
 them, and expands from within, like the bud of 
 a rose. 
 
 Mediocrity needs teachers to evolve and 
 bring forth the little talent which it contains, 
 and which is too feeble to break forth of its own 
 accord. A great man commands respect with- 
 out being a scholar, and wields influence over 
 others by his personal magnetism. Young 
 Moses beheld the misery in which his nation 
 lived : and the thought flashed upon him, " Free 
 thy nation, break their fetters of slavery ; for all 
 men are alike, equal rights are due to all of 
 them, and the enjoyment of freedom is the first 
 and foremost of all human rights." The soul 
 was born, and immediately craved a body. 
 
 He went amongst his brethren, preaching the
 
 Moses. 247 
 
 gospel of freedom, arousing them to break their 
 chains, conspiring as revolutionists would do in 
 our time against the government. The Egyp- 
 tians soon learned to fear the young partisan, 
 and persecuted him for high treason. Then 
 came the critical moment. His own brethren 
 denounced him. They were not yet ripe for a 
 general uprising : they would not band together 
 for the grand purpose. There were too many 
 party quibbles amongst them ; and when he 
 undertook the part of a mediator between them 
 they asked him jealously, "Who has made thee 
 the judge over us ? " They rather sided with 
 their oppressors against him ; and he was 
 compelled to depart from his native soil, to 
 abandon his cherished plans. He met with his 
 first defeat. 
 
 Imagine, my friends, a young man of genius, 
 full of enthusiasm for a great cause, struggling 
 for the realization of a grand and glorious idea, 
 endeavoring to form a body for the soul which 
 once born in him would not leave him a mo- 
 ment's rest, but would torment him with the 
 pitiful cry, " Give me a body." Imagine such a 
 young man, defeated by his own friends, his well- 
 laid plans thwarted by the indifference and the 
 ignorance of those who were to be benefited by 
 them, his hopes blighted, his works ruined, he 
 himself outlawed and a fugitive, and you will 
 understand why he dared not return before
 
 248 Modern Judaism. 
 
 many years ; you will understand who his ene- 
 mies were. 
 
 Behold the difference ! Which of the two is 
 the greater man, Moses the petted favorite of a 
 princess, sneaking away, a common murderer, or 
 Moses the genial party-leader, the apostle of 
 liberty, the political fugitive going into a self- 
 chosen exile because of ill-success, leaving his 
 country broken-hearted and in despair ? Which 
 of- the two commands your admiration ? 
 
 If you have ever met with a reverse of for- 
 tune, or with the ingratitude of those whom you 
 loved best ; if ever your plans miscarried ; if 
 ever you have stood before the ruins of a work 
 the construction of which has cost you so much 
 trouble and labor, you must remember the feel- 
 ing of apathy which then took hold of you. " I 
 shall never do it again," you would say ; or, 
 " This shall be a lesson for me," or whatever 
 other expression of a similar meaning would 
 burst from your angry lips. Moses had crossed 
 the desert, he had found shelter amongst 
 friends, and he was determined to withdraw 
 from politics and to retire to private life. 
 He fled from before the soul, but in vain. In 
 Jethro's cabin, in the embraces of a loving wife, 
 amidst the caresses of children born to him, he 
 heard the cry of that soul, " Give me a body." 
 With every year the cry grew louder and more 
 pitiful. In vain did he remonstrate with his
 
 Moses. 249 
 
 tormentor: "Who am I to undertake such 
 work ? Search for a better man ! Who will 
 ever believe me again after I have failed once ?" 
 But the voice kept on crying ; the fire kept on 
 burning, and the thornbush was never con- 
 sumed. He struggled against it with all his 
 might, but in vain. He had to submit ; and he 
 entered again upon the field of his former activ- 
 ity, this time to be successful and victorious. 
 
 The Bible tells us that he had lived with 
 Jethro for forty years, but it contradicts itself 
 on the spot by the statement that his second 
 child was still a babe when he returned to 
 Egypt ; on the other hand, it makes it appear as 
 if his transactions with Pharao, the ten plagues 
 included, lasted only a few months. 
 
 The Bible, however, grand as it is in general 
 outlines, is unreliable as to details ; it cares 
 little for the correctness of numbers or dates. 
 
 We may, therefore, accept it as very likely 
 that Moses had remained with Jethro a few 
 years only, but that between his return to 
 Egypt and the liberation of the Israelites a 
 long period of years must have elapsed. 
 
 He returned to Egypt better equipped and 
 fitted for his mission than he ever had been be- 
 fore. The idea of freeing his nation had already 
 assumed a more concrete form: it had grown 
 larger, broader, deeper. The light, had burst 
 upon him that liberty cannot be cut to pieces
 
 250 Modern Judaism. 
 
 and be dealt out in slices, one at a time. He 
 knew now that he must grant either full liberty or 
 none, that to be free politically without being 
 free morally is an impossibility. He proclaimed, 
 therefore, now, both liberty of body and of soul, 
 both political and moral freedom. He was now 
 ready to break both the fetters of serfdom and 
 the bonds of superstition. He now stepped 
 before his nation proclaiming one God and one 
 common brotherhood. 
 
 Misery and exile had not crushed him; on 
 the contrary, they had strengthened him; his 
 genius had grown and its wings spread all over 
 the moral horizon, covering and overshadowing 
 every branch of legislation. 
 
 He began his work anew. Again he at- 
 tempted to rouse his brethren, again he encoun- 
 tered their ignorance and indifference ; but lo 
 and behold ! he made the king of Egypt listen. 
 
 It matters little how he accomplished his 
 task ; whether by the aid of supernatural mira- 
 cles, or by political manoeuvring ; whether all 
 the Israelites quitted Egypt in one night, or 
 whether they left it as is more probable 
 in single swarms and at different times ; 
 whether they remained for forty years in the 
 desert, or whether it took forty years, more or 
 less, before the different swarms of emigrants 
 were safely settled in one part of Palestine ; 
 whether two and a half millions of Israelites
 
 Moses. 251 
 
 departed from Egypt, or a number not so large 
 as that. 
 
 All this matters little ; the fact remains that 
 the man Moses was the soul of the whole 
 undertaking, that he organized, civilized, and 
 colonized a nation of slaves, that he elaborated 
 a constitution resting upon the principle : One 
 God and one humanity. One God, the common 
 father of mankind all humanity one large 
 brotherhood, every member entitled to enjoy 
 equal rights, and an equal share of freedom and 
 personal happiness. 
 
 This was the body which he created for his 
 great idea, but not so easily was the work 
 accomplished as described. Revolt after revolt 
 had to be subdued, many a defeat had to be 
 encountered, many a reverse of fortune had to 
 be borne by him, and here behold the greatness 
 of the man Moses. He has taken the lowest 
 and most miserable of all Egyptian castes, he 
 has torn it from the grasp of a mighty empire, 
 he has colonized it in a country thickly settled 
 with valiant foes, he, all alone, without the help 
 of any human being. But he has done still more ; 
 he has raised within a few years this degraded 
 nation to the height of intelligence ; he has 
 made it the body-guard of the eternal truth 
 that there is but one God, a God whom no 
 human eye can see, no human ear can hear, no 
 human finger can touch, but who nevertheless
 
 252 Modern Judaism. 
 
 was, is, and will be, a God who has created 
 the world, preserves, and governs it ; he has en- 
 dowed this nation with laws before which after 
 three thousand years the whole civilized world 
 still bows in reverence ; he has proclaimed 
 through this nation to the whole world that all 
 men are born free and equal, and that their life, 
 liberty, and property must be kept sacred for- 
 ever. 
 
 All this may appear trivial to us, who have 
 been brought up amidst the blessings of his civ- 
 ilization, who have inherited his doctrines as a 
 matter of course, who are accustomed to the 
 liberty proclaimed by him ; but three thousand 
 years ago, when humanity was still enshrouded 
 by the night of superstition ; when idolatry of 
 the coarsest character was still prevalent ; 
 when the right of the strongest was the only 
 right maintained at the point of the sword ; 
 when slavery was sanctioned by law and cus- 
 tom, at that time his laws and proclamations 
 must have astonished the world ; and I do not 
 wonder at all, that, as it has been claimed, 
 the mountains trembled and the earth quaked 
 when he sent forth his message of universal 
 freedom and equality, his proclamation of one 
 God and one humanity. 
 
 Moses, like all great men, died a poor man. 
 The services of great men can never be re- 
 warded; and great men do not ask for com-
 
 Moses. 253 
 
 pensation. Great men are, so to say, slaves. 
 Moses, the proclaimer and champion of liberty, 
 was a slave himself. He was the slave of the 
 grand soul for which he was forming a body. 
 All worldly considerations vanished before his 
 grand task ; they were too trivial, too diminu- 
 tive, by the side of his great work. He had not 
 time to think of his family. 
 
 Neither was Moses ambitious. Not even the 
 spot is known upon which he closed his eyes 
 for the last slumber. Great men are not ambi- 
 tious ; their own self dwindles into nothing by 
 the side of the work for which they are commis- 
 sioned. As they are forgetful of their family 
 affairs so they are forgetful of themselves. 
 
 But, though no monument has ever been 
 erected in his honor, though no festival ever 
 was instituted to perpetuate his memory, he 
 has never been forgotten. The names of great 
 men are written with fiery letters in the book 
 of life ; and there we find, also, the name of 
 Moses, with the qualification the servant of 
 God, the slave of his divine mission. 
 
 Of late a great deal has been spoken and 
 written about the mistakes of Moses. Now, my 
 friends, why should he not have made mistakes ? 
 Why should he have been an exception ? Per- 
 haps he has made more mistakes than you and 
 I and Ingersoll dream of. Does the painter not 
 erase many times a line which he has drawn,
 
 254 Modern Judaism. 
 
 before he finds the one which suits his purpose ? 
 Does the sculptor not model and remodel a bust 
 before he is satisfied with its form ? After all, 
 the mistakes with which he is burdened are 
 not at all his mistakes ; they were the mistakes 
 of his biographers, the mistakes of historians of 
 a much later period. But, supposing that they 
 were his, what are they by the side of the great 
 work which he left behind him ? 
 
 Many men have entered upon their public 
 career amidst the applause and the acclamation 
 of the people amongst whom they lived. At 
 an eventful crisis they have made themselves 
 heard, on the crest of a political wave they 
 have been lifted into prominence, but soon they 
 have been carried away by the same wave, and 
 quickly forgotten. Not so Moses. He has 
 entered upon his career distrusted by all, un- 
 known to all, the son of Amram ; but his 
 genius has cleared the way before him ; he has 
 compelled his adversaries to acknowledge his 
 superiority, his talent, his skill, his faithfulness, 
 and his integrity ; and it is not before the end 
 of his life that we find the nation listening to 
 every one of his words, and obedient to every 
 one of his dictates. This fact, if no other, 
 shows to us that he must have been a great 
 man indeed. 
 
 May the review of the eventful life of Moses, 
 our great teacher and lawgiver, warm your
 
 Moses. 255 
 
 hearts to love and revere not only his memory, 
 but the work which he has constructed. May 
 it fill your hearts with pride when you think of 
 it that you are the guardians of his wonderful 
 creation, that you are to preserve it, and to de- 
 fend it against its foes. 
 
 Be true to your mission as he has been to 
 his, and whenever an idea of general usefulness 
 is born unto you, whenever such a soul asks 
 you to supply it with a body, listen to it ; 
 do not shirk your duty ; do not attempt to 
 flee from before it, but accept gratefully the 
 divine mandate, and devote yourselves to the 
 task with all the energy that is within you. 
 Our great Emerson says : " The one thing of 
 value in the world is an active soul."
 
 XVI. 
 PROPAGATION OF RELIGION. 
 
 'LTHOUGH the constitution of the 
 United States of America does not 
 recognize any distinction of creed what- 
 soever, and although objections have been fre- 
 quently raised to the appellation " Christian 
 country " whenever this term has been applied 
 to the United States, it is an undeniable fact 
 that after all this country is at present a 
 "Christian country." Although a large num- 
 ber of Israelites are sharing with their fellow- 
 citizens all the rights and privileges which this 
 country so liberally grants to its inhabitants ; 
 although a number of Mohammedans, crowds of 
 Buddhists, thousands of pagans, and even an 
 uncounted multitude of pantheists and atheists, 
 do dwell upon this hospitable continent, enjoy- 
 ing without molestation the rights of life, liberty, 
 and of the pursuit of happiness, there is no 
 gainsaying that their combined number is so 
 inconsiderably small in comparison with that of 
 their Christian neighbors, which is so over- 
 whelmingly large, that it would be folly to close 
 256
 
 Propagation of Religion. 257 
 
 one's eyes to the fact. Therefore I cannot but 
 call this country a Christian country, on account 
 of the vast majority of Christians living therein. 
 
 It cannot be denied, furthermore, that to a 
 great extent our present civilization has evolved 
 from Christian principles ; we are surrounded 
 from all sides by Christian customs and usages ; 
 our public schools, although they are claimed to 
 be non-sectarian, are enshrouded by an atmos- 
 phere of Christian tendencies ; take all in all", 
 and you must concede that Christianity is a 
 factor in life which it would be unwise to over- 
 look in our calculations. 
 
 It may have occurred to many of you as an 
 uncalled-for assumption on my part that I have 
 touched of late so frequently upon a topic 
 which so far has always been a noli me tangere 
 (touch me not) of Jewish pulpit oratory ; namely, 
 that I have drawn Christianity into my discus- 
 sions. On account of former persecutions the 
 Israelites had inherited a certain timidity, and 
 had become afraid to speak of the domineering 
 religion, and to acquaint themselves with its 
 teachings. The name of its founder was rarely, 
 if ever, pronounced in a Jewish synagogue, and 
 it appeared not only unnecessary, but even dan- 
 gerous, to lay open the weak points of Chris- 
 tianity or to dwell on its strong ones. The 
 consequence of this timidity was that we have 
 remained absolutely ignorant in regard to Chris-
 
 258 Modern Judaism. 
 
 tian teachings, and that therefore we have be- 
 come unable to discuss with our neighbors and 
 friends the differences of our inherited creeds. 
 Neither were we prepared to defend ourselves, 
 nor could we lend a helping hand to our more 
 liberal friends to root up old superstitions. 
 While on every Sunday thousands of Christian 
 pulpits have instructed large congregations as 
 to the tenets of Judaism, with more or less 
 accuracy ; while the Christian clergy have made 
 all possible efforts to enlighten their parishioners 
 as to what Jews think and believe, the Jewish 
 pulpit has remained culpably silent and the Jew- 
 ish clergy have cowardly shirked their duty. I 
 am well aware of it that when I first touched 
 the sore spot many of my friends feared that 
 lectures on such topics would create an ill-feel- 
 ing against us in the community ; but they had 
 forgotten that times have changed. Religious 
 intolerance is to-day in its last stages of decay, 
 and, thanks to God, it has entirely disappeared 
 in this blessed country. The pen has become 
 mightier than the sword, and the press a more 
 powerful engine than the cannon. The opinion 
 of a man is respected provided he enters upon 
 a research with love for truth, and unbiassed by 
 prejudice. If we are to stand the pressure of 
 Christian influence which is surrounding us from 
 all sides, it would be poor policy on our part to 
 close our eyes against it : on the contrary, it is
 
 Propagation of Religion. 259 
 
 advisable to familiarize ourselves with it, to 
 examine it with the greatest care, and to show 
 our friends at the same time what our opinions 
 are concerning it. If Christianity of to-day is 
 of a friendly disposition toward us, let us im- 
 prove such friendship by the better knowledge 
 of the friend ; if it should be inimical to us, 
 well, then, how could we better protect ourselves 
 than by a thorough acquaintance with the forces 
 which our opponent can lead against us? Let 
 us therefore enter courageously upon such re- 
 searches, but with love, unhampered by preju- 
 dice, and by all means with the respect and the 
 courtesy which are due to the feelings of a 
 neighbor and friend. 
 
 In the course of some other lecture I have 
 asserted that paganism has never cared to 
 spread its religion ; that, to quote Gibbon here, 
 all religions appeared to the masses as equally 
 true, to the philosophers as equally absurd, and 
 to the government as equally useful. Pagan- 
 ism, I said, lacked principles, a code of ethics, 
 and a system, and therefore it has been unfit to 
 impress the outsider. It could conquer, but not 
 propagate itself. I have furthermore asserted 
 that propagation of religion originated with 
 Judaism, but that it was carried on negatively ; 
 that Judaism merely taught its lesson by exam- 
 ple ; and that, though it was always ready to 
 receive a proselyte, provided he would join the
 
 260 Modern Judaism. 
 
 fold thoroughly convinced of the goodness of its 
 cause, and not for the sake of temporal benefit, it 
 never invited the stranger, nor did it ever, as a 
 rule, make converts by force or persuasion. The 
 belief that God had made a covenant with their 
 ancestors, to be binding for all future descen- 
 dants, made it obligatory for them to teach the 
 articles and clauses of this covenant to their 
 children. Judaism was propagated directly only 
 among the rising generation ; indirectly, how- 
 ever, it was spread by the stubbornness with 
 which the Jews refused to acknowledge the 
 gods of other nations, or to permit any repre- 
 sentation of the divinity to defile their country. 
 
 Christianity was the first religion which prop- 
 agated itself in a direct manner, which adopted 
 an aggressive policy in place of the defensive 
 attitude of Judaism ; and the marvellous success 
 with which its efforts were crowned are to a 
 great extent due to this change of tactics. 
 
 The success of Christianity is frequently used 
 as an argument to prove its intrinsic truth. 
 " Look at the enormous success of Christian- 
 ity," say its adherents. " Could it have been 
 achieved if the hand of God had not directly 
 assisted it ? Look at the success ; could it have 
 been achieved if its founder had not been a 
 divine being ? Look at the success ; could it 
 have been achieved if its ethics and principles 
 had not been sound and true, and superior to
 
 Propagation of Religion. 261 
 
 those of Judaism ? " Almost nothing is known 
 authentically of the origin of Christianity ; but 
 whenever the identity of its founder or the 
 reliability of its first sources is questioned, we 
 receive always the same answer, " Look at the 
 success." 
 
 Success, however, proves nothing. Success 
 is a product of too many factors to prove by it 
 the existence of a certain special number in its 
 formation. Thirty-six is as equal to 4X9 as it 
 is to 3X12, 6x6, or 3X3X2.X2 
 
 Besides to its aggressive policy, the success 
 of Christianity is due to the democracy of its 
 principles. No matter how we may differ in 
 our views in regard to its founder, we must 
 acknowledge that Christianity has turned many 
 Jewish theories into practical shape, that it has 
 opened the avenues through which Jewish 
 morals and Jewish ethics could exert their 
 civilizing influence upon the pagan world. 
 
 While Judaism, proudly holding in its hand 
 the divine truth, said to the nations of old, 
 " Come to me, if you wish to walk by its light," 
 Christianity carried it to them, and by persua- 
 sion and often by force compelled them to accept 
 it, even against their will. Judaism had pro- 
 claimed to the world the doctrine that there is 
 but one God, the common father of all man- 
 kind ; but Christianity in its youth has practi- 
 cally stooped down to the ill-treated, despairing
 
 262 Modern Judaism. 
 
 slave, and has told him that he was the equal of 
 his master, and has treated him as such. The 
 early days of Christianity, the time before it 
 had defiled itself with pagan absurdities, will 
 always command the admiration of all lovers of 
 humanity. These early days are the period 
 when it laid the foundation to its future great- 
 ness, and even to-day it can draw, and does 
 draw, upon the resources which it had accumu- 
 lated during the first three centuries of its 
 existence. 
 
 To account for the marvellous growth of 
 Christianity, we must familiarize ourselves with 
 the conditions of that peculiar age. 
 
 Paganism had outlived its usefulness. The 
 belief in many gods had" lost its hold upon the 
 masses, and idol-worship had fallen into disre- 
 pute. The past, so to say, had disappeared, and 
 the future was not yet there. The struggles of 
 the Jews, both with Greeks and Romans, had 
 directed the attention of the world upon them ; 
 Jewish ethics had commanded the respect of the 
 most profound thinkers of antiquity, the Bible 
 had been translated, and the educated classes 
 had become familiar with its sublime lessons. 
 Politically, a large empire had been formed out 
 of the countries of Europe, Asia, and Africa, 
 extending from India to Great Britain, and from 
 the Arabian desert to the banks of the Danube. 
 Republican virtue had become extinct, and a
 
 Propagation of Religion. 263 
 
 wrangle between despots was now constantly 
 disturbing the peace of the world. Corruption 
 was flourishing at the capital and the provincial 
 centres of the Roman Empire ; extortion and 
 degradation were its natural consequences. The 
 social atmosphere was still more unhealthy. 
 There were no middle classes : the free Roman 
 citizen on the one hand, the slave on the other. 
 To every free-born Roman ten slaves could be 
 counted on an average. The small class of the 
 freedmen could not adjust the scales. Years of 
 prosperity had produced an extravagance and a 
 luxury of which we can hardly form a concep- 
 tion. We turn with disgust from the descrip- 
 tion of a Lucullian repast, and our better feeling 
 revolts against the obscene features of a Roman 
 banquet. Dissipation on the one hand and 
 misery on the other had made life unbearable ; 
 and suicides were of daily occurrence. Chris- 
 tianity found the pagan world rotten to the core, 
 and thus a field of work as large as it was prom- 
 ising to yield a rich harvest to the one who 
 would undertake to cultivate it. . 
 
 If Christianity had been nothing else but a 
 creed, a religious sect, which would speculate 
 upon and discuss theological problems and 
 theories ; if it had established its church for no 
 other purpose than to pray and sing therein ; if 
 its preachers had been merely paid officials, 
 hired to entertain the visitor with flashes of
 
 264 Modern Judaism. 
 
 oratory, it would never have prospered ; the 
 waves of time would have swept it away with 
 the rest of philosophical schools which abounded 
 at that time. But Christianity in its early days 
 was more than a religious denomination ; it 
 was a political party, a socialistic organization ; 
 and its first efforts were flavored even with 
 nihilism. 
 
 The Essenes, from which sect it had sprung, 
 were pessimists of the first order. They did 
 not believe in the future progress of humanity, 
 but rather that, as the conditions of the time 
 had become apparently unbearable, the whole 
 world was on the eve of destruction, and that all 
 would soon perish. Why should they therefore 
 propagate their race by marriage, or hoard up 
 capital for future use ? The Essenes formed a 
 socialistic brotherhood ; they shared all property 
 in common, and did not marry. To swell their 
 numbers they were compelled to rely upon 
 proselytes. They would approach a man, con- 
 vince him of the soundness of their teachings, 
 and initiate him into their order. The first 
 Christians were Essenes. They opposed mar- 
 riage, despised property, and were all in all a 
 communistic brotherhood. Starting with the 
 idea that their beloved master would soon re- 
 turn to hold judgment in a world filled with de- 
 pravity, the first Christians considered it their 
 duty to inform the whole world of the threaten-
 
 Propagation of Religion. 265 
 
 ing catastrophe, in order to save as many as 
 possible from the punishment which the justice 
 of God was expected to mete out on that awful 
 day. As they could reach only in rare cases 
 the ear of the wealthy, they addressed them- 
 selves to the poor, to the slaves, to every one 
 who was dissatisfied with the present state of 
 affairs and was a sufferer from oppression. It 
 was, indeed, good news and glad tidings to this 
 class of people when they were told with all 
 sincerity that the whole social order would be 
 soon reversed, that the poor should become 
 rich and the rich poor, that they should soon 
 enjoy eternal happiness while their proud mas- 
 ters should suffer the well deserved punish- 
 ment. 
 
 For almost three hundred years this hope was 
 held out to the convert ; for almost three hun- 
 dred years the return of the master, the Mes- 
 siah, the son of God, was daily expected ; and 
 all conversions were made under the promise 
 that whosoever would join the new sect would 
 not only escape the wrath of God on the 
 day of judgment, but inherit eternal bliss. 
 Every new convert became immediately a 
 missionary ; for he, too, had friends whom he 
 loved, whom he could impress with his hopes 
 and fears, and whom he wished to be saved on 
 the day of judgment, and to share with him the 
 benefactions which the new creed offered.
 
 266 Modern Judaism. 
 
 The entrance into the new society was made 
 as easy as possible ; the instructions were few ; 
 the ceremonies strange and impressive ; and 
 the persuasion of the missionaries so powerful, 
 and so well calculated to appeal to the hopes 
 and fears of every individual, that the organiza- 
 tion could not but grow from day to day. 
 
 The new sect was at that time as vigor- 
 ous and outspoken in its detestation of idol- 
 worship as were the Jews ; but it awakened the 
 distrust of the government still more by its 
 attempts to revolutionize the whole social order 
 of the time. As I have said before, the early 
 Christians formed small communities, the mem- 
 bers of which shared all in common. They de- 
 tested wealth and loved poverty ; they not only 
 preached abolition of slavery, but practised 
 it. A convert to Christianity would at once 
 set his slaves free ; and, whenever a member 
 had become a slave through the changing for- 
 tunes of war, his ransom was immediately paid 
 by the next Christian congregation. Nor did 
 the early Christians approve of war. Chris- 
 tianity originally abhorred it ; and not before it 
 had commenced to degenerate would it allow 
 its -members to carry arms. These communis- 
 tic tendencies could not escape the eye of the 
 government. The party in power was rather 
 inclined to leave well enough alone ; it disliked 
 social experiments, and therefore attempted to
 
 Propagation of Religion. 267 
 
 suppress trie rising danger by force. A country 
 in which the majority of inhabitants were slaves, 
 who were held in submission merely by the 
 weight of custom, must have been hurt in its 
 most vulnerable parts by the proclamation of 
 so dangerous a doctrine as that preached and 
 practised by the Christians. 
 
 It has been experienced more than a hundred 
 times, that ideas cannot be killed by the sword, 
 that the blood of martyrs is the best fertilizer 
 for a new idea to grow upon, and that they will 
 spread the quicker the greater the zeal is to 
 suppress them. On account of persecution the 
 early church was compelled to seek secrecy ; 
 but nothing is more attractive than secrecy. 
 People do not care for things which every one 
 can have ; they crave the forbidden fruit. A 
 sect which is granted the liberty of proclaiming 
 its tenets by full daylight will never prosper; 
 after the novelty of the thing is over, it will 
 sink back into oblivion. But no sooner is a sect 
 persecuted than the danger surrounding it 
 works like a charm and attracts sympathetic 
 friends; no sooner is a sect compelled to hide 
 itself from before the eye of the government, 
 than it grows in membership. The secrecy 
 which was forced upon the early church became 
 the cause of its success. It spread not only in 
 spite of it, but on account of it. We have no 
 authentic reports of what was carried on by
 
 268 Modern Judaism. 
 
 the early Christians at their secret meetings. 
 Their opponents and persecutors have charged 
 them with immoral practices, which the Chris- 
 tians, however, have promptly denied. I could 
 never believe in what Lucian tells of them, 
 though by that time some impure elements 
 might have already found their way into the 
 originally pure society. The uniformity of 
 their secret passwords, symbols, and tokens, 
 the obedience with which the orders of their 
 superiors were carried out, had the desirable 
 effect that in any part of the world a friend and 
 brother could be found and communicated with 
 who would do his utmost to help a friend in 
 distress. This was another and not slight ad- 
 vantage held out at a time when the highways 
 were crowded with travellers, and travelling for 
 pleasure or business had become almost as 
 common as in our day. 
 
 There was, furthermore, a peculiar mixture of 
 republicanism and despotism in the organization 
 of the early church which guaranteed its suc- 
 cess. The members of each congregation were 
 at liberty to elect their officers, who in their torn 
 elected a bishop for their diocese. This insured 
 good officers, men who were worthy of the con- 
 fidence of their constituency. But the congre- 
 tion had no power to remove them afterwards 
 from office, and was bound to abide submissively 
 by their rulings. The dictatorial power of the
 
 Propagation of Religion. 269 
 
 princes of the church could accomplish more 
 than otherwise would have been gained by repub- 
 licanism pure and simple. The officers of the 
 church did not only administer to the spiritual 
 welfare of their flock, but for a long time they 
 were the sole administrators of the common 
 property. The richer a diocese was, the more 
 important and influential became the office of a 
 bishop, and thus these princes of the church 
 left no stone unturned to enlarge their con- 
 gregations by an addition of neophytes. 
 
 During the first three hundred years the 
 same hereditary policy was adhered to until 
 their secret organizations had spread and perme- 
 ated all classes of society in such a manner that 
 the Emperor Constantine was finally compelled 
 to acknowledge them politically. With his 
 conversion to Christianity we enter upon a 
 new chapter in its history. 
 
 The church now changes its tactics. It feels 
 strong enough to give weight to its moral per- 
 suasion by an appeal to physical force. The 
 hope in the return of the master now disap- 
 pears ; the fear that the world will come to an 
 end is now given up as childish ; reward and 
 punishment are removed into a world to come, 
 beyond the clouds, beyond the tomb. In place 
 of these primitive doctrines the firm resolution 
 is established that paganism must go : that it is 
 an act of piety to propagate religion even at the
 
 270 Modern Judaism. 
 
 point of the sword. The former philanthropic 
 and communistic schemes are laid aside as in- 
 feasible and impracticable ; marriage is made a 
 sacrament, and the aspirations of the church 
 run as high as to dream of the establishment of 
 one large empire under the government of a 
 prince of the church. Open war is now waged 
 for more than three hundred years against 
 paganism, and after the turmoil of the great 
 migration of nations had subsided we find 
 paganism at the feet of Christianity, its* philo- 
 sophical school closed, its temples either des- 
 troyed or converted into churches, and the star 
 of the bishop of Rome in the ascendancy. He 
 is recognized as the head of Christendom, the 
 successor of the divine master, the representa- 
 tive of God upon earth. Kings and emperors 
 bow submissively before his throne and receive 
 their crowns from his hands. Christianity is 
 now propagated by force of arms and the Chris- 
 tian priest now follows in the track of the 
 Christian warrior, or vice versa. 
 
 During all this time Christianity had left 
 Judaism unmolested, for several reasons. It 
 had separated itself only by degrees from the 
 maternal stock, and not before it had ascended 
 the Roman throne with Constantine had it 
 become polluted with pagan tendencies. From 
 that time, however, it cuts loose entirely from 
 Judaism, and we observe now how one dogma
 
 Propagation of Religion. 271 
 
 after the other is formed to suit the time, in 
 flagrant contradiction to Jewish principles. 
 
 Too busy with its work of conquest, Chris- 
 tianity paid little attention to Judaism, nor did 
 it fear it. With the exception of some theolog- 
 ical controversy in regard to the nature of God, 
 and some occasional legislation in regard to the 
 celebration of Jewish holy-days, no efforts were 
 made to convert the Jews by force or persuasion 
 to Christianity. The Jews in their turn had 
 become denationalized, and so intimidated by 
 their recent misfortunes that they were satisfied 
 to leave well enough alone ; they carried on 
 their trade, studied and expounded their law 
 and propagated their religion, as before, only in 
 a negative manner. 
 
 But when paganism had finally expired and 
 Christianity had become the mistress of the 
 world, when its dogmas and ceremonies had 
 lost their original purity, and had become 
 tainted with pagan customs and usages, when 
 it was called upon to measure swords with a 
 new enemy, Mohammedanism, and to wrestle 
 with him for the championship of the world, it 
 turned its eye towards the Jew, and wondered 
 why it should wage an expensive war against 
 the infidel Turks as long as in its own midst 
 there was an element to be converted which so 
 long had escaped its notice. From the time of 
 the Crusades the pages of Jewish history show
 
 272 Modern Judaism. 
 
 the marks of persecution, which was the out- 
 come of a misplaced zeal on the part of Chris- 
 tianity to propagate its religion amongst the 
 Jews. 
 
 The motives for this zeal, however, had 
 changed. There was no longer the desire 
 prevalent to save a friend from impending 
 perdition, nor was the absurdity of idolatry 
 to be contested. Political and social regenera- 
 tion, too, was no longer intended, and self- 
 preservation could no longer have been a stim- 
 ulus for it. All attempts to convert Jews to 
 Christianity were caused partly by jealousy, 
 partly by greed. The Jews claimed to be the 
 chosen people of God, and to have preserved 
 the God-idea in its purity, and Christianity 
 could not deny it ; learned Christians knew 
 rather too well that the trinitarian idea was no 
 improvement on monotheism. Christianity had 
 taught the pagan to abolish his idols ; but the 
 Jew now pointed with his finger at the images 
 with which it decorated its churches, and at the 
 idolatrous reverence which the masses paid to a 
 host of saints. 
 
 While the meek Christian had turned a 
 soldier and had won laurels on the battle-field, 
 the formerly valiant Jew had laid the sword 
 aside and had turned to commercial pursuits. 
 His enterprise and his temperate habits had 
 made him rich, while the warlike knights im-
 
 Propagation of Religion. 273 
 
 poverished themselves by their indolence and 
 extravagance. How could they rob the Jew of 
 his well-earned property ? They knew too well 
 that he would rather part with his money than 
 accept their semi-pagan religion, and therefore 
 they threatened him with a forced conversion, 
 in order to obtain his wealth. If they had 
 earnestly undei! >ken the work of forcible con- 
 version, not one Jew would have survived to 
 tell the tale. 
 
 The modes of propagating Christianity among 
 the Jews were in all countries about the same. 
 They were placed under exceptional laws ; they 
 were compelled to debate with church authori- 
 ties on religious topics, ostensibly to find the 
 truth ; they were prohibited to study their laws ; 
 their books were frequently delivered to the 
 flames ; the most absurd charges were brought 
 against them, for example, that they would use 
 human blood on the Passover Festival ; exorbi- 
 tant taxes were laid upon them ; and occasion- 
 ally they were expatriated. Spain, which most 
 successfully propagated the Christian religion 
 amongst the Jews, is still suffering from the 
 consequences of her mistaken policy. 
 
 It was on account of these persecutions that 
 the Jews became so disheartened, that they 
 never thought of propagating their own views 
 among their neighbors, that they feared every 
 religious controversy, that they intrenched them-
 
 274 Modern Judaism. 
 
 selves behind distinguishing marks of all kinds, 
 and that they were happy when forgotten by the 
 outside world. 
 
 Time, however, has changed the relations 
 between the two creeds. Science and a better 
 knowledge of historical facts have relaxed the 
 former prejudice, and the higher standard of 
 morality and the more develop 1 sense of jus- 
 tice have made such wholesale robbery as was 
 carried on in former ages well nigh impossible. 
 With it the zeal to convert the Jew has van- 
 ished. Our enlightened age has given up the 
 notion that one religion only can be the right 
 one, and that all the rest must be culpably 
 wrong. The belief, too, has been abandoned 
 that the performance of some ceremony con- 
 stitutes religion. Beholding in every religion 
 an attempt merely to grasp the infinite, we do 
 not object to-day to a diversity of religious 
 views, and grant to every religious system 
 the right of propagating itself by lawful 
 means. 
 
 If ever we should assert our right, and at- 
 tempt to propagate Judaism, it must be with 
 the full understanding that the forms of religion 
 are not its spirit ; that religion must be propa- 
 gated neither by compulsion nor by intrigue, but 
 by example ; that we must convince, and not 
 persuade ; a conversion must never be made 
 for the sake of temporal gain, but it must be
 
 Propagation of Religion. 275 
 
 the innermost conviction of the proselyte that 
 our views of life harmonize with his own. 
 
 Divest both Christianity and Judaism of their 
 mythological garments, reduce their history to 
 facts and not to assertions which must be be- 
 lieved blindly, and you may rest assured that 
 our arguments, our ethics and morals, will not 
 be inferior to those of our neighbors, but must 
 be the stronger as Christianity itself has been 
 built upon the understructure of Judaism. 
 
 Allow me to close with a quotation from Pro- 
 fessor Huxley : " What we are usually pleased 
 to call religion nowadays is, for the most part, 
 Hellenized Judaism. Not unfrequently the 
 Hellenic element carries with it a mighty rem- 
 nant of old-world paganism and a great infusion 
 of the worst and weakest products of Greek 
 scientific speculation, while fragments of Per- 
 sian and Babylonian mythology burden the 
 Judaic contribution to the common stock."
 
 XVII. 
 
 CHURCHES AND THEIR RELATION TO 
 MORALS. 
 
 'O both Jews and Christians, the small 
 strip of land called Palestine, situated in 
 Asia Minor, on the shore of the Mediter- 
 ranean Sea, has been of more than com- 
 mon interest for thousands of years. In church 
 parlance it was called the Holy Land. The 
 imagination of pious worshippers was heated to 
 such an extent that in many cases it became 
 their most fervent wish to visit this land in 
 preference to any other, to walk, at least once 
 in their lives, the ground which their admired 
 ancestors had trodden^ to see the places upon 
 which the reported supernatural events had oc- 
 curred. 
 
 They imagined that the whole country was 
 veiled in a mist of holiness, that the flowers 
 therein were more fragrant, the water more de- 
 licious, the air more balmy, the animals more 
 comely, sun and moon more brilliant than else- 
 where. From the most ancient time down to 
 ours, pilgrimages were made to these sacred 
 276
 
 Churches, their Relation to Morals. 277 
 
 spots : there was even a time when all Europe 
 was infected with that travelling mania. I do 
 not refer alone to the time of the Crusaders, 
 when a war was waged for nearly two hundred 
 years between Europe and Asia for the posses- 
 sion of these few square miles of land. No, even 
 later the selfsame delusion prevailed amongst 
 Jews and Gentiles. 
 
 Jehuda Halevi, renowned as one of the great- 
 est poets of the Spanish period, a man of great 
 wealth, who had filled the highest offices in the 
 court of the King of Spain, had no greater 
 ambition, no higher desire, than to behold with 
 his own eyes the sacred places in Palestine. 
 Not before he had reached a good old age was 
 he able to realize his wish. Finally he laid 
 down the honors and burdens of his various 
 offices, settled his household affairs, and em- 
 barked for the Promised Land. While sitting 
 upon the ruins of Jerusalem and bewailing the 
 fate of the city he met with death at the hands 
 of a common highwayman. 
 
 I know not whether these pious pilgrims were 
 ever rewarded for their troubles by the sights 
 they saw, but I think it must require a great 
 deal of superheated imagination to find Pales- 
 tine more interesting than any other spot on 
 the globe. I cannot believe that the country of 
 Palestine is holier than Massachusetts or any 
 other. The waters of the Jordan are not differ-
 
 278 Modern Judaism. 
 
 ent from those of the Charles River, and as 
 for scenic effects there are thousands of places 
 in this country and all over the world which 
 surpass by far the natural beauty of the Holy 
 Land. Neither do historic associations fill the 
 scale in favor of Palestine. There is no spot on 
 the earth where good and bad people have not 
 lived, where humanity has not suffered and re- 
 joiced, where stirring events have not happened, 
 events which helped to civilize and advance 
 the human race at their time and in their way, 
 as did those which are reported to have oc- 
 curred in Palestine. We meet with delusion and 
 superstition in geography and history as well 
 as in any other branch of science. 
 
 What Palestine was and is, historically or 
 geographically, to the deluded pious, such is the 
 church or the churches, if you please to 
 the superficial observer in regard to morals. 
 
 Churches are believed to be the sole producers 
 of morality; they are thought to be the only 
 nurseries of morals ; their representatives 
 priests, ministers, clergymen, rabbies, doctors, 
 or by what other name you may choose to call 
 them are believed to hold a patent right on 
 the manufacture of morals. But as Palestine is 
 not more or less than any other country in the 
 world, so does the church not wield greater 
 power in the realms of morals than any other 
 human institution, as, for instance, the home,
 
 Churches^ their Relation to Morals, 279 
 
 the school, society, or the government. The 
 church is one of the factors which by their mul- 
 tiplication produce morality, but it is by no 
 means the root of the product, 
 
 Let us look upon a few facts which would 
 astonish us if we were not accustomed to them 
 by their daily occurrence. There is no institu- 
 tion split in so many factions as is the church ; 
 and, though all of these factions claim to strive 
 for the same end, there is no deadlier enmity to 
 be found in the factions of any other institution 
 than that which exists between the different 
 religious denominations. Liberty of conscience, 
 as granted here and in some other countries, is 
 only a truce which the contesting parties have 
 been compelled to accept on account of their 
 numerical weakness. Let one sect rise into 
 strength and prominence, and liberty of con- 
 science will soon become a dead letter. 
 
 Since the time that people assembled in pub- 
 lic worship, or, in other words, since temples or 
 churches were established, and priests, rabbies, 
 ministers, or speakers assumed the moral gov- 
 ernment of the people, what a vast amount of 
 good advice has been administered by them to 
 their hearers, but with what effect ? Have they 
 become better on account of the many sermons 
 addressed to them ? Read the sermons or ora- 
 tions delivered by the ministers of all denomi- 
 nations from the time of Isaiah to the present
 
 280 Modern Judaism. 
 
 day ; what do they contain ? What is their 
 tenor ? As a rule, they begin with praising the 
 fidelity of bygone generations ; they exalt the 
 virtue and the moral standard of our ancestors ; 
 they seek for ideals amongst them alone, and 
 find an everlasting supply. Then the prophet, 
 preacher, or speaker will handle his contempora- 
 ries without gloves. To him, they are the worst 
 generation that ever disgraced the earth. Reli- 
 gion with him is always on the decline ; and if 
 it were not for the hope that future generations 
 would be better than the present, that our chil- 
 dren were expected to return to the noble con- 
 duct of their great-grandparents, the speaker 
 would despair of humanity, and see the only 
 remedy of the evil in a second deluge. Return 
 is the ever-repeated word of the church ; you 
 never hear the word advance. 
 
 This could be understood if the representa- 
 tives of the church in a given generation had 
 addressed their age in this manner because of 
 the exceptional depravity of that generation ; 
 but what shall we say if there has never been a 
 deviation from this style of harangue ? Suppos- 
 ing we should be^willing to return, should we 
 be better off? Just read some sermons of fifty 
 years ago. Just read what the church fifty 
 years ago thought of the contemporary age ; it 
 was painted by its churchmen as black as ours 
 is by the preachers of to-day, and so back
 
 Churches, their Relation to Morals. 281 
 
 through all the generations who have lived 
 before us. Indeed, if we could read the ex- 
 hortations of preachers a thousand of years 
 hence, it would not be surprising if we should 
 find exactly the same admonitions and exhorta- 
 tions, with the slight difference that our age 
 would then be set up as an ideal, and our 
 mode of living held out for emulation. 
 
 And, after all, who were the great promoters 
 of humanity and civilization ? Who were the 
 men that shaped the morals of ages ? Were 
 they priests ? Were they the representatives 
 of the church ? Not at all. Moses, the great 
 lawgiver of our nation, the builder of the pyra- 
 mid of morals around which our civilization 
 solidly clusters, was neither a priest nor an ora- 
 tor. The founders of Christianity were no 
 representatives of the established church of 
 their time. Mohammed, the founder of Islam, 
 was a business man. If the church is what it 
 claims to be, the matrix of morals, how is it 
 that it has never taken the initiative, that it has 
 never revolutionized the moral world ? 
 
 Carlyle says, " Man always worships some- 
 thing ; always he sees the infinite shadowed 
 forth in something finite." But how is it that, 
 in spite of this craving for worship, people have 
 never loved the church ; that through the 
 whole history of religion we find that people 
 constantly and persistently act in opposition to
 
 282 Modern Judaism. 
 
 the doctrines taught by the church. Scepti- 
 cism and agnosticism are not children of our 
 age ; they are as old as the world is, they have 
 always lived. They have been denounced by 
 the churches of all ages, by Pagans, Jews, Chris- 
 tians, and Mohammedans ; but there is no 
 church which has not become possible on ac- 
 count of a preceding scepticism and a dissatis- 
 faction with the previous church. 
 
 It is another fact that while the church 
 never ceased criticising the moral conduct of 
 the people, the people in retaliation were al- 
 ways distrustful of the church ; and no sooner 
 did one of the representatives of the church 
 compromise the institution by improper con- 
 duct than a derisive scowl went through the 
 land, denouncing the culprit and the whole in- 
 stitution with him. People were and are al- 
 ways ready for an innovation in church affairs, 
 and those reformers who attacked the church 
 of their time most fiercely were listened to 
 with the greatest delight by the people. 
 
 Now, can you imagine that under such cir- 
 cumstances, laboring under so many disadvan- 
 tages, the church could ever have monopolized 
 the manufacture and propagation of morals ? 
 Could you for a moment imagine that under 
 such unfavorable circumstances the church 
 could ever have been in the van of civilization ? 
 The fact is that the church has not preceded
 
 Churches, their Relation to Morals. 283 
 
 but followed the march of civilization, that it 
 has always accommodated itself to the demands 
 of the time, that when people demanded reform, 
 reform preachers arose, that it has not been 
 the mother but the nurse of morality. Let us 
 understand it well : the church is not the origi- 
 nator, but the indicator of morality. It shows at 
 a glance outwardly how high the water of mo- 
 rality stands inside of the boiler of humanity. 
 The water in the indicator always seeks the 
 level of the water in the tank with which it is 
 connected ; it would therefore be a vain attempt 
 to raise the water in the tank by a pressure 
 upon the water in the gauge. 
 
 The church would be more efficient in its 
 work when it should better understand its mis- 
 sion, which is to be the nurse of morals, and 
 nothing else. Like a nurse the church must 
 take the child under her supervision as soon as 
 it is born, feed it with good and healthy food 
 and protect it against evil influences, until it 
 has become strong enough to take care of itself. 
 She must forever be the faithful servant of its 
 parent, humanity, and never assume to be its 
 master. She must endeavor to win its con- 
 fidence, improve and advance with it, but never 
 retard its progress. She must ever change 
 her dress and outward appearance at the com- 
 mand of her master; she must always look, 
 neat, clean, and tasty, in order to induce the
 
 284 Modern Judaism. 
 
 parent to take the child from her lap to kiss 
 and fondle it. 
 
 But let us now leave the metaphor to itself, 
 let us rather build up an ideal church, such as 
 should fulfil its mission and should be a centre 
 of moral development, beloved, revered, and hon- 
 ored by all. I hope I need not explain that by 
 the term church I do not understand the mere 
 building, or a single denomination, but the 
 whole institution, Jews and Gentiles, Catholics, 
 Protestants, Mohammedans, Buddhists, flock 
 and shepherd, pew, pulpit, and all. 
 
 Like a church-building the ideal church must 
 be erected on solid ground. 'It must stand 
 upon the rock of faith. Without the belief in 
 a supreme being, in a God who is the omnipo- 
 tent creator and preserver of the world, any 
 church, no matter how tastefully decorated, 
 must fall to ruin. The belief in God is one 
 of the first and principal essentials of a church. 
 If a congregation does not assemble for the 
 sake of worshipping God, for what else does it 
 congregate ? Ethical instruction and social 
 intercourse are worthy objects, but you can 
 indulge in them outside of the church as well. 
 You must first of all acknowledge that there is 
 a God, that your life and prosperity are in his 
 hands, and that you are under obligation to 
 him. You must show your acknowledgment 
 and gratitude to God by spiritual intercourse
 
 Churches, their Relation to Morals. 285 
 
 with him, as manifested by prayers and by such 
 other demonstrations as in the view of the time 
 would be pleasing to the father of mankind. A 
 soul-stirring and soul-satisfying mode of wor- 
 ship is the first demand which must be sup- 
 plied by the ideal church. .Each form therein 
 must have a meaning. Forms which have no 
 longer any meaning, or the meaning of which 
 is hidden in the mist of ages, must not be tol- 
 erated. Every worshipper, learned or not 
 learned, talented or simple, old or young, 
 must at once be impressed and enlightened 
 by the ceremonial part of the service. 
 
 The ideal church must not look back too far 
 into the past ; nor must it look too far into the 
 future. Its principal care must be for the pres- 
 ent. We do not find all virtue in the past : nor 
 will the future be immaculate; we must take 
 our ideals from the present age. It is a mistake 
 to undervalue our own moral standing. With 
 a little less jealousy, with a little less prejudice, 
 with a little less selfishness, we should find true 
 manhood and womanhood in abundance around 
 us from which to take our ideals. Allow me 
 one illustration. Why, whenever we speak of 
 republican virtue, must we always refer to the 
 Roman general Cincinnatus, who laid down the 
 highest position in the republic at the command 
 of the people, and returned to his farm to 
 raise turnips and carrots? Could we not just
 
 286 Modern Judaism. 
 
 as well teach it, and even with better effect, 
 by pointing at the last two presidents of our 
 republic, Hayes and Arthur, who, after 
 their term of office, returned quietly to their 
 desks in their law-offices ? It is exactly the 
 same in any other branch of life. We find 
 Abrahams, Jobs, Davids, and Maccabees, in our 
 present age as well. They never die out. It 
 is a suicidal practice to exalt both past and 
 future at the expense of the present. 
 
 Neither is it within the province of the church 
 to solve geological, zoological, and astronomical 
 problems. Leave these to the scientist, who 
 makes a specialty of them. What has the 
 church to do with the questions how the world 
 was created, whether it took six days or six mil- 
 lions of years to form it, whether man was made 
 of earth, or was the descendant of a lower spe- 
 cies of animals. What business has the church 
 to teach whether the sun moves or stands still, 
 whether supernatural miracles occurred or not, 
 whether Balaam's ass spoke or brayed ? Sup- 
 pose he spoke ; what of it ? Can these mira- 
 cles give additional strength to the belief in 
 God ? Is not the growth of a blade of grass as 
 much a miracle, and as unsolved a riddle to us 
 as the reported passage of the Israelites through 
 the Red Sea? Let the dead bury the dead. 
 The church loses the confidence of its best 
 adherents by not minding its own business, and
 
 Churches, their Relation to Morals. 287 
 
 by dabbling in all kinds of sciences. If a scien- 
 tist makes a mistake it matters little ; the next 
 expert who proves the error will take his place 
 until another proves him to be wrong ; but the 
 church cannot afford to be corrected : it loses 
 immediately its hold upon the minds of its adhe- 
 rents. Our present indifferentism springs from 
 no other source than the fact that geological and 
 astronomical statements made and upheld by the 
 church have been found to be erroneous. The 
 ideal church must work for the present. Here 
 we are, no matter how it came that we are here. 
 Here is the world with its innumerable mira- 
 cles. Here are our fellow-beings. What are 
 we to them, and they to us ? How must we act 
 in order to live happily all together during the 
 brief period granted to us ? What are our rela- 
 tions to the great cause of the creation ? These 
 are the questions which the ideal church is 
 called upon to treat ; and I should think that 
 there is enough in them to reflect upon, to 
 search for, and to speak about. 
 
 Let the future, too, take care of itself. Need 
 we trouble ourselves as to what mankind will be 
 or do a thousand years from now ? If we are 
 to pave the way for its future prosperity, let us 
 pave our section of the road ; but we cannot be 
 expected to pave the whole route. 
 
 The ideal church, furthermore, must teach, 
 not criticise ; it must speak the truth, but not
 
 288 Modern Judaism. 
 
 insult ; it must demand self-command, but not 
 abnegation ; it must encourage contentment, 
 but not asceticism. 
 
 Allow me to point out a mistake which the 
 churches of all denominations have made to the 
 present day, and which the ideal church must 
 avoid. 
 
 Though they acknowledged correctly the 
 differences between spirit and flesh, they never 
 recognized the rights of the flesh. They at- 
 tempted to make man a spirit even before 
 death. They never ceased in their vituper- 
 ation and condemnation of the flesh. They 
 took a delight in starving the body. Fast- 
 ing was upheld as a sacred duty ; and to 
 break a fast was stigmatized as an un- 
 pardonable sin. The ideals, therefore, which 
 they put up were totally impracticable. If all 
 men were to live and to act like the saints of 
 all churches, human society would soon fall to 
 pieces ; it could not exist. The churches de- 
 mand too much from their devotees. A man 
 cannot think constantly of God and of nothing 
 else ; nor can he constantly pray ; neither can 
 he devote all his time to church work. Spirit 
 and flesh must work in harmony with each 
 other. God created them both for their special 
 duties ; they are friends, and not, as the 
 churches claim, antagonists. 
 
 The ideal church must work. It matters
 
 Chttrches, their Relation to Morals. 289 
 
 little what the fundamental doctrines of any 
 denomination are, as long as they work with the 
 right purpose. The members of each denomina- 
 tion must ally themselves to one another for the 
 purpose of working together in friendship and 
 harmony for the preservation and development 
 of morals. They must work for justice, truth, 
 love, and charity, and not simply talk about 
 them. 
 
 It is a pity that the Jewish church has been 
 robbed of its effectiveness, and that its work 
 has been reduced to almost nothing. Its 
 founders had given it all the scope it wanted ; 
 formerly the Jewish church administered the 
 law, instructed the young, and dispensed all 
 charities, but later generations have taken away 
 one province after the other from it. 
 
 With the loss of the political existence of our 
 nation, the administration of the law was taken 
 from it. Then the school had to be given up 
 by necessity. Finally charity has been switched 
 off from the congregation, and handed over to 
 the orders and other charitable societies estab- 
 lished for that special purpose. But it is a 
 grave mistake. A church which does not work 
 loses all its dignity and influence. 
 
 The ideal church must reconquer the lost 
 provinces and give out work to every member, 
 and indeed the field of charity alone is large 
 enough to supply all. Charity is the principal
 
 290 Modern Judaism. 
 
 work of the church, but, understand me rightly, 
 charity is not the- giving of alms, but the distri- 
 bution of them ; it is not a tax levied upon our 
 pocketbook but upon our time, our brains, our 
 intellect, and energy. Charity means to modify 
 and to alleviate social evils, but not merely to 
 fill the hands of all who hold them up to us, 
 without discrimination. Charity requires work, 
 earnest work, and the ideal church must organ- 
 ize and direct it. 
 
 Shall I say a word or two about the leaders 
 of the ideal church ? I believe in its republican 
 form of government, I believe that it must be 
 a church of the people, for the people, and by 
 the people. I believe that its leaders, both 
 secular and spiritual, should be practical men, 
 and not merely theorists or linguists. They 
 ought to understand political economy rather 
 than the Chaldee language. They ought to be 
 familiar with the history and the literature of 
 their own time and country rather than with 
 that of Hindostan or Persia. 
 
 Such a church, if established in every denom- 
 ination, will soon become universal and unite all 
 humanity in its fold. It is the church of the 
 future, the church of the time which we expect 
 to come and which we call the Messianic time. 
 Let us pave our section of the road leading 
 to it.
 
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