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Title: By-paths in Hebraic bookland
Author: Abrahams, Israel
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "By-paths in Hebraic bookland" ***
BOOKLAND ***
BY-PATHS
IN HEBRAIC BOOKLAND
BY-PATHS
IN HEBRAIC BOOKLAND
BY
ISRAEL ABRAHAMS, D. D., M. A.
Author of “Jewish Life in the Middle Ages,” “Chapters on
Jewish Literature,” etc.
[Illustration]
PHILADELPHIA
THE JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY OF AMERICA
1920
COPYRIGHT, 1920,
BY
THE JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY OF AMERICA
PREFACE
Wayfarers sometimes use by-paths because the highways are closed. In
the days of Jael, so the author of Deborah’s Song tells us, circuitous
side-tracks were the only accessible routes. In the unsettled condition
of Israel those who journeyed were forced to seek their goal by
roundabout ways.
But, at other times, though the open road is clear, and there is no
obstacle on the way of common trade, the traveller may of choice turn
to the by-ways and hedges. Not that he hates the wider track, but he
may also love the less frequented, narrower paths, which carry him into
nooks and glades, whence, after shorter or longer detours, he reaches
the highway again. Not only has he been refreshed, but he has won, by
forsaking the main road, a fuller appreciation of its worth.
Originally written in 1913 for serial publication, the papers collected
in this volume were designed with some unity of plan. Branching off the
main line of Hebraic development, there are many by-paths of the kind
referred to above--by-paths leading to pleasant places, where it is a
delight to linger for a while. Some of the lesser expressions of the
Jewish spirit disport themselves in those out-of-the-way places. Though
oft neglected, they do not deserve to be treated as negligible.
None can surely guide another to these places. But the first
qualification of a guide, a qualification which may atone for serious
defects, is that he himself enjoys the adventure. In the present
instance this qualification may be claimed. For the writer has turned
his attention chiefly to his own favorites, choosing books or parts
of books which appealed to him in a long course of reading, and which
came back to him with fragrant memories as he set about reviewing
some of the former intimates of his leisure hours. The review is not
formal; the method is that of the causerie, not of the essay. Some of
the books are of minor value, curiosities rather than masterpieces; in
others the Jewish interest is but slight. Yet in all cases the object
has been to avoid details, except in so far as details help even the
superficial observer to get to the author’s heart, to place him in the
history of literature or culture. Not quite all the authors noted in
this volume were Jews--the past tense is used because it was felt best
to include no writers living when the volume was compiled. It seemed,
however, right that certain types of non-Jewish workers in the Hebraic
field ought to find a place, partly from a sense of gratitude, partly
because, without laboring the point, the writer conceives that as all
cultures have many points in common, so it is well to bear in mind that
many cultures have contributed their share to produce that complex
entity--the Jewish spirit. Complex yet harmonious, influenced from
without yet dominated by a strong inner and original power, the Jewish
spirit reveals itself in these by-paths as clearly as on the main line.
But, though some such general idea runs through the volume, it was the
author’s intention to interest rather than instruct, to suggest the
importance of certain authors and books, perhaps to rouse the reader
to probe deeper than the writer himself has done into subjects of
which here the mere surface is touched. The writer could have added
indefinitely to these papers, but this selection is long enough to
argue against extending it, at all events for the present.
Having decided to stray into the by-paths, it sometimes became
necessary to resist the temptation to turn to the main road. This
necessity accounts for another fact. Fewer books are treated of
the older period. For the older period is dominated by Bible and
Talmud, and these were _ex hypothesi_ outside the range. So, too,
the scholastic masterpieces and the greater products of mysticism
and law are passed over. Yet, though the writer did not consciously
start with such a design, it will be seen that accidentally a great
fact or two betray themselves. One is that, in the Jewish variety,
technical learning can never be wholly dissociated from what we more
commonly name literature. Some books which, at first sight, are merely
the expression of scholarly specialism are seen, on investigation,
to belong to culture in the æsthetic no less than in the rational or
legal sense. Again, there becomes apparent the vital truth that Jewish
thought, dependent as it always has been on environment, is also
independent. For we see how Jews in the midst of Hellenistic absolutism
remained pragmatical, how under the medieval devotion to a stock-taking
of the past Jews were to a certain extent creative, and how the
modernist tendency to disintegration was resisted by an impulse towards
constructiveness.
But, to repeat what has already been indicated, the author had no
such grave intentions as these. Many of the papers appeared in a
popular weekly, the London _Jewish World_, the editor of which kindly
conceded to the writer the privilege of collecting them into a book.
Some, however, were specially written for this volume. All have been
considerably revised, in the effort to make them more worthy of the
reader’s attention. The writer feels that this effort, despite the
valuable help rendered by Dr. Halper while the proofs were under
correction, has been imperfectly successful. The papers can have little
in them to deserve attention. Nevertheless there is this to be urged.
Some of the topics raised are apt to be ignored. Yet it is not only
from the outstanding masterpieces of literature that we may learn
wisdom and derive pleasure. “A small talent,” said Joubert, “if it
keeps within its limits and rightly fulfils its task, may reach the
goal just as well as a greater one.” This remark may be applied to
what may seem to many the minor products of genius or talent. Hence,
be they termed minor or major, the books discussed in this volume
were worthy of consideration. Beyond doubt most of them belong to the
category of the significant and some of them even attain the rank of
the epoch-making. And so, without further preface, these papers are
offered to those familiar as well as to those unfamiliar with the
works themselves. For to both classes may be applied the Latin poet’s
invocation: “Now learn ye to love that loved never; and ye that have
loved, love anew.”
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE 5
PART I
THE STORY OF AHIKAR 17
PHILO ON THE “CONTEMPLATIVE LIFE” 24
JOSEPHUS AGAINST APION 32
CAECILIUS ON THE SUBLIME 39
THE PHOENIX OF EZEKIELOS 46
THE LETTER OF SHERIRA 53
NATHAN OF ROME’S DICTIONARY 60
THE SORROWS OF TATNU 67
PART II
IBN GEBIROL’S “ROYAL CROWN” 77
BAR HISDAI’S “PRINCE AND DERVISH” 84
THE SARAJEVO HAGGADAH 91
A PIYYUT BY BAR ABUN 97
ISAAC’S LAMP AND JACOB’S WELL 102
“LETTERS OF OBSCURE MEN” 108
DE ROSSI’S “LIGHT OF THE EYES” 116
GUARINI AND LUZZATTO 122
HAHN’S NOTE BOOK 129
LEON MODENA’S “RITES” 136
PART III
MENASSEH AND REMBRANDT 147
LANCELOT ADDISON OF THE BARBARY JEWS 153
THE BODENSCHATZ PICTURES 160
LESSING’S FIRST JEWISH PLAY 166
ISAAC PINTO’S PRAYER-BOOK 171
MENDELSSOHN’S “JERUSALEM” 178
HERDER’S ANTHOLOGY 184
WALKER’S “THEODORE CYPHON” 191
HORACE SMITH OF THE “REJECTED ADDRESSES” 199
PART IV
BYRON’S “HEBREW MELODIES” 207
COLERIDGE’S “TABLE TALK” 214
BLANCO WHITE’S SONNET 220
DISRAELI’S “ALROY” 226
ROBERT GRANT’S “SACRED POEMS” 233
GUTZKOW’S “URIEL ACOSTA” 240
GRACE AGUILAR’S “SPIRIT OF JUDAISM” 247
ISAAC LEESER’S BIBLE 254
LANDOR’S “ALFIERI AND SALOMON” 260
PART V
BROWNING’S “BEN KARSHOOK” 269
K. E. FRANZOS’ “JEWS OF BARNOW” 276
HERZBERG’S “FAMILY PAPERS” 283
LONGFELLOW’S “JUDAS MACCABÆUS” 290
ARTOM’S SERMONS 297
SALKINSON’S “OTHELLO” 303
“LIFE THOUGHTS” OF MICHAEL HENRY 311
THE POEMS OF EMMA LAZARUS 319
CONDER’S “TENT WORK IN PALESTINE” 325
KALISCH’S “PATH AND GOAL” 333
FRANZ DELITZSCH’S “IRIS” 340
“THE PRONAOS” OF I. M. WISE 347
A BAEDEKER LITANY 353
IMBER’S SONG 359
INDEX 365
ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING
PAGE
MENASSEH BEN ISRAEL 148
TITLE-PAGE OF THE FIRST EDITION OF BYRON’S “HEBREW MELODIES” 208
GRACE AGUILAR 248
ISAAC LEESER 254
EMMA LAZARUS 320
ISAAC MAYER WISE 348
NAPHTALI HERZ IMBER 360
PART I
PART I
THE STORY OF AHIKAR
We are happily passing out of the critical obsession, under which it
was a sign of ignorance to attribute a venerable age to the records of
the past. All the old books were written yesterday, or at earliest the
day before! Facts, however, are stubborn; and facts, as they come to
light, justify and re-affirm our fathers’ faith in the antiquity of the
world’s literature. The story of Ahikar is a good illustration.
In the course of the Book of Tobit more than once _Achiachar_ or
_Ahikar_ is mentioned. These allusions are verbal only, but in one
scene the reference is more precise. The pious Tobit on his death-bed
bids his son “consider what Nadab (Nadan) did to Achiachar, who brought
him up” (14. 10).
What did Nadan do, and who was Ahikar? It is only within recent years
that a complete answer has become possible to these questions. The
older commentators on the Apocrypha were much worried by the allusion,
and had to be content with the blindest guesses. Some versions of
Tobit had, in place of the words quoted above, the following: “Consider
how Aman treated Achiachar, who brought him up.” Hence the suggestion
arose that the reference was to Haman and Mordecai. But the Book of
Esther does not hint that Mordecai had “brought up” Haman, and was then
repaid by the latter’s ingratitude.
But in 1880, G. Hoffmann discovered the clue. He recognized that
Tobit’s references were paralleled in a story found in Æsop’s Fables
and in the Arabian Nights, but much more fully recorded in the Story
of Ahikar preserved in several versions, such as Syriac, Arabic, and
Armenian. The story, briefly told in those fuller records, is as
follows:
The hero is Ahikar. The name probably means something like _My Brother
is Precious_, or _A Brother of Preciousness_, or possibly (as Dr.
Halper suggests) _A Man of Honor_. He was grand vizier of Sennacherib,
the king of Assyria. Noted for wisdom as for statesmanship, he rose
to a position of the highest dignity and wealth. But he had no son.
He, accordingly, adopted his infant nephew Nadan, and reared him with
loving care. He furnished him with eight nurses, fed him on honey,
clothed him in fine linen and silk, and made him lie on choice
carpets. The boy grew big, and shot up like a cedar; whereupon Ahikar
started to teach him book-lore and wisdom. Nadan was introduced to
the king, who readily agreed to regard the youth as his minister’s
son, and made promise of future favors to one in whom his faithful
vizier was so much interested. The narrative then breaks off to
give in detail the wise maxims which Ahikar sought to instil into
Nadan; maxims which have parallels in many literatures, including the
rabbinic. Now, Ahikar was grievously mistaken in the character of his
nephew. Nadan seemed to listen to his uncle’s wisdom, but all the
while considered his monitor a dotard and a bore. The young man began
to reveal his true disposition; his cruelties to man and beast were
such that Ahikar protested, and offended Nadan by preferring a brother
of the latter. Nadan, in revenge, plotted Ahikar’s downfall. By means
of forged letters, the old vizier was condemned for treachery, though
the executioner, mindful of a similar act of mercy previously shown to
himself, secretly spared Ahikar’s life. Nor was the day distant when
Sennacherib bewailed the loss of Ahikar’s services. Menacing messages
came from Egypt of a kind which it needed an Ahikar to deal with. To
the king’s joy, Ahikar was brought out from his hiding-place; he was
again taken to court, and despatched to Egypt.
Here, once more, the narrative is interrupted to tell the details of
these Egyptian experiences; how Ahikar satisfied the Pharaoh’s plan
of “raising a castle betwixt heaven and earth” by placing boys on the
backs of eaglets, and how he countered the puzzling questions of the
Egyptian sages. Thus, bidden to weave a rope out of sand, he bored five
holes in the eastern wall of the palace, and when the sun entered the
holes he sprinkled sand in them, and “the sun’s furrow (path) began to
appear as if the sand were twined in the holes.” Then, again, the king
of Egypt ordered that a broken upper millstone should be brought in.
“Ahikar,” said the king, “sew up for us this broken millstone.” Ahikar,
who throughout tells his story in the first person, was not daunted. “I
went and brought a nether millstone, and cast it down before the king,
and said to him: My lord the king, since I am a stranger here, and have
not the tools of my craft with me, bid the cobblers cut me strips from
this lower millstone which is the fellow of the upper millstone; and
forthwith I will sew it together.” The king laughed. Ahikar scored all
round, and returned home to Assyria laden with the revenues of Egypt.
The third part of the story relates how Nadan was given over to Ahikar.
His uncle bound him with iron chains, and “struck him a thousand blows
on the shoulders and a thousand and one on his loins”; and while Nadan
was thus imprisoned in the porch of the palace door, living on “bread
by weight and water by measure,” being compelled willy-nilly to listen,
Ahikar proceeded with further lessons in wisdom. “My son,” he says, “he
who does not hear with his ears, they make him to hear with the scruff
of his neck.” Then there follow many wonderful parables, which (as
with the maxims) are similar to those in many literatures. “Thereat,”
ends the tale, “Nadan swelled up like a bag, and died. And to him that
doeth good, what is good shall be recompensed; and to him that doeth
evil, what is evil shall be rewarded. But he that diggeth a pit for his
neighbor, filleth it with his own stature. And to God be glory, and His
mercy be upon us. Amen.”
What was the original of this story? Nothing in the romance of its
incidents, or in the marvel of the spread of it and its maxims and its
incorporated fables throughout the folk-lore of humanity, exceeds
the dramatic fact that a large fragment of the tale, in Aramaic, has
been found in Egypt among other Jewish papyri of the fifth century
before the Christian era! The discovery proves many things, among them
two being most significant. First, the Ahikar story is far older than
people used to think, and thus the theory that the story of Ahikar was
invented to _explain_ the reference in Tobit is once for all disproved.
Second, it is at least tenable that the original language was Aramaic
and the story Jewish. Here, at all events, we have unquestionable
evidence that there must have been among the Jews, nearly 2,400 years
ago, an impulse towards that species of popular tale which so deeply
affected the literature and poetry of the world. Ahikar, it has even
been suggested, is the ultimate source of at least one of the New
Testament parables. But, more generally, now that we know that the
story of Ahikar was at so early a date current among Jews, we shall be
more plausibly able to justify the belief, long ago held by some, that
Aesop and other similar collections of fables do truly come from Jewish
originals. At any rate, ancient Jewish parallels must have been in
circulation.
So much for the main results of the discovery. Small details of
interest abound. Tobit bade his son: “Pour out thy bread and thy wine
on the graves of the righteous (4. 17).” All sorts of changes have
been suggested in the text. But the saying is found in the versions
of Ahikar, and may be accepted as genuine. It is not necessarily a
pagan rite; it has analogy with the funeral meal which long prevailed
(and still prevails) as a Jewish custom. Even more interesting seems
another detail (of the Syriac Version), which the writers on the books
of Ahikar and Tobit have overlooked. When Tobit’s son starts on his
quest, his dog goes with him. This is a remarkable touch. Nowhere else
in ancient Jewish literature does the dog appear as man’s companion.
Nowhere else? Yes, in one other place--in the story of Ahikar. “My
son,” says the vizier to Nadan, “strike with stones the dog that has
left his own master and followed after thee.” Here we see the dog
regarded as a comrade, to be forcibly discouraged if he show signs
of infidelity. There must have been a period, therefore, when the
olden Jews considered the dog in a light quite other than that which
afterwards became usual.
PHILO ON THE “CONTEMPLATIVE LIFE”
Much depends on the mood of the hour. Maimonides, in his _Eight
Chapters_ and in the opening section of his _Code_, acutely remarks
that though excess in any moral direction is vicious, nevertheless it
may be necessary for a man to practise an extreme in order to bring
himself back from the other extreme into the middle path of virtue. Or,
to use another phrase of the same philosopher, it is with the soul as
with the body. To adjust the equilibrium it is proper to apply force on
the side opposite to that which is over-balanced.
Hence it is not surprising to find Philo speaking, as it were, with
two voices on the subject of the ascetic life. In the Alexandria of
his day there was at one time prevalent a cult of self-renunciation.
This cult had special attraction for the young and fashionable. They
joined ascetic societies, and, in the name of religion, abandoned
all participation in worldly affairs. Philo denounced these boyish
millionaire recluses in fine style. Wealth was not to be abused, true;
it was, however, to be used. “Shun not the world, but live well in it,”
he cried. Do not avoid the festive board, but behave like gentlemen
over your wine. It is all beautifully said, though I have modernized
Philo’s terms somewhat. “Be drunk with sobriety” is, however, one of
Philo’s very own phrases.
But there is this other side to consider. Alexandria was the very
hotbed of luxury and extravagance. People speak about the inequalities
of modern civilization, and seem to imagine that it is a new thing for
a slum and a palace to exist side by side. But this was exactly the
condition in Alexandria at about the beginning of the Christian era.
Its busy and gorgeous bazaars, as Mr. F. C. Conybeare has said, blazed
with products and wares imported and designed to tickle the palates
and adorn the persons of the aristocracy. The same marts had another
aspect, narrow and noisy, foul with misery and disease. Wealth and vice
rubbed shoulders. Passing through such scenes, Philo might well be
driven to see the superiority of asceticism over indulgence. Religion
after all is renunciation. Idolatry, said Philo, dwarfs a man’s soul,
Judaism enlarges it. Idolatry may be compatible with “strong wine
and dainty dishes,” Judaism prefers a meal of bread and hyssop. In
speaking thus, Philo reminds us of the Pharisaic saying: “A morsel with
salt shalt thou eat, and water drink by measure, thou shalt sleep upon
the ground, and live a life of painfulness, the while thou toilest in
the Torah” (Pirke Abot 6. 4.). The association of “plain living” with
“high thinking” could not be more emphatically expressed.
Few scholars nowadays doubt the Philonean authorship of the treatise
“On the Contemplative Life.” Conybeare, Cohn and Wendland have
convinced us all, or nearly all, that the work is really Philo’s. At
first sight, no doubt, it was easier to suppose that the book was not
his. It seems too cordial in its praise of seclusion, and comes too
near the monastic spirit. But the Essenes were Jewish enough, and
Philo’s Therapeutae are essentially like the Essenes. “Therapeutae”
is a Greek word which literally means “Servants,” and was used to
denote “Worshippers of God.” The community of Therapeutae, according
to Philo’s description, was settled upon a low hill overlooking Lake
Mareotis, not far from Alexandria. We need not go into details. These
people adopted a severely simple life, each dwelling alone, spending
the day in his private “holy room,” passing the hours without food,
but occupied with the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms. On the
Sabbath, however, they abandoned their isolation, and met in common
assembly, to listen to discourses. The “common sanctuary” was a double
enclosure, divided by a wall of three or four cubits, so as to separate
the women from the men. Women formed part of the audience, “having
the same zeal and following the same mode of life,” all practising
celibacy. Men and women alike, or at least the most zealous of them,
well-nigh fasted throughout the week, “having accustomed themselves, as
they say the grasshoppers do, to live upon air; for the song of these,
I suppose, assuages the feeling of want.” Their Sabbath meal was held
in common, for they regarded “the seventh day as in a manner all holy
and festal,” and, therefore, “deem it worthy of peculiar dignity.” The
diet, however, “comprises nothing expensive, but only cheap bread; and
its relish is salt, which the dainty among them prepare with hyssop;
and for drink they have water from the spring.” For, continues Philo,
“they propitiate the mistresses Hunger and Thirst, which nature has
set over mortal creatures, offering nothing that can flatter them,
but merely such useful food as life cannot be supported without. For
this reason they eat only so as not to be hungry, and drink only so as
not to thirst, avoiding all surfeit as dangerous and inimical to body
and soul.” There is only one relaxation of this severity. No wine is
brought to table, but such of the more aged as are “of a delicate habit
of life” are permitted to drink their water hot.
Of course, the main tendency of Judaism has been in another direction.
Fascinating though Philo’s picture of the community of Therapeutae is,
yet it cannot be felt to be a model for ordinary men and women. From
time to time, indeed, Jews (like the disciples of Isaac Luria) followed
much the same course of life. But most have been unwilling or unable to
accept such an ideal as worthy of imitation. It is not at all certain
that Philo meant it to be a model; anyhow, as we have seen, he was not
always in the same mood. Judah ha-Levi opens the third part of his
_Khazari_ with just this distinction between the ideal circumstances,
under which the ascetic life may be admirable, and the normal
conditions, under which it is culpable. “When the Divine Presence was
still in the Holy Land among the people capable of prophecy, some
few persons lived an ascetic life in deserts” with good results. But
nowadays, continues Judah ha-Levi, “he who in our time and place and
people, ‘whilst no open vision exists’ (I Samuel 3. 1), the desire for
study being small, and persons with a natural talent for it absent,
would like to retire into ascetic solitude, only courts distress and
sickness for soul and body.” The real pietist, he concludes, is not the
man who ignores his senses, but the man who rules over them. And this
was really the view of Philo also, as we find it in his other works.
“The bad man,” he says, “treats pleasure as the _summum bonum_, the
good man as a necessity, for without pleasure nothing happens among
mortals.” And so he counsels men to follow the avocations of ordinary
life, and not to disdain ambition. “In fine, it is necessary that they
who would concern themselves with things divine should, first of all,
have discharged the duties of man. It is a great folly to think we can
reach a comprehension of the greater when we are unable to overcome the
less. Be first known by your excellence in things human, in order that
you may apply yourselves to excellence in things divine.” (I take these
quotations from C. G. Montefiore’s brilliant _Florilegium Philonis_,
which he ought to reprint.) Philo undoubtedly thought more highly of
the contemplative than of the practical life. But in this last passage
he gets very near the truth when he treats the former as only noble
when it is based on the latter. It is another aspect of the rabbinic
truth that “not study but conduct” is the end of virtue. Philo does not
contradict this truth; he offers to our inspection the reverse side of
the same shield.
One other point remains. The reader of Philo’s eulogy of the
Contemplative Life must be struck by the gaiety of these ascetics.
Again and again Philo speaks of their joyousness. They “compose songs
and hymns to God in divers strains and measures.” There is nothing
morose about them. They build up the edifice of virtue on a foundation
of continence, but it is a cheerful devotion after all. Above all
is the music, the singing. They have “many melodies” to which they
sing old songs or newly written poems. One sings in solo, and then
they all “give out their voices in unison, all the men and all the
women together” joining in “the catches and refrains,” and “a full
and harmonious symphony results.” Philo grows ecstatic. “Noble are
the thoughts, and noble the words of their hymn, yea, and noble the
choristers. But the end and aim of thought and words and choristers
alike is holiness.” And this summary ought to be applicable to every
form of Jewish life, to those phases particularly which reject the
excesses of asceticism. “Serve the Lord with joy,” says the hundredth
Psalm. True we must have the joy; but we must also not omit the
service.
JOSEPHUS AGAINST APION
“Buffon, the great French naturalist,” as Matthew Arnold reminds us,
“imposed on himself the rule of steadily abstaining from all answer to
attacks made upon him.” This attitude of dignified silence has often
been commended. In one of his wisest counsels, Epictetus recommended
his friends not to defend themselves when attacked. If a man speaks ill
of you, said the Stoic, you should only reply: “Good sir, you must be
ignorant of many others of my faults, or you would not have mentioned
only these.” An older than Epictetus gave similar advice. Sennacherib’s
emissary, the Rabshakeh, had insolently assailed Hezekiah; “but the
people held their peace, for the king’s commandment was: Answer him
not” (II Kings 18. 36). On this last text a fine homily may be found
in a printed volume of the late Simeon Singer’s Sermons. Mr. Singer
illustrated his counsel of restraint by a reference to Josephus.
Apion more than 1,800 years ago had traduced the Jews, and Josephus
demolished his slanders in “as powerful a piece of controversial
literature as is to be found.” “But,” continued the preacher, “note
the irony of the situation. But for Josephus’ reply, Apion would long
have been forgotten”; not his name, but certainly the details of his
typical anti-Semitism.
This fact, however, does not carry with it the conclusion that
Josephus rendered his people an ill-service. There are two orders of
Apologetics--the destructive and the constructive. _Apologia_ was
originally a legal term which denoted the speech of the defendant
against the plaintiff’s charges. As we know abundantly well from the
forensic giants of the classical oratory--such as Demosthenes and
Cicero--these defences were largely made up of abuse of the other side.
Josephus was an apt pupil of these masters. His abuse of Apion leaves
nothing to the imagination; everything is formulated, and with scathing
particularity. Josephus, it is true, does not seem to have been unjust.
Rarely, if ever, has an out-and-out anti-Semite possessed a pleasing
personality. Apion was a grammarian of note, but there is much evidence
as to his unamiable characteristics. The emperor Tiberius, who knew a
braggart when he saw one, called Apion “cymbalum mundi”--a world-drum,
making the universe ring with his ostentatious garrulity. Aulus Gellius
records his vanity; Pliny accuses him of falsehood and charlatanism.
Josephus was, therefore, not going beyond the facts when he describes
him as a scurrilous mountebank. It cannot be denied, moreover, that
Josephus scores heavily against his opponent, in solid argument as well
as in verbal invective. If the Jewish historian made Apion immortal, it
was a deathless infamy that he secured for him.
Certainly, too, Josephus successfully rebuts Apion’s specific libels:
the most silly of them, however, antedated Apion and survived him.
Tacitus, indeed, seems to have gathered his own weapons out of
Apion’s armory, and the Roman repeats the Alexandrian’s libel that in
Jerusalem an ass was adored. Those who are interested in this legend
of ass-worship may turn to a learned article by Dr. S. Krauss in
the _Jewish Encyclopedia_ (vol. ii, p. 222). It has been suggested
that the charge arose from a confusion between the Jews and certain
Egyptian or Dionysian sects. Others believe that at bottom there lies
a misunderstanding of the “foundation-stone,” which, according to
talmudic tradition, was placed in the ark during the second temple.
The upper millstone was called by the Greeks “the ass,” for its
tedious turning resembled an ass’s burdensome activity. But, be the
explanation what it may, the ignorance of a professed expert such as
Apion was inexcusable. Yet, most grimly amusing of all Apion’s charges
is his repetition of the ever-recurrent libel that the Jews were haters
of their fellow-men. Never was there a more perfect illustration of
Æsop’s fable of the wolf and the lamb: the hated transformed into the
haters! Apion was a fine type of lover. Off to Rome went he, leading
the Alexandrian deputation against the Jews (who were championed by
Philo), denouncing them to the Cæsar, and using every artifice to
incite the imperial animosity. With a heart bitter with hostility,
Apion would be a fitting assailant of the “haters of mankind.” It is
one of the curiosities of fate that, apart from what Josephus has told
of him, Apion is best remembered as the author or transmitter of the
story of Androcles and the lion. Apion was neither the first nor the
last to have a kindlier feeling for a wild beast than for a fellow-man.
To all the points adduced by Apion Josephus makes a triumphant
answer. But his book, termed rather inaptly _Against Apion_, would
not deserve its repute merely because it demolished a particularly
malignant opponent. The book really belongs to Apologetic of the
second of the two orders distinguished above. Higher far than the
destructive Apologetic is the constructive, which rebuts a falsehood,
not by denouncing the liar, but by presenting the truth. “Great is
truth, and it will prevail,” is the maxim of an ancient Jewish book
(I Esdras 4. 41), a maxim well known in substance to Josephus himself
(_Antiquities_, xi. 3). “Who ever knew truth put to the worse in a free
and open encounter?” asks Milton. If we once give up confidence in the
unconquerable power of truth to win in the end, we have already made an
end of human hope. Apologetic, then, of the better type attaches itself
to this belief in the inherent virtue of truth. It meets the enemy not
with weapons similar to his own, but with a shield impervious to all
weapons.
Josephus can sustain this test. Judged by the constructive standard,
the treatise _Against Apion_ is a masterpiece. That the Jews were an
ancient people with an age-long record of honor, and not a race of
recent and disreputable upstarts, Josephus proves by citations from
older writers who, but for these citations, would be even less known
than they now are. It is not, however, on such arguments that Josephus
chiefly rests his case. The external history of the Jews, their
glorious participation in the world’s affairs--these are much. But
there is something which is far more. “As for ourselves, we neither
inhabit a maritime country, _nor delight in commerce_, nor in such
intercourse with other men as arises from it; but the cities we dwell
in are remote from the sea, and as we have a fruitful country to dwell
in, we take pains in cultivating it. _But our principal care of all
is to educate our children well_, and to observe the laws, and we
think it to be the most necessary business of our whole life to keep
that religion that has been handed down to us” (i. 12). This passage
is famous both for its denial of the supposed natural bent of Jews to
commerce and for its assertion that education is the principal purpose
of Jewish endeavor. Josephus, especially in the second book of his
Apology, expounds Judaism as life and creed in glowing terms. This
exposition is one of our main sources of information for the Judaism
of the first century of the Christian era. His picture of life under
the Jewish law is a panegyric, but praise is not always partiality.
Is it an exaggerated claim that Josephus makes on behalf of Judaism?
Surely not. “I make bold to say,” exclaims Josephus in his peroration,
“that we are become the teachers of other men in the greatest number
of things, and those the most excellent. For what is more excellent
than unshakable piety? What is more just than obedience to the laws?
And what is more advantageous than mutual love and concord, and neither
to be divided by calamities, nor to become injurious and seditious
in prosperity, but to despise death when we are in war, and to apply
ourselves in peace to arts and agriculture, while we are persuaded
that God surveys and directs everything everywhere? If these precepts
had either been written before by others, or more exactly observed,
we should have owed them thanks as their disciples, but if it is
plain that we have made more use of them than other men, and if we
have proved that the original invention of them is our own, let the
Apions and Molos, and all others who delight in lies and abuse, stand
confuted.”
There were grounds on which contemporary Jews had just cause for
complaint against Josephus. He lacked patriotism. But only in the
political sense. When Judea was invaded, he did not stand firm in
resistance to Rome. But when Judaism was calumniated, he was a
true patriot. He stands high in the honorable list of those who
championed the Jewish cause without thought of self. Or, rather, such
self-consciousness as he displays is communal, not personal. When he
pleads his people’s cause, his pettinesses vanish, he is every inch a
Jew.
CAECILIUS ON THE SUBLIME
Favorable remarks on Hebrew literature are very rare in the Greek
writers. One of the most significant is contained in the ninth section
of Longinus’ famous treatise on the Sublime.
This Greek author--it will soon be seen why the name Caecilius and not
Longinus appears in the title of this article--analyses sublimity of
style into five sources: 1) grandeur of thought; 2) spirited treatment
of the passions; 3) figures of thought and speech; 4) dignified
expression; 5) majesty of structure. Longinus points out that the
first two conditions of sublimity depend mainly on natural endowments,
whereas the last three derive assistance from art.
It is when illustrating the first of the five elements that our author
refers to the Bible. The most important of all conditions of the
Sublime is “a certain lofty cast of mind.” Such sublimity is “the image
of greatness of soul.” As he beautifully says: “It is only natural
that their words should be full of sublimity, whose thoughts are full
of majesty.” Longinus, accordingly, refuses to praise without reserve
Homer’s picture of the “Battle of the Gods”:
A trumpet sound
Rang through the air, and shook the Olympian height,
Then terror seized the monarch of the dead,
And, springing from his throne, he cried aloud
With fearful voice, lest the earth, rent asunder
By Neptune’s mighty arm, forthwith reveal
To mortal and immortal eyes those halls
So drear and dank, which e’en the gods abhor.
An impious medley, Longinus terms this, a perfect hurly-burly, terrible
in its forcefulness, but overstepping the bounds of decency. (I take
these and other phrases from Mr. H. L. Havell’s fine translation). Far
to be preferred are those Homeric passages which “exhibit the divine
nature in its true light as something spotless, great, and pure.” He
instances the lines in the Iliad on Poseidon, though there does not
seem much to choose between them and the passage condemned above.
But then follows the remarkable paragraph which is the reason why
I have chosen Longinus for a place in this gallery: “And thus also
the lawgiver of the Jews, no ordinary man, having formed an adequate
conception of the Supreme Being, gave it adequate expression in the
opening words of his Laws: _God said: Let there be light, and there was
light; let there be earth, and there was earth._”
Few will dispute that this passage in Genesis belongs to the
sublimest order of literature. It is of the utmost interest that
Longinus (whoever he was) should have recognized this fact. Whoever
he was--whether the true Longinus, or an unknown rhetorician of the
first century. Whether it belongs to the age of Augustus or Aurelian,
it is equally noteworthy that the Greek writer should have admitted
that the sublime might be exhibited by Moses as well as by Homer. It
is quite clear, however, that Longinus did not take his quotation from
the Hebrew Bible itself or from the Greek translation. Had he known
the Bible, he must have made much fuller use of it. Read his analysis
of the sublime quoted above. He could, and would, have illustrated
every one of his five conditions from the Bible, had he been acquainted
with it. Moreover, the quotation from Genesis is inexact. There is no
text: _God said: Let there be earth, and there was earth_. Obviously,
as Théodore Reinach points out, the reference is taken from the sense,
not the words, of Genesis 1. 9 and 10. Longinus, therefore, either knew
it from hearsay, or he had found the quotation in the course of his
reading.
This latter suggestion was made as long ago as 1711 by
Schurzfleisch--how Matthew Arnold would have jibed at a man with
such a name commenting on the _Sublime_! Longinus quotes a previous
treatise on the Sublime by a certain Caecilius. His predecessor, says
Longinus, wasted his efforts “in a thousand illustrations of the
nature of the Sublime,” while he failed to define the subject. Be that
as it may, Longinus quotes Caecilius several times, especially for
these very illustrations. It is by no means improbable, then, that
Longinus’ reference to Genesis was derived from Caecilius, who may have
paraphrased from memory rather than have quoted with the Bible before
him. Now, Suidas informs us that Caecilius was reported to be a Jew.
Reinach (_Revue des Études Juives_, vol. xxvi, pp. 36-46) has provided
full ground for accepting the information of Suidas, which is now
generally adopted as true.
Caecilius belonged to the first century of the current era, and, born
in Sicily, the offspring of a slave, he betook himself as a freedman
to Rome, where he won considerable note as a writer on rhetoric. _The
Characters of the Ten Orators_ was one of his most important books;
several histories are ascribed to him; and, as we have seen, he wrote
a formal treatise on the Sublime, which gave rise to the better-known
work attributed to Longinus. It is not clear whether Caecilius was a
born Jew or a proselyte. Probably the theory that best fits the facts
is that of Schürer. We may suppose that the rhetorician’s father was
brought to Rome as a Jewish slave by Pompey, and was then sold to a
Sicilian. In Sicily, the son, who bore the name Archagathos, received
a Greek education, and was freed by a Roman of the Caecilius clan. The
freedman would drop his own name, and adopt the family name of his
benefactor, according to common practice. Schürer offers a very acute,
and I think conclusive, argument against the view that Caecilius was
a convert to Judaism. A proselyte would have exhibited much more zeal
for his new faith. In the works of Caecilius, I may add, his Judaism
seems more a reminiscence than a vital factor. It is, on the whole,
more likely that he came of Jewish ancestry than that he was himself
a new-made Jew. Reinach contends that _because_ he was a proselyte,
Caecilius knew the Bible only superficially, and hence arose his
misquotation of Genesis. Is that a probable view to take? If we
conceive, with Schürer, that the father of Caecilius, a born Jew, had
passed through such vicissitudes, being carried a slave from Syria to
Rome, transferred into an alien environment in Sicily, we can well
understand that the son would possess but a superficial memory of the
Bible. On the other hand, a proselyte would have become a devotee to
the Scriptures, the beauties of which had burst upon his mind for the
first time. He would not misquote. The chief Jewish translators of
the Bible into Greek (apart, of course, from the oldest Alexandrian
version) were, curiously enough, proselytes to Judaism. Perhaps it
would be too far-fetched to suggest that Caecilius had a particular
reason to remember the first chapter of Genesis. His original name,
Archagathos, is not a bad translation of the Hebrew “very good” (_tob
meod_) which occurs prominently in the story of the Creation.
Unfortunately, none of the works of Caecilius is preserved. We know
him only by a few fragments. Plutarch described him as “eminent in
all things,” yet neither Schürer in his earlier editions, nor Graetz
in any edition, placed him where he ought to be--to use Reinach’s
phraseology--in the phalanx of the great Jewish Hellenists, with
Aristobulus, Philo, and Josephus. Caecilius was the restorer of
Atticism in literature, a piquant rôle for a Jew to play. Yet it is a
part the Jew has often filled. An instructive essay could be written
on the services rendered by Hebrews to the spread of Hellenism, not
merely in the ancient world, but also in the medieval and modern
civilizations.
THE PHOENIX OF EZEKIELOS
“The plumage,” writes Herodotus (ii. 73), “is partly red, partly
golden, while the general form and size are almost exactly like the
eagle.” The Greek historian was describing the phoenix, the fabled
bird which lived for five hundred years. According to another version,
she then consumed herself in fire, and from the ashes emerged again in
youthful freshness. Herodotus likens the phoenix to the eagle, and the
reader of some of the Jewish commentaries on the last verse of Isaiah
40 and the fifth verse of Psalm 103 will find references to similar
ideas. In particular to be noted is Kimhi’s citation of Sa’adya’s
reference to the belief that the eagle acquired new wings every
twelve years, and lived a full century. Such fancies easily attached
themselves to Isaiah’s phrase and to the psalmist’s words: “Thy youth
is renewed like the eagle.” The biblical metaphors, in sober fact,
merely allude to the fullness of life, high flight, and vigor of the
eagle; there is nothing whatever that is mythical about them.
What passes for one of the most famous descriptions of the phoenix
is contained in the well-known Greek drama of the Exodus (or rather
_Exagogê_) written by the Jewish poet, Ezekielos. This writer probably
flourished rather more than a century before the Christian era. It
is commonly supposed that he lived in the capital of the Ptolemies,
in Alexandria; but it has been suggested by Kuiper that his home was
not in Egypt, but in Palestine, in Samaria. If that be so, it is a
remarkable phenomenon. We should not wonder that a Jew in _Alexandria_
composed Greek dramas on biblical themes, with the twofold object of
presenting the history of Israel in attractive form and of providing a
substitute for the heathen plays which monopolized the ancient theatre.
But that such dramas should be produced soon after the Maccabean age
in _Palestine_ would imply an unexpected continuity of the influences
of Greek manners in the homeland of the Jews. Ere we could accept
the theory of a Palestinian origin for Ezekielos, we should need far
stronger arguments than Kuiper adduces (_Revue des Études Juives_, vol.
xlvi, p. 48, _seq._).
The drama of the _Exodus_--which was apparently written to be
performed--follows the biblical story with some closeness. We are
now, however, interested in a single episode, preserved for us among
the fragments of Ezekielos as quoted by Eusebius (_Prep. Evangel._,
ix. 30). A beautiful picture of the twelve springs of Elim and of its
seventy palms is followed by a description of the extraordinary bird
that appeared there. I take the passage from Gifford’s _Eusebius_ (iii,
p. 475). A character of the play, after the Greek manner, is reporting
to Moses:
Another living thing we saw, more strange
And marvellous than man e’er saw before,
The noblest eagle scarce was half as large;
His outspread wings with varying colors shone;
The breast was bright with purple, and the legs
With crimson glowed, and on the shapely neck
The golden plumage shone in graceful curves;
The head was like a gentle nestling’s formed;
Bright shone the yellow circlet of the eye
On all around, and wondrous sweet the voice.
The king he seemed of all the winged tribe,
As soon was proved; for birds of every kind
Hovered in fear behind his stately form;
While like a bull, proud leader of the herd,
Foremost he marched with swift and haughty step.
Gifford has no hesitation in accepting the common identification of
this bird with the phoenix. Obviously, however, Ezekielos says nothing
of the mythical properties of the bird; he merely presents to us a
super-eagle of gorgeous plumage and splendid stature, unnatural but
not supernatural. Even the magnificence of the superb bird pictured by
Ezekielos is less bizarre than we find it in other authors. Ezekielos’
figures sink into insignificance beside those of Lactantius, who tells
us that the bird’s monstrous eyes resembled twin hyacinths, from the
midst of which flashed and quivered a bright flame. If Ezekielos
really refers to the phoenix, how does it come into the drama at all?
Gifford has this note: “There is no mention in Exodus of the phoenix
or any such bird, but the twelve palm-trees (_phoenix_) at Elim may
have suggested the story of the phoenix to the poet, just as in the
poem of Lactantius. _Phoenix_ 70, the tree is said to have been named
from the bird.” The word _phoenix_ has, I may add, a romantic history.
It means, literally, _Phoenician_. Now, certain of the Phoenician
race were the reputed discoverers and first users of purple-red or
crimson dyes. Hence these colors were named after them, _Phoenix_ or
_Phoenician_. The Greek translation, in Isaiah 1. 18, renders “scarlet”
by _Phoenician_. The epithet was applied equally to red cattle, to
the bay horse, to the _date-palm_ and its fruit. It was also used of
the fabulous bird because of its colorings. Gifford supposes, then,
that Ezekielos knowing of the _palms_ reached at Elim in the early
wanderings of Israel, introduced the _bird_ into his drama. The palms
at Elim are indeed described by this very word (Phoenician) in the
Greek translation of the Bible which Ezekielos used (Exodus 15. 27).
The _lulab_ is also termed _phoenix_ in the Greek of Leviticus 23. 40.
The explanation seems at first sight as plausible as it is clever. But
it involves a serious difficulty. For Ezekielos in a previous passage
has already described the Phoenician palm-trees at considerable length.
The passage has been partly noted above, but it is musical enough to be
worth citing as a whole:
See, my Lord Moses, what a spot is found,
Fanned by sweet airs from yonder shady grove;
For as thyself mayest see, there lies the stream,
And thence at night the fiery pillar shed
Its welcome guiding light. A meadow there
Beside the stream in grateful shadow lies,
And a deep glen in rich abundance pours
From out a single rock twelve sparkling springs.
There, tall and strong, and laden all with fruit,
Stand palms threescore and ten; and plenteous grass,
Well watered, gives sweet pasture to our flocks.
It seems incredible that the poet who thus describes the palms could
then have proceeded to confuse the palms with a bird. Ezekielos does
not use the epithet Phoenician in his account of the latter. Thus the
theory breaks down. How then is the passage to be explained? As it
seems to me, in another and simpler way.
“There is no mention in Exodus of the phoenix or any such bird,” says
Gifford. He is right as to the phoenix, but is he right as to “any such
bird”? My readers will at once remember the forceful metaphor in the
nineteenth chapter of Exodus: “And Moses went up unto God, and the Lord
called unto him out of the mountain, saying: ‘Thus shalt thou say to
the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel: Ye have seen what
I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bore you _on eagles’ wings_, and
brought you unto Myself.’” The Mekilta interprets the words to refer
to the rapidity with which Israel was assembled for the departure from
Egypt, and to the powerful protection which it afterwards enjoyed. But
we may also find in the same words the clue to the poet’s fancy. “I
bore you on eagles’ wings,” says the Pentateuch. No doubt the phrases
of Herodotus, as well as those of Hesiod, were familiar to Ezekielos.
With these in mind, he introduced a super-eagle, figuratively
mentioned in the book of Exodus, and gave to it substance and life.
He personified the metaphor. It would be a perfectly legitimate
exercise of poetical license. The description is bizarre. But it is not
mythological, and it has little to do with the phoenix of fable.
THE LETTER OF SHERIRA
Though all Israelites are brothers, they do not admit that they are all
members of the same family. “Of good genealogy” is the proudest boast
of the modern, as it was of the talmudic, Jew. It is, accordingly,
not wonderful that we find our notabilities from Hillel to Abarbanel
claiming, or having assigned to them, descent from the Davidic line.
Of Sherira the same was said. He ruled over the academy in Pumbeditha
during the last third of the tenth century. A scion of the royal
house of Judah, he was rightful heir to the exilarchy, yet preferred
the socially lower, but academically higher, office of Gaon. The
Gaon’s sway was religious and scholastic; the exilarch’s secular and
political. Sherira’s ancestry might have given him the latter post, but
for the former it was intrinsic, personal worth which qualified him and
his famous son Hai. Who shall deny that he made a worthy choice?
Sherira’s fame rests less on his general activities as Gaon than on the
Letter which he wrote about the year 980, in response to questions
formulated by Jacob ben Nissim, of Kairuwan. One of these questions
retains, and will ever retain, its fascination, although the answer
has now no vital interest. Historically the Letter has other claims
to continued study. To quote Dr. L. Ginzberg (_Geonica_, i, p. 169):
“The lasting value of his epistle for us lies in the information Rabbi
Sherira gives about the post-Talmudic scholars. On this period he is
practically the only source we have.” Without Sherira, the course
of the traditional development would be a blank for a long interval
after the close of the Talmud. “But,” continues Dr. Ginzberg, “we
shall be doing Rabbi Sherira injustice if we thought of him merely as
a chronologist.” And this same competent scholar launches out into
the following eulogy of the Gaon: “The theories which he unfolds
... regarding the origin of the _Mishnah_ ... and many other points
important in the history of the Talmud and its problems, stamp Rabbi
Sherira as one of the most distinguished historians, in fact, it is not
an exaggeration to say, the most distinguished historian of literature
among the Jews, not only of antiquity, but also in the middle ages, and
during a large part of modern times.”
This must suffice for the general estimate of Sherira’s work. What
is of more striking interest is just the one question, the answer to
which does not much matter. As Dr. Neubauer formulated the question
put to Sherira, it ran thus: “Was the Mishnah transmitted _orally_ to
the doctors of the Mishnah, or was it _written down_ by the compiler
himself?” Judah the Prince, we know, compiled the Mishnah, but did
he leave it in an oral or a documentary form? Was it memorized or
set down in script? The answer does not much matter, as I have said,
for sooner or later the Mishnah _was_ written out, and it is not of
great consequence whether it was later or sooner. And it is as well
that Sherira’s answer matters little, for we do not know for certain
what Sherira’s answer was! Most authorities nowadays believe that the
Gaon pronounced in favor of the written compilation; but this was not
always the case. For Sherira’s Letter was current in two versions which
recorded opposite opinions. In the French form the oral alternative
was accepted, but the Spanish text adopted the written theory. Which
was the genuine view of Sherira? There are many reasons for preferring
the Spanish version. As Dr. Neubauer points out, “books, letters,
and responsa coming from the East, reached Spain and Italy before
they came to France and Germany.” Hence the Spanish text is more
likely to be primitive; while, when the Letter was carried further,
it might easily have been altered so as to fall in with the talmudic
prohibition against putting the traditional laws into writing. It will,
again, come as a surprise to some to note another argument used by Dr.
Neubauer in favor of the Spanish text. “From the greater consistency
of the Aramaic dialect in the Spanish text, a dialect which, as we
know from the Responsa of the Geonim, they used in their writings, it
may be concluded that this (the Spanish) composition is the genuine
one.” The Gaonate was able to maintain a pretty thorough Jewish spirit
without insisting on the use of Hebrew as the only medium of salvation.
Actually Dr. Neubauer saw in the more consistent Aramaic of the Spanish
text an indication of its superior authenticity over what may be called
the French text!
But all these points are secondary. The real interest lies in this
whole conception of an _oral book_. Tradition necessarily must be
largely oral; ideas, maxims, and even defined rules of conduct not
only can be, they must be, transmitted by word of mouth. But is there
any possibility that a whole, elaborate book, or rather series of six
books, should be put together and then trusted to memory? A new turn
to the discussion was given by Prof. Gilbert Murray’s Harvard Lectures
on “The Rise of the Greek Epic.” To him the Iliad of Homer appears
in the guise of a “traditional book.” No doubt the Mishnah belongs
to a period separated from Homer by well-nigh a millennium. But the
phrase holds. A _book_ can be the outcome of tradition, can be carried
on by it, expanded and elaborated, just as much as an oral code or
history or poem. When, then, we speak of a traditional book, it does
not necessarily mean that the book was not written down. The written
words become precious, and the fact that they are written does not of
itself spell finality or stagnation. There never was any danger of such
an evil result until the age of printing and stereotyping. Nor can
we conceive of a traditional book as the work of one mind. Judah the
Prince neither began nor ended the chain of tradition because he wrote
the Mishnah. There had been Mishnahs before him, just as there were
developments of law after him.
Yet, on the other hand, it is not incredible that Judah the Prince’s
traditional book remained an unwritten book. It is improbable, but not
at all impossible. A modern lawyer of the first rank must hold in his
mind quite as many decisions and principles as are contained in the
Mishnah. Macaulay could repeat by heart the whole of the _Paradise
Lost_ and much else. Many a Talmudist of the present day must remember
vast masses of the traditional Halakah. Before the age of printing,
before copies of books became common and easily accessible, scholars
must have been compelled to trust to their memory for many things for
which we can turn to our reference libraries. When Maimonides compiled
his great Code, he must have done a good deal of it from memory. Not
that men’s memories are worse now than they were. But we are now
able to spare ourselves. It is not a good thing to use the memory
unnecessarily. It should be reserved for essentials. What we can always
get from books we need not keep in mind. Besides, in olden times men
remembered better not because they had better memories, but because
they had less to remember.
On the whole, however, it is safer to conclude that Judah the Prince
made a contribution to written literature, that he set down at a
particular moment (about 200 C.E.) the traditional book which had been
writing itself for many decades, partly by the minds of the Rabbis,
partly by their pens. He started the book on a new career of humane
activity. Sherira and the Geonim were what they were because Judah the
Prince was what he was. This is the essential fact about tradition. The
more we give of our best to our age, the more chance is there for all
future ages to transmit of their best to posterity.
NATHAN OF ROME’S DICTIONARY
A dictionary may seem an intruder in this gallery. The present
series of cursory studies clearly is not concerned with works of
technical scholarship. But the dictionary by Nathan, son of Jehiel,
earns inclusion for two reasons. First, because when one surveys the
expressions of the Jewish spirit, it is impossible to draw a line
between learning and literature. Secondly, quite apart from this
intimate general connection between the scholar and the man of letters,
the dictionary of Nathan belongs specially to the course of culture.
Among the Christian Humanists who, at the period of the Reformation,
promoted the enlightenment of Europe, were not lacking appreciators of
the services rendered to enlightenment by Nathan’s _Aruk_ (to give it
its Hebrew title).
Nathan (born about 1035 and died in 1106) was an itinerant vendor of
linen wares in his youth. He belonged to the family Degli Mansi, an
Italian rendering of the Hebrew _Anaw_ or _Meek_. The latter is still
a rare but familiar Jewish surname. Legend has it that the founder of
the Degli Mansi house was one of the original settlers introduced into
Rome by Titus. At all events, the family had a long record of literary
fame. Like many another merchant-traveller of the Middle Ages, Nathan
made use of his earlier wanderings (as he did of his later journeys),
to sit at the feet of all the Gamaliels of his age. Many and various
were his teachers. He abandoned business when he returned to Rome
after his father’s death. He tells us how he made the arrangements for
the interment, and here straightway we perceive that his _Aruk_ is no
ordinary dictionary. For in the poem, which he appends as a kind of
retrospective preface, he records how sternly he had ever disapproved
of the expenses incurred at Jewish funerals in his time. Protests were
vain, but example was more fruitful. In place of the double cerements
in common use, he laid his father in his tomb with a single shroud.
This, he records, became the model for others to imitate. Death was
a frequent visitor in his abode. Of his four sons, none survived the
eighth year, one not even his eighth day. Grief did not crush him. “I
found sorrow and trouble, then I called on the name of the Lord,” he
quotes. He proceeded to erect a house of another kind. Not of flesh and
blood, but vital with the spirit of Judaism, his _Aruk_ is a monument
more lasting than ten children.
In what, then, does the importance of the dictionary consist? It is,
of course, primarily, what Graetz terms it, “a key to the Talmud.” No
doubt there were earlier compilations of a similar nature, but Nathan’s
book was the most renowned of its own age, and became the basis of
every subsequent lexicon to the Talmud. Gentile and Jew, from Buxtorf
to Dalman and from Musafia to Jastrow, employed it as the ground-work
of their own lexicographical research. Moreover, it was again and again
edited and enlarged; but we are not dealing here with bibliographical
details. Suffice it to mention the final edition by Alexander Kohut.
Kohut began his _Aruch Completum_ while a European Rabbi in 1878, and
finished it in New York in 1892. It is remarkable that two of the best
modern lexicons to the Talmud (Kohut’s in Hebrew and Jastrow’s in
English) both emanate from America.
Besides its value for understanding the text of the Talmud, Nathan’s
_Aruk_ has earned other claims to fame. Nathan’s dictionary marks
an epoch, says Vogelstein. Consider the situation. The centre of
Jewish authority was leaving Babylon. The last of the great literary
Geonim--or _Excellencies_, as the heads of the Babylonian schools were
called--died in the year 1038. Europe was replacing Asia as the scene
of Jewish life. Was the old tradition to die? At the very moment of
the crisis, three men arose to prevent the chain snapping. They were
almost contemporaries, and their works supplemented each other. There
was the Frenchman Rashi--the commentator; the Spaniard al-Fasi--the
codifier; and the Italian Nathan--the lexicographer. Between them they
re-established in Europe the tradition of the Gaonate. The Babylonian
schools might come and go; they might for a time enjoy hegemony, and
then fall into decay; but the Torah must go on forever!
The manner in which this dictionary carried on the tradition is
easily told. Much of the lore it contains, explanations of words and
of things, must have been _orally_ acquired in direct conversations
with those who were personally linked with the older _régime_. It is
again full of quotations of the decisions and customary lore of the
Babylonian schools. If on this side the _Aruk_ has almost played out
its part for us, it is not because those decisions and customs are
less interesting to us than they were to our fathers. But we are now
in possession of very many of the gaonic writings in their original.
We have recovered several of the sources from which Nathan drew. The
Egyptian Genizah--that wonderfully preserved mass of the relics of
Hebrew literature--has yielded its richest harvest just in this field.
We are getting to know more about the thought and manner of life of
the eighth to the eleventh centuries than we know about our own time.
But for a long interval men’s knowledge of those centuries was largely
derived from the _Aruk_. As a source of information it is not even now
superseded. There still remain authors whose names and works would be
lost but for Rabbi Nathan’s quotations.
Another aspect of the book which makes it so valuable for the history
of culture among the Jews is the number of languages which Nathan uses.
What an array it is! Kohut enumerates (besides Hebrew and Aramaic)
Latin, Greek, Arabic, Slavonic dialects, Persian, and Italian and
allied speeches. Nathan cannot have known all these languages well.
He certainly had little Latin and less Greek, but he repeated what
he had heard from others or read in their books. It is remarkable,
indeed, how well the sense of Greek words was transmitted by Jewish
writers who were ignorant of Greek. They often are not even aware that
the words are Greek at all; they suggest the most impossible Semitic
_derivations_; but they very rarely give the meanings incorrectly. This
applies less to the Italian than to the German Jewish scholars. I mean
that the former had, on the whole, a more intimate acquaintance with
the classical idioms. In the case of Nathan’s _Aruk_ the languages
cited do imply a wide and varied culture. Most interesting is Nathan’s
free use of Italian. Just as we learn from the glosses in Rashi’s
commentaries that the Jews of northern France spoke French, so we
gather from Nathan’s dictionary that the Jews of Rome must have used
Italian as the medium of ordinary intercourse.
Nathan’s _Aruk_, while, as we have seen, it was a link between the past
and his present, was also part of the chain binding his present to the
future. Nathan records the tradition as he received it, but he also
points forward. Take one of his remarks, which is quoted by Güdemann.
There is much in the Talmud on the subject of magic, and Nathan duly
explains the terms employed. But he says: “All these statements about
magic and amulets, I know neither their meaning nor their origin.”
Does the reader appreciate the extraordinary significance of the
statement? Nathan, the bearer of tradition, yet sees that the newer
order of things also has its claims. Tradition does not consist in
the denial of science. And so, though a Gaon like Hai had a pretty
considerable belief in demonology, Nathan cautiously expresses his
scepticism. Even more emphatically, a little later, Ibn Ezra frankly
asserted that he had no belief in demons. It may be questioned whether
this enfranchisement from demonological conceptions could be matched
in non-Jewish thought of so early a date. The _Aruk_ assuredly points
forwards as well as backwards.
And all this we derive from a dictionary! The _Aruk_ obviously belongs
to culture as well as to philology--if the two things really can be
separated. The study of words is often the study of civilization. Max
Müller maintained that if you could only tell the real history of words
you would thereby be telling the real history of men. He carried the
idea absurdly far; but Nathan’s _Aruk_ is a striking instance of at
least the partial truth of the great Sanskrit scholar’s contention.
THE SORROWS OF TATNU
Tatnu has a weird sound. But it is not the title of a fetich; it is not
a personal name; it is not even a word at all. It is, indeed, a figure;
but the figure it stands for is numerical. The letters which compose
the Hebrew combination Tatnu amount to 856 (_taw_ = 400; _taw_ = 400;
_nun_ = 50; _waw_ = 6). It represents a date. To transpose it from the
era _anno mundi_ to the current era, it is necessary to add 240. This
brings us to 1096, the year of the First Crusade.
If Tatnu is no person, neither do its sorrows form a book. They
constitute rather a library of narratives, small in size but great
in substance. They are hardly literary, yet they belong to the
masterpieces of literature. Their story is recorded with few ornaments
of style, but their simple, poignant directness is more effective than
rhetoric. Martyrdom needs no tricks of the word-artist; it tells its
own tale.
The Historical Commission for the History of the Jews in Germany had
but a brief career, though it has revived under the newer title of
the _Gesamtarchiv_. The Commission aimed at two ends: to introduce
to Jewish notice information about the Jews scattered in Christian
sources, and to make accessible to Christians facts about themselves
contained in Jewish authorities. From 1887 to 1898, the Commission was
actively at work, and among the books it published were two valuable
volumes dealing with the martyrologies of the Jews. For the first
time, these narratives were adequately edited. The pathetic records
of sufferings endured in the Rhine-lands and elsewhere stand, for all
time, ready to the hand of the historian.
The first moral to be extracted from these records is the certainty
that war is an evil. No one can dispute the noble motives of the
crusaders. The unquenchable enthusiasm which led high and low to
forsake their homes and engage in eastern adventures, the unflinching
courage with which the dangers of battle and the hardships and
privations of wearisome campaigns were borne, the transparent
singleness of purpose which animated many a soldier of the cross--all
these factors tend to cover the sordid truth with a glamor of idealism
and chivalry. But the wars of the Crusades were tainted with savagery,
and if so what wars can be clean? The barbarities inflicted in Europe
on the Jews color with a red and gruesome haze the heroisms performed
against Mohammedans in Asia. War, it is said, brings to the fore some
of the finest qualities of human nature. Exactly, but the war of man
against nature calls for the exercise of the same qualities. The
heroism of the coal-mine is as great from every point of view as the
heroism of the battlefield. And the battlefield from first to last is
the scene of human nature at its lowest as well as at its highest. Nor
is the battlefield the whole of war. Those who persuade themselves
that war, though an evil, is not an unmixed evil, will find in the
Sorrows of Tatnu and allied books a rather useful corrective to their
complacency.
When in 1913 I re-read Neubauer and Stern’s volume (1892) and Dr.
Salfeld’s magnificent edition of the Nuremberg Martyrology (1898)--it
was not long before the outbreak of the European war--I was so moved
that I sent a donation to the Peace Society. Quite a nice thing to
do, some will urge, but is it worth while, for such an end, to rake
up these miserable tales? The whole of this class of literature was
long neglected because of a similar feeling. Stobbe, who rendered such
conspicuous service to the Jewish cause, was actuated by the identical
sentiment, when he wrote that it would be “a grim and a thankless
task” to enter fully into the sufferings of the Jews in the medieval
period. But the Commission above referred to took another view; it
printed the texts and circulated them in the completest detail. Now
it depends entirely on the purpose with which such remorseless crimes
are as remorselessly dragged to the light of day. If the desire is
to revive bitterness, then it is a foul desire which ought to be
crushed. And not only if this be the desire, if it prove to be the
consequence, if as a result of such re-publication animosity is
rekindled, then the re-publication is to be condemned. But in the case
of the Sorrows of Tatnu, neither the motive nor the consequence is of
this character. Salfeld gave us his edition of these monuments of the
Jewish tribulations, “den Toten zur Ehre, den Lebenden zur Lehre”; to
honor the dead, to inspire the living. Neither he nor any other Jewish
writer wishes to play the part of Virgil’s Misenus, who was skilled in
“setting Mars alight with his song” (_Martem accendere cantu_). The
heroism of the sufferers, not the brutality of the aggressors, is the
theme of the Jewish historian who deals with the Sorrows of Tatnu and
of many another year; not the lurid glow of the bloodshed, but the
white light of the martyrdom; not the pain, but the triumph over it;
not the infliction, but the endurance unto and beyond death. These
aspects of the story ought, indeed, to be told and retold “to honor the
dead, to inspire the living.”
Closely connected with this thought is another. The Commission, be it
remembered, was a Jewish body, appointed by the _Deutsch-Israelitische
Gemeindebund_ in 1885. But Graetz was not appointed a member. (Comp.
the _Memoir_ in the Index Volume of Graetz’s _History of the Jews_,
Philadelphia, 1898, p. 78). Why did the leaders of Berlin Jewry ignore
Graetz, the man who, above all others, had stirred the conscience of
Europe by his vivid pictures of the medieval persecution so poignantly
illustrated in the Sorrows of Tatnu? That was the very ground for
excluding Graetz. There is no doubt but that Graetz’s method of writing
Jewish history was somewhat roughly handled at about the period named.
This assault came from two sides. Treitschke, the German and Christian,
attacked Graetz as anti-Christian and anti-German, and used citations
from Graetz to support his propaganda of academic anti-Semitism.
Certain Jews, on the other hand, felt that, though Treitschke was
wrong, Graetz was too inclined to regard the world’s history from
a partisan and sectarian point of view. Whether or not this was
the reason for the exclusion of Graetz from the Commission, what is
interesting to note is the fact that the Commission, when it came to
grips with the records, produced quite as emphatic an exposure of the
medieval persecution as Graetz himself. It is, in brief, impossible for
any student of the records to do otherwise.
The Commission included among its members some (conspicuously L.
Geiger) who subsequently proved to be the strongest anti-Zionists.
The duty and the desire to honor the dead for the inspiration of
the living are not restricted to any one section of our community.
There is nothing nationalistic or anti-nationalistic in our common
sympathy with the Sorrows of Tatnu, in our common impulse to turn those
sorrows to vital account in the present. In a soft age it is well
to be reminded that Judaism is above all synonymous with hardihood.
Thus these memories are cherished because “the blood of the martyr
is the seed of the church.” This magnificent thought originated with
Tertullian, though the precise phrase is not his. The idea conveyed by
these oft-quoted words must be carefully weighed, lest we make of it a
half-truth instead of a truth. No institution is founded on its dead,
it is its living upholders who alone can support it. We tell these
stories of the dead, because, in their day, they, living, recognized
that to save themselves men must sometimes sacrifice themselves. To
pay, as the price of life, the very thing that makes life worth living
is an ignoble and futile bargain. The Sorrows of Tatnu, regarded as the
expression of this conviction, are converted from an elegy into a pæan.
But the song is discordant unless we, who sing it, are also prepared
to act it, in our own way and in our own different circumstances. _Den
Toten zur Ehre, den Lebenden zur Lehre._
PART II
PART II
IBN GEBIROL’S “ROYAL CROWN”
Authors are not invariably the best critics of their own work. Was
Solomon Ibn Gebirol, who was born in Andalusia, perhaps in Malaga, in
the earlier part of the eleventh century, just when he regarded as the
crown of all his writings the long poem which he called the “Royal
Crown” (_Keter Malkut_)? Some will always doubt his judgment. Plausibly
enough, preference may be felt for several of his shorter poems,
particularly “At Dawn I Seek Thee” (which Mrs. R. N. Salaman translated
for the Routledge Mahzor) or “Happy the Eye that Saw these Things”
(paraphrased by Mrs. Lucas in her _Jewish Year_).
Ibn Gebirol was, however, sound in his opinion. One line in the
“Royal Crown” is the finest that he, or any other neo-Hebraic poet,
ever wrote. Should God make visitation as to iniquity, cries Ibn
Gebirol, then “from Thee I will flee to Thee.” Nieto interpreted: “I
will fly from Thy justice to Thy clemency.” But the line needs no
interpretation. In his _Confessions_ (4. 9) Augustine says: “Thee no
man loses, but he that lets Thee go. And he that lets Thee go, whither
goes he, or whither runs he, but from Thee well pleased back to Thee
offended?” A great passage, but Ibn Gebirol’s is greater. It is a
sublime thought, and its author was inspired. He must have felt this
when he named his poem. For the title comes from the Book of Esther,
and the Midrash has it that, when the queen is described as donning the
robes of royalty, the Scripture means to tell us that the holy spirit
rested on her.
It has been said (among others, by Sachs and Steinschneider) that the
“Royal Crown” is substantially a versification of Aristotle’s short
treatise “On the World.” This is in a sense true enough. The “Royal
Crown” is largely physical, and to modern readers is marred by its
long paragraphs of obsolete astronomical conceptions, which go back,
through the Ptolemaic system, to Aristotle. Moreover, Aristotle, in
his treatise cited above, anticipated Ibn Gebirol in the motive with
which he directed his ancient readers’ attention to the elements and
the planets. “What the pilot is in a ship, the driver in a chariot,
the coryphæus in a choir, the general in an army, the lawgiver in
a city--that is God in the world” (_De Mundo_, 6). This saying of
Aristotle is indeed Ibn Gebirol’s text. But the Hebrew poet owes
nothing else than the skeleton to his Greek exemplar. The style--with
its superb application of biblical phrases, a method which in al-Harizi
is used to raise a laugh, but in Ibn Gebirol at every turn rouses
reverence--is as un-Greek as are the spiritual intensity of thought and
the moral optimism of outlook.
Our Sephardic brethren were wiser than the Ashkenazim in their
selections for the liturgy. Why the Ashkenazim have neglected Ibn
Gebirol and ha-Levi in favor of Kalir will always remain a mystery.
The Sephardim did not include all that they might have done from the
Spanish poets, but the Ashkenazic Mahzor has suffered by the loss of
such masterpieces as Judah ha-Levi’s “Lord! unto Thee are ever manifest
my inmost heart’s desires, though unexpressed in spoken words.” But
most of all is our loss apparent in the omission of the “Royal Crown”
from the Kol Nidre service. In Germany, the Ashkenazim have been
better advised. The Rödelheim Mahzor and the Michael Sachs edition
both include the poem in their volumes for the Atonement Eve. Sachs
(unlike de Sola) omits the astronomical sections in his fine German
rendering, and wisely, for the “Royal Crown” notably illustrates the
Greek epigram: “part may be greater than the whole.” On the other hand,
in his famous _Religiöse Poesie der Juden in Spanien_, Sachs includes
the omitted cosmology. There is a difference between our attitudes to a
poem as a work of literature and to the same poem as an invocation or
prayer. Sachs the scholar refused to mutilate the “Royal Crown,” but as
a liturgist (though he printed all the Hebrew) he took liberties with
it.
Sachs and de Sola were not the only translators of the “Royal Crown.”
In fact, to name all who have turned Ibn Gebirol’s work into modern
languages would need more space than is here available. In her
_Jewish Year_, Mrs. Lucas--to name the most recent of Ibn Gebirol’s
translators--has exquisitely rendered a large part of the poem. I do
not propose to quote from it, as Mrs. Lucas’ book is available at a
small cost. And we shall, it is to be hoped, not have too long to wait
for Mr. Israel Zangwill’s promised rendering.
What is it that appeals to us in Ibn Gebirol’s poetry? Dr. Cowley
attributes his charm to “the youthful freshness” of his verses,
“in which he may be compared to the romantic school in France and
England in the early nineteenth century.” This same feature was also
detected by al-Harizi--a better critic than poet. In fact, it was
his appreciation of Ibn Gebirol’s “youthful freshness” that led him
to assert that the poet died before his thirties had been completed.
Al-Harizi treats Ibn Gebirol’s successors as his imitators. There is
a large element of truth in this. One fact only need be quoted in
evidence. Ibn Gebirol entitled his longest poem the “Royal Crown”
(partly, no doubt, because of the frequent comparison of God to the
King in the Scriptures). Now, the title “Royal Crown” passed over to
designate a type of poem. We find several versifiers who later on wrote
“Royal Crowns,” just as we speak of an orator uttering a “Jeremiad” or
a “Philippic.” Heine, supreme among the modern Romantics in Germany,
recognized this same freshness of inspiration in this freshest of
the Spanish Hebrew poets: a pious nightingale singing in the Gothic
medieval night, a nightingale whose Rose was God--these are Heine’s
phrases.
Gustav Karpeles again and again claims that Ibn Gebirol was the first
poet thrilled by “that peculiar ferment characteristic of a modern
school”--a ferment which the Germans name _Weltschmerz_. Clearly,
Karpeles made a good point by showing that Schopenhauer--of whom it
may be doubted whether he despised women or Jews more heartily--the
apostle of _Weltschmerz_, had as a predecessor, eight centuries before
his time, the despised Jew, the “Faust of Saragossa.” This is another
of Karpeles’ epithets for Ibn Gebirol, who spent, indeed, some years
in Saragossa, but had little of the Faust in him. If, however, we
attribute to Ibn Gebirol the feeling of _Weltschmerz_, we must be
cautious before we identify his sense of the “world’s misery” with
modern pessimism. Ibn Gebirol’s was, no doubt, a lonely and even
melancholy life. But though he often writes sadly, though he would have
sympathized with William Allingham’s sentiment:
Sin we have explained away,
Unluckily the sinners stay;
yet the final outcome of his realization of human failings and human
pain was hope and not despair. And this I say not because Ibn Gebirol
appreciated the humor of life as well as its miseries. It is not his
humorous verses on which I should base my belief in his optimism. For
I regard as the epitome, or rather, essential motive of the “Royal
Crown,” the lines:
Thou God, art the Light
That shall shine in the soul of the pure;
Now Thou art hidden by sin, by sin with its cloud of night.
Now Thou art hidden, but then, as over the height,
Then shall Thy glory break through the clouds that obscure,
And be seen in the mount of the Lord.
It is not pessimism but hope that speaks of the clearer vision to be
won hereafter. One need not love this world less because one loves the
future world more; belief in continuous growth of the soul is the most
optimistic of thoughts. Critics who term Ibn Gebirol a pessimist make
the common mistake of confounding despair with earnestness. Your truest
optimist may be the most serious of men, just as sorrow may be at its
purest, its strongest, in association with hope.
BAR HISDAI’S “PRINCE AND DERVISH”
The “moral” is a tiresome feature about certain types of allegory;
we prefer that a story should tell us its own tale. Why end off with
a “moral”? As Dr. Joseph Jacobs wrote in his edition of Caxton’s
Aesop (p. 148): “It seems absurd to give your allegory, and then, in
addition, the truth which you wish to convey. Either your fable makes
its point or it does not. If it does, you need not repeat your point;
if it does not, you need not give your fable. To add your point is
practically to confess the fear that your fable has not put it with
sufficient force.”
And yet it seems probable that some of the world’s stories would never
have been circulated so widely but for their morals. When, in the
thirteenth century, Abraham Bar Hisdai, of Barcelona, produced his
_Prince and Dervish_, his motive was not to tell a tale but to point
a moral. He had a poor opinion of his age. Little wonder! Among the
delectable episodes which he witnessed was the burning of some of the
works of Maimonides by monks, instigated thereto by anti-Maimonist
Jews. He made his protest. But it was not this experience that
predisposed him to castigate his contemporaries. His language, in
the preface to his _Prince and Dervish_, is vague. The most definite
thing is its grim earnestness. His chance had come. An Arabic book had
happened to fall under his notice, and it seemed to him the very thing!
So he translated it into Hebrew. And beautiful Hebrew it is. Bar Hisdai
was a master of the style known as rhymed prose. With him, however,
it is hardly prose; it is poetry. It is not nearly so unmetrical in
form as is usual in this genre. There is a lilt about his unrhythms, a
regularity not so much of syllables as of stressed phrases; and these
are marks of verse. Still it is prose, as one clearly perceives when
Bar Hisdai, following the rules of the game, introduces snatches which
are professedly poetical. Bar Hisdai, perhaps unfortunately, did more
than translate. He considered his original badly arranged, he says; so
he re-arranged the material. Possibly, then, he added to it stories
taken from other sources. A rather piquant problem, for instance, is
presented by the inclusion of a version of the parable of the sower,
which in Bar Hisdai’s original must have been drawn from the New
Testament. Assuredly Bar Hisdai did not derive it from the latter
source directly; we are quite uncertain, however, as to the indirect
route by which it reached him. This is, I repeat, a little unfortunate,
because it complicates the problem as to the nature of the Arabic on
which he drew. The gain of the book as a collection of tales carries
with it loss from the point of view of literary history.
Now what was the book which he called by the title usually rendered
_Prince and Dervish_? Bar Hisdai names it “King’s Son and Nazirite”
(_Ben ha-Melek we-ha-Nazir_). By Nazirite he means ascetic, and Dervish
is a fair reproduction which we owe to W. A. Meisel (1847). A Dervish
is not the same as the biblical Nazirite, inasmuch as the former
devoted himself to a much wider range of austerities than the latter.
But Bar Hisdai undoubtedly intends his Nazirite to be identical with
the Dervish type. How comes he to use the word in this extended sense?
The answer is easily found. Bar Hisdai was a hero-worshipper, and the
object of his cult was David Kimhi, the famous grammarian of Provence.
Almost pathetic is Bar Hisdai’s admiration for Kimhi. Now the latter,
in his Hebrew dictionary (included in the _Miklol_) defines the verb
_nazar_ as meaning “to abstain from eating and drinking and pleasures”
(compare Zechariah 7. 3). This was not a new idea, for the same
interpretation is given by Rashi (_loc. cit._), and is adumbrated in
the talmudic use of the verb. But I doubt whether Bar Hisdai would have
employed the _noun_ but for Kimhi’s emphatic definition.
The Hebrew title, which is Bar Hisdai’s own invention, well fits the
contents. Briefly, these consist of a framework into which are built a
number of fables. An Indian king, fearing that his son will become a
devotee of the ascetic life, places him (like Johnson’s Rasselas) in
a beautiful palace, where he is kept ignorant of human miseries. But
he comes under the influence of a hermit (the Nazirite), who impresses
on the prince the vanity of life, and converts him (despite the king’s
active hostility) to the new way of thinking. It is in the course of
this narrative that the fables and parables are introduced. Obviously,
however, Ibn Hisdai was much impressed by the narrative as such. “No
king nor king’s son, but a slave of slaves was I until thou didst set
me free to understand and obey God’s Law”--thus does Ibn Hisdai’s
romance sum up the moral at its close, the speaker being the prince,
and the one addressed the Nazirite.
A most significant point to be noted is that India is the scene of the
story. In 1850 Steinschneider discovered the truth. And a surprising
truth it is. The same story was known to medieval Christians as the
_Romance of Barlaam and Josaphat_. But the whole is nothing more or
less than an account of the life of Buddha, the great Indian saint,
the founder of a religion. Jews, Mohammedans, and Christians revelled
in the story without having a notion as to its original significance.
Nothing so brings races and creeds together as a good tale. The folk
are united by their common interest in the same lore. Mr. Zangwill,
in his beautiful poem prefixed to Dr. Jacobs’ edition of _Barlaam and
Josaphat_, looks deeper, and finds in the general admiration for this
legend a symbol of the universal identity of men’s aspirations for the
ideal.
Was Barlaam truly Josaphat,
And Buddha truly each?
What better parable than that
The unity to preach--
The simple brotherhood of souls
That seek the highest good;
He who in kingly chariot rolls,
Or wears the hermit’s hood!
Bar Hisdai felt nothing of this religious cosmopolitanism. But he
realized that devotion to a spiritual ideal was a lesson he might
profitably present to his age in the guise of allegory.
If, however, Bar Hisdai chose the story for its moral, his readers
we may be certain swallowed the moral because of the story--rather,
one should say, the stories. It is remarkable that the Hebrew version
is much fuller in its parables, containing, as Dr. Jacobs estimates,
no less than ten not found in the other versions. Even Bar Hisdai
must, after all, have been drawn to the parables as such, else why
add to their number? At all events, so far as his readers went, the
_Prince and Dervish_ made its appeal by its stories rather than by its
doctrines. And what stories they are! Several of the world’s classics
are in _Barlaam_, the sources of more than one of the best known dramas
of later ages, some of the favorite parables of the world, immortal
as human life itself. Bar Hisdai omits the caskets, which Shakespeare
used in the _Merchant of Venice_, and the “Three Friends” (wealth,
family, good deeds), the last of which alone accompanies a man to the
grave, the plot of that famous morality play, _Everyman_. The omission
is curious, for both of these tales are found in the Midrash. But Bar
Hisdai gives us the original of King Cophetua--the beggar-maid who
weds the king. Bar Hisdai alone gives us the story of “The Robbers’
Nemesis”--the two who plot to rob the traveller, but, envying each the
other his share in the spoil, each poisons the other rascal’s food,
and the traveller escapes. He also alone tells of the “Greedy Dog,”
who, in his anxiety to attend two wedding breakfasts on the same day,
misses both. But we cannot go through all. One other, found only in Bar
Hisdai, is thus summarized by Dr. Jacobs:
A king, hunting, invites a shepherd to eat with him in the heat of the
day:
_Shepherd_: I cannot eat with thee, for I have already promised
another greater than thee.
_King_: Who is that?
_Shepherd_: God, who has invited me to fast.
_King_: But why fast on such a hot day?
_Shepherd_: I fast for a day still hotter than this.
_King_: Eat to-day, fast to-morrow.
_Shepherd_: Yes, if you will guarantee that I shall see to-morrow.
Such stories are sure to see many a to-morrow. And among the best
records of them, among the most notable repertoires of the world’s wit
and wisdom, Bar Hisdai’s _Prince and Dervish_ has a sure place.
THE SARAJEVO HAGGADAH
Sarajevo, scene of the crime which led to the outbreak of the European
War, has its more pleasant associations. The place is forever connected
with the history of Jewish art, and in particular with the illumination
of the Passover Home-Service or Haggadah.
Wonderful in the old sense of the word--that is to say, astonishing--is
the fact that, though the Sarajevo Haggadah was printed a good many
years ago (in 1898), there have been no imitations. The splendid
Russian publication of Stassof and Günzburg certainly came more
recently (1905), but it cannot be compared with the Hungarian work
of Müller and Von Schlossar. “L’Ornement Hebreu” is scrappy; the
“Haggada von Sarajevo,” though it includes many selections from
other manuscripts, is a unity. In one point, however, the Russians
were right. For a Jewish illuminative art we must look rather to
masoretic margins than to full-page pictures. The former must be
characteristically Jewish, the latter, though found in Hebrew liturgies
and scrolls, are often non-Jewish types. This is clearly shown by the
famous picture in the Sarajevo Haggadah wherein is probably depicted
the Deity resting after the work of creation. But for all that, the
Sarajevo book must remain supreme as an introduction to Jewish art,
so long as it continues to be the only completely reproduced Hebrew
illuminated manuscript of the Middle Ages.
One would like to hope that it will not always retain this unique
position. The Crawford Haggadah (now in the Rylands Library,
Manchester) is certainly older, and, in my judgment, finer. It is true
that the editors of the Sarajevo manuscript claim that theirs is the
most ancient illuminated Haggadah extant. They admit that the _text_
of the Crawford Haggadah is older by at least half-a-century, but
assert that the full-page pictures belong to the fifteenth century,
thus falling two centuries after the text. I altogether contest this
statement. But even if it were conceded, nevertheless the beauty of
the Crawford Haggadah consists just in the text, in the beautiful
margins, full of spirited grotesques and arabesques, no doubt (like
the Sarajevo manuscript itself) produced in Spain under strong North
French influence. Mr. Frank Haes executed a complete photograph of
the Crawford manuscript, and it ought undoubtedly to be published.
As I write, I have before me two pages of Mr. Haes’ reproduction--the
_dayyenu_ passage; nothing in Jewish illuminated work can approach
this, unless it be the rather inferior, but very beautiful, British
Museum manuscript of the same type. The editors of the Sarajevo
Haggadah were ill-advised in omitting to reproduce the whole of the
text of their precious original. It is in the text that the genuine
excellence of the Jewish manuscripts is to be found.
But the Sarajevo Haggadah gives us too much that is delightful
for us to cavil over what it does not give. Here we have, in the
full-page drawings, depicted the history of Israel from the days of
the Creation, the patriarchal story, Joseph in Egypt, the coming of
Moses, the Egyptian plagues, the exodus, the revelation, the temple
that is yet to be. Very interesting is the picture of a synagogue. This
late thirteenth (or early fourteenth) century sketch evidently knows
nothing of the now most usual ornament of a synagogue--the tablets of
the decalogue over the ark. On this subject, however, I have written
elsewhere, and as my remarks have been published, I can pass over this
point on the present occasion. I have mentioned above the striking
attempt to depict the Deity, but it is equally noteworthy that in the
revelation picture no such attempt is made. Into Moses’ ear a horn
conveys the inspired message; but the artist does not introduce God.
At least, one hopes not. We prefer to regard the figure at the top
of the mountain as Moses, and it is not difficult to account in that
case for the figure standing rather lower up the hill, also holding
the tablets. We must assume that this under figure is Aaron, though
it is not recorded that he received the tablets from his brother.
There is another possibility. In the medieval illuminations it was a
frequent device to express various parts of a continuous scene in the
same drawing. Thus the Sarajevo artist may have intended to show us
Moses in two positions, and though the method lacks perspective, the
effect is not devoid of realistic power. That this is probably the true
explanation of the Sinai scene is suggested by another--Jacob’s dream.
Here we see Jacob asleep (with one angel descending, another higher
up ascending the ladder--the artist has not troubled himself with the
problem as to how the angels contrived to cross one another). But we
also see Jacob awake, _on the same picture_, for he is anointing the
Beth-el stone and converting it into an altar.
Certainly the drawings, sadly though they lack proportion, are
realistic. Especially is this true of the portrayal of Lot’s wife
transformed into a pillar of salt. Disproportionate in size, for she is
taller than Sodom’s loftiest pinnacles, yet the artist has succeeded in
suggesting the gradual stiffening of her figure: we _see_ her becoming
rigid before our eyes. There is clearly much that modern artists might
learn from these medieval gropings towards realism. Some artists
have already learned much. It is quite obvious, for instance, that
Burne-Jones must have steeped himself in the suggestive mysticism of
the Middle Ages before he painted his marvellous Creation series. The
parallel between his series and the series in the Sarajevo Haggadah is
undeniable. Though he never saw this Haggadah, he was well acquainted
with similar work in the Missals. Just as Keats evolved his theory
as to the identity of truth and beauty from a Greek vase, so the
pre-Raphaelites retold on vases what they read in their moments of
communion with the medieval spirit.
And this leads to what must be my last word now on this Hebrew
masterpiece. If a Burne-Jones can thus imitate, why not a Solomon
or a Lilien? The latter has now produced a series of illustrations
to the Bible, but we want something less coldly classic, something
more warmly symbolic. It was indicated above, with regret, that Mr.
Haes’ photographs of the Crawford Haggadah are still unpublished. But
over and above reproductions of extant works, we need new works. Now
the Jewish artist who illustrates a Bible ought not to be content to
illustrate anything but a Hebrew text. And if a Bible be for several
reasons out of the question, why should we not have a new Haggadah,
written by a living Jewish artist, who shall, from a close study
of olden models, do for us what Burne-Jones did?--that is, extract
from the mysticism of a by-gone age those abiding truths which our
contemporary age demands of its art.
A PIYYUT BY BAR ABUN
Not every one named Solomon was Ibn Gebirol. The medieval poets often
signed their verses by an acrostic. Now, when a poem has the signature
of a particular name, the natural tendency has been to ascribe it to
the most famous bearer of the name. Of all the poetical Solomons, Ibn
Gebirol was, beyond question, the greatest. Zunz was the first who
clearly discriminated between the various authors called by the same
personal name. The hymn “Judge of all the Earth” (_Shofet Kol ha-Arez_)
was certainly by a Solomon; Zunz identifies him with the Frenchman
Solomon, son of Abun. This Solomon is described as “the youth”
(_ha-Na’ar_), perhaps in the sense that there was a “senior” poet of
the same name. According to Zunz, again, Solomon bar Abun’s period
of active authorship lay presumably between the years 1170 and 1190.
(_Literaturgeschichte der synagogalen Poesie_, p. 311.)
Of all his works the piyyut we are considering is by far the most
popular. A spirited rendering of the poem, by Mrs. R. N. Salaman,
may be found in the Routledge Mahzor so ably edited in part by her
father. (See the _Day of Atonement_, morning service, page 86.) Three
stanzas had, however, long before been published by Mrs. Henry Lucas in
her _Jewish Year_ (p. 44). Some years ago the same gifted translator
completed the whole of the hymn, and her version is now printed here
in full. I say “in full,” though there is a longer form of the poem
containing _six_ verses. Zunz, however, only assigns _five_ verses to
the original, and the sixth verse is probably an unauthorized addition.
It repeats the idea of the second verse, and also disturbs the acrostic
signature. This piyyut or hymn must have been designed for the New
Year. True, in the only “German” Mahzor known to many, the poem is
included among the Selihot for the Day of Atonement. Though, however,
Solomon bar Abun’s masterpiece is fairly suitable for the Fast, it
is not altogether appropriate for that occasion. The “German” rite,
accordingly, is well advised when it also employs the piyyut for the
day before New Year. Even more to be commended are those liturgies--the
Yemenite and some of the “Spanish”--which appoint the poem for the
New Year itself. That is obviously its true place. With its opening
phrase, “Judge of all the earth,” the hymn declares its character. It
was written for the Day of Judgment--that is, for the New Year’s Day.
Moreover, these initial words are taken from Abraham’s intercession
for the sinners of Sodom (Genesis 18. 25), and this is preceded by
the announcement of Isaac’s birth, an incident which one form of the
Jewish tradition connects with the New Year. It must be remembered in
general that prayers intended originally for one occasion were often
transferred to others. Thus the _‘Alenu_ prayer, now used every day,
was at first composed for the New Year _Musaf_.
Let us now turn to the poem itself, which, as already stated, is
reproduced in the version from the hand of Mrs. Lucas.
Judge of the earth, who wilt arraign
The nations at thy judgment seat,
With life and favor bless again
Thy people prostrate at thy feet.
And mayest Thou our morning prayer
Receive, O Lord, as though it were
The offering that was wont to be
Brought day by day continually.
Thou who art clothed with righteousness,
Supreme, exalted over all--
How oft soever we transgress,
Do Thou with pardoning love recall
Those who in Hebron sleep: and let
Their memory live before Thee yet,
Even as the offering unto Thee
Offered of old continually.
O Thou, whose mercy faileth not,
To us Thy heavenly grace accord;
Deal kindly with Thy people’s lot,
And grant them life, our King and Lord.
Let Thou the mark of life appear
Upon their brow from year to year,
As when were daily wont to be
The offerings brought continually.
Restore to Zion once again
Thy favor and the ancient might
And glory of her sacred fane,
And let the son of Jesse’s light
Be set on high, to shine always,
Far shedding its perpetual rays,
Even as of old were wont to be
The offerings brought continually.
Trust in God’s strength, and be ye strong,
My people, and His law obey,
Then will He pardon sin and wrong,
Then mercy will his wrath outweigh;
Seek ye His presence, and implore
His countenance for evermore.
Then shall your prayers accepted be
As offerings brought continually.
When this is sung or declaimed to the appropriate melody (on which
the Rev. F. L. Cohen has much of interest to say in the _Jewish
Encyclopedia_, xi, 306), the solemn effect of words and music is
profound. The refrain (from Numbers 28. 23), recalls the close
association which, even while the sanctuary stood, subsisted between
temple sacrifices and synagogue prayers. Since the loss of the shrine,
prayer has fulfilled the double function. There are only one or two
phrases that need elucidation. In the second stanza the words “Those
who in Hebron sleep” refer to those of the patriarchs who were buried
in Hebron, in the cave of Machpelah. The appeal is made to the merits
of the fathers, a subject on which the reader will do well to consult
the Rev. S. Levy’s essay in his volume entitled “Original Virtue.” In
the third stanza occurs the phrase “mark of life.” This is derived
from the ninth chapter of Ezekiel--those bearing the “mark” are, in
the prophet’s vision, to live amid the general destruction. Life--the
merciful verdict of the Judge, quite as much as the judgment itself--is
the note of the New Year liturgy. This poem strikes both notes with
undeniable power.
ISAAC’S LAMP AND JACOB’S WELL
To have one’s Hebrew book turned into the current speech, to have it
read part by part in the synagogue by one’s fellows as a substitute for
sermons, is not a common experience. Isaac Aboab enjoyed this honor.
His _Menorat ha-Maor_, or _Candelabrum of the Light_, written in Spain
somewhere about the year 1300, according to Zunz, or in France a little
before 1400, according to Dr. Efros, became one of the most popular
books of the late Middle Ages.
Well it deserved the favor which it won. The Talmud, said Aboab, may
be used by the learned in their investigations of law. But for the
masses, he felt, it has also a message. Aboab was the first (unless Dr.
Efros be right in claiming this honor for Israel Alnaqua) to pick out
from the Talmud and Midrash, from the gaonic and even later rabbinic
writings, passages of every-day morals, ethical principles, secular
and religious wisdom. Aboab’s work was not, however, a mere hap-hazard
collection of detached sentences and maxims. Zedner (_Catalogue_, p.
381), does not hesitate to term it a “System of Moral Laws as explained
in the Talmud.” Indeed, the book is surprisingly systematic. The first,
or among the first, of its kind, it is also a most conspicuous example
of the due ordering of materials.
The very title, also used by Alnaqua, and derived from Numbers 4. 9,
was an inspiration. It conveys the idea of “illumination,” than which
no idea penetrates deeper into the spiritual life. Fancifully enough,
Aboab continues the metaphor into the main divisions of his book. The
_Menorah_ (Candelabrum) of the Pentateuch branched out into seven
lamps, and so Aboab’s book is divided also into “Seven Lamps.” It is
strange that he did not carry the metaphor further. He divides each of
his “Lamps” into Parts and Chapters, with a Prologue and an Epilogue
to each Lamp. The fourth chapter of Zechariah might have given him
“olive-trees” for his Prologues, “bowls” for his Epilogues, and “pipes”
for his Parts, while “wicks” might have served instead of Chapters.
In point of fact, the “Seven Wicks” was the title chosen by Aboab’s
epitomator, Moses Frankfurt, when he constructed a reduced copy of
Aboab’s _Candelabrum_ (Amsterdam, 1721).
To return to Aboab’s original work, Lamp I deals with Retribution,
Desire, and Passion, Honor, and High-place--the motives and ends
of moral conduct. In Lamp II is unfolded the rabbinic teaching on
Irreverence, Hypocrisy, Profanation of the Name, Frivolity as distinct
from Joy--the causes which impede morality. Then, in Lamp III--the
largest Lamp of all the seven--we have morality at work practically,
and are instructed as to the worth of religious exercises, charitable
life, social and domestic virtue, justice in man’s dealings with his
fellows. Next, in Lamp IV, is unfolded the duty and the great reward
of studying the Law, as a beautiful corollary to the love and fear
of God. Far-reaching in its analysis of the human soul is Lamp V, on
Repentance. Lamp VI may be described as presenting the good Rule for
body and mind, the amenities of life as shown in character. Or perhaps
one might better put it that this section shows us how to be gentlemen,
clean, wholesome, considerate. Then Lamp VII completes the whole. It
sets out the ideals of Humility and Modesty, virtues which are the end,
nay, the beginning also, of the noblest human possibilities, for these
virtues are first in those wherein man may imitate God.
Appropriately, Aboab follows up his glorious eulogy of Humility
with a full confession of his own shortcomings. He knows that his
compilation is imperfect. “Some things I have omitted,” he explains,
“because I have never read them; others because I have forgotten
them.” “Some passages I left out,” he goes on, “as too abstruse for
general reading, others as alien to the purpose of my book, others
again because liable to misunderstanding, and liable to do more harm
than good.” Wise man! Unfortunately not every imitator of Aboab has
displayed the same excellent judgment. The olden Jewish literature is
so abundantly full of beauties that it is an ill-service to repeat the
few things of lesser value. Aboab’s _Candelabrum of the Light_ is in
this respect superior to its great rival, Ibn Habib’s _Well of Jacob_.
Up to half-a-century ago the two books must have run each other very
close as regards the number of editions; more recently Ibn Habib’s book
(the _‘En Ya’akob_) has probably surged ahead. Readers may be reminded
of the difference in method. Ibn Habib takes the talmudic tractates
one by one, and extracts from each its _haggadic_ elements. There is
no attempt at any other order than that of the Talmud. The _Well of
Jacob_, moreover, includes everything, the folk-lore as well as the
ethics. To the student, Ibn Habib’s service was greater than Aboab’s;
the relation is reversed from the point of view of the man or woman in
search of vital religion.
The _Well of Jacob_, it must be allowed, is in itself almost as good
a title as that which Aboab chose. Ibn Habib himself seems to have
used the Hebrew word _‘En_ rather in the sense of “Substance” or
“Essence”--his work reproduced the “Essence” of the talmudic Haggadah.
But _Jacob’s Well_, as the Midrash has it, was the source whence was
drawn the Holy Spirit. Despite my personal preference for Aboab’s
_Menorah_, it must be freely acknowledged that many generations have
quaffed from Ibn Habib’s reservoir fine spiritual draughts. And still
quaff. For just as Aboab’s _Lamp_ still shines, so Jacob’s _Well_ has
not yet run dry.
Over and above the similarity of contents, with all the dissimilarity
of method, there is another reason why one thinks of the works of
Aboab and Ibn Habib together. Though Aboab wrote considerably before
Ibn Habib, their books appeared for the first time in print almost
simultaneously. Ibn Habib’s book came out as the author compiled it; in
point of fact it was the son who completed the publication, because
Jacob Ibn Habib died while the earlier sections of his work were
passing through the press. If, as seems probable, the _Lamp_ was first
kindled in 1511, or 1514, and the _Well_ began to pour its fertilizing
streams in 1516, Aboab had the start; but these dates are uncertain.
All that we can state with confidence is that both books appeared in
print quite early in the sixteenth century, not later than 1516. The
earliest editions of both books are scarce, and from a simple cause.
Few copies have survived because the owners of the copies _wore them
out_. Read and re-read, thumbed by many hands, by “the Jewish woman,
the workman, the rank and file of Israel,” the copies were used up by
those who treated books as something to hold in the hand and not to
keep on a shelf out of reach. My own edition of the _Candelabrum_, that
of Amsterdam (1739), boasts justly of the excellent paper on which it
is printed. None the less does this copy, too, show signs of frequent
perusal. The best books were the worst preserved, because they were the
best treated. What better treatment of a book can there be than to read
it so often that its pages no longer hold together, its margins fray,
and its title-page suffers mutilation?
“LETTERS OF OBSCURE MEN”
Does ridicule kill? If it did, then, as fools are always with us,
folly would ever possess the flavor of novelty. And yet to-day’s fool
looks and does very much the same as yesterday’s, even though wise
men laughed their fill at the latter. Folly, one rather must admit,
is immortal. Wise men come and wise men go, but fools go on forever.
Wisdom can at most make the fool look foolish for a while.
At rare intervals, however, history offers an example of the slaying
power of satire. Idolatry was killed by ridicule. Some people--among
them Renan, who ought to have known better--deny to ancient Israel
a sense of humor. But who can doubt that the most effective of the
attacks on idolatry were Elijah’s sarcastic invective against the Baal
of the populace (I Kings 18. 27) and Isaiah’s grim yet droll picture
of the carpenter taking some timber and using part of it to bake his
bread and the rest to make his god (Isaiah 44. 15)? It is far from
our purpose to recite the success, in after ages, of less inspired
efforts by satirists. Satire has been termed the “chief refuge of the
weak”; it has certainly been a weapon by which one, standing alone,
has often equalized the odds against him. It would be delightful to
give illustrations of the methods by which the various warriors of the
pen have used their sword: to contrast a pagan Juvenal and a Hebrew
Kalonymos--both writing in Rome, but with more than a millennium
between them--or to revel in the feats of Rabelais’ _Gargantua_ (1534),
Cervantes’ _Don Quixote_ (1605), Pascal’s _Provincial Letters_ (1656),
and Voltaire’s eighteenth century _Candide_. We are now concerned with
a work and a group of authors who first made Europe laugh in 1515.
Ulrich von Hutten and his associates, in their “Letters of Obscure Men”
(_Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum_), did just the right thing at the right
moment. What they attempted, what they accomplished, will now be told.
Cervantes, tilting against the wearisome nonsense of the later romances
of chivalry, Pascal exposing--even though he did it unfairly--the
dangers of casuistry, Voltaire plumbing the shallow optimism of
Leibnitz, served good ends. But far higher than these was the cause
triumphantly upheld by the _Letters of Obscure Men_. The cause was
humanism, another name for intellectual freedom and width of view.
Briefly put, at the crisis in the fortune of the new learning in
Europe, when the struggle was at its sharpest between ignorance and
enlightenment, the vindication of the Talmud became identified with
the overthrow of intellectual bigotry. Pfefferkorn wished to burn the
Talmud. He was a shady character, and from his first condition as a
bad Jew became, in Erasmus’ phrase, a worse Christian (“ex scelerato
Judaeo sceleratissimus Christianus”). Pfefferkorn hurled against his
former coreligionists the usual missiles of abuse. Why is it that the
converted Jew is so often a bitter assailant of Judaism? Some answer
that it is because the renegade must prove that he forsook something
execrable. Others would have it that intrinsic vileness of character is
responsible. But is it not more probable that apostate virulence is due
simply to ignorance? And this is the more obnoxious when the animosity
takes the form of an attack on literature. “Ignorance, which in matters
of morals extenuates the crime, is itself, in matters of literature,
a crime of the first order.” So said Joubert, and the remark can be
freely illustrated from the Pfefferkorns. When a real scholar leaves
the synagogue, he is rarely among the anti-Semites. Daniel Chwolson and
Paul Cassel in their career as Judæo-Christians were champions of the
Jewish cause against such very libels as a Pfefferkorn would circulate.
At the beginning of the sixteenth century the defence of Judaism was in
equally scholarly hands.
But it was not on Jews, whether by race or religion, that reliance
was then placed. Reuchlin--as all the world knows--saw no reason why
the Talmud should be condemned, and he expressed his opinion in clear
terms. Reuchlin, be it remembered, was the most learned German of his
age. “By a singular combination of taste and talents this remarkable
man excelled at once as a humanist and a man of affairs, as a jurist
and a mystic, and, above all, as a pioneer among Orientalists, so that
it has been said of him, enthusiastically but not unjustly, that he was
the ‘first who opened the gates of the East, unsealed the Word of God,
and unveiled the sanctuary of Hebrew wisdom.’” (This sentence is quoted
from the Introduction to Mr. Francis Griffin Stokes’ admirable Latin
and English edition of the _Letters_, to which I cordially commend
my readers.) Pfefferkorn rallied to his side the whole force of the
Dominican organization. The issue was long uncertain.
Truth is usually unable to meet falsehood on equal terms; the genuine,
for the most part, cannot soil its hands with the foul ammunition
of imposture. Sometimes, however, truth is less squeamish. And so,
when Pfefferkorn was engaged in slinging slime at Reuchlin, there was
suddenly hurled at his own person an avalanche of mud, under which
he and his party sank buried from heel to head. The _Letters_ are
remorseless in their personalities. But if it be impossible to deny
their cruelty and even their occasional coarseness, yet their fame
depends less on these scurrilous incidentals than on the essential
truth on which they are based.
It is the highest merit of satire that it shall not be too obvious.
Many who read _Gulliver’s Travels_ enjoy it as a tale, and may not
even realize that Swift was lampooning the society and institutions of
his day. So long as this element in satire is not too subtle, it adds
enormously to the merit of the performance. One recalls such stories
as the _Descent of Man_, by Edith Wharton. The hero of that tale is an
eminent zoologist, who is moved by the popularity of pseudo-scientific
defences of religion to publish an elaborate skit. But he is so
successful in concealing his object, that his “Vital Thing” is mistaken
for a supreme example of the very type of work he is lashing. The
_Letters of Obscure Men_ avoided this danger. They hit the happy mean.
They purported to be written by one obscurantist to another, and while
the educated at once saw through the dodge, the illiterate (including
Pfefferkorn himself) took them seriously. Within a few months of the
appearance of the first series of the _Letters_, Sir Thomas More (in
1616) wrote to Erasmus: “It does one’s heart good to see how delighted
everybody is with the ‘Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum’; the learned are
tickled by their humor, while the unlearned deem their teachings of
serious worth.” The foes of humanism--the new learning--are left to
expose themselves, in the confidential correspondence which members
of the gang are made to carry on in the most excruciatingly funny
dog-Latin. As Bishop Creighton put it, they are made to “tell their
own story, to wander round the narrow circle of antiquated prejudices
which they mistook for ideas, display their grossness, their vulgarity,
their absence of aim, their laborious indolence, their lives unrelieved
by any touch of nobility.” No wonder Europe laughed, as it did in the
following century at the self-revelation of obscuranists in Pascal’s
_Provincial Letters_, obviously inspired by the work before us.
(Compare Stokes, _Epistolae_, etc., pp. xlvi, xlix). It is not the
least amusing feature in the comedy that Richard Steele actually
regarded the _Letters of Obscure Men_ as the correspondence between
“some profound blockheads” who wrote “in honor of each other, and for
their mutual information in each other’s absurdities.” (Stokes, p.
viii).
This fate--of being taken seriously--befell, in a particularly amusing
way, what is perhaps the most amusing of all the _Letters_. I refer
to the second epistle in the first series. “Magister Johannes Pelzer”
sends his greeting to “Magister Ortwin Gratius,” and asks help on a
matter which gives him “great searchings of heart.” He tells Ortwin
how, being lately at a Frankfort fair, he took off his cap and saluted
two men, who seemed reputable and looked like Doctors of Divinity.
But his companion then nudged him and cried: “God-a-mercy, what doest
thou? Those fellows are Jews.” Magister Pelzer goes on to argue with
delicious seriousness as to the nature of his sin, and begs his
correspondent’s help to decide whether it was “mortal or venial,
episcopal or papal.” Now when Schudt came to compile his farrago of
attacks on the Jews, he actually included this Frankfort incident as
an authentic example of “Jewish insolence.” It was indeed painful for
such as Schudt to be unable to discern any difference between a Jew and
a gentleman.
How the authors of the _Letters_ would have chuckled over Steele and
Schudt! Reuchlin had struck a decisive blow in behalf of the Jewish
contribution to European culture. The _Letters_ drove the blow home.
But, after all, the fools were not permanently suppressed. No, ridicule
rarely slays folly outright. It scotches the snake, and then in a
favorable environment the reptile revives. Just as folly is perennial,
so should the lash be kept in constant repair. Anti-Semitism ought
not to be allowed to go on its way in our age unscathed by ridicule.
We badly need a new Ulrich von Hutten to give us a modern series of
Letters of Obscure Men.
DE ROSSI’S “LIGHT OF THE EYES”
Towards dusk, on a mid-November Friday in the year 1570, Azariah
de Rossi descended from his own apartments to those of his married
daughter. It was in Ferrara, and for some hours past earth-tremblings
had made people anxious. Within an hour of his lucky visit to his child
De Rossi’s abode was wrecked.
To this earthquake, as Zunz suggested in 1841 (_Kerem Hemed_, vol. v,
p. 135), we owe the first attempt by a Jew to investigate critically,
and with the aid of secular research, the history of Jewish literature.
De Rossi had a fine command of Latin, and though he was less at
home with Greek, he had a good working knowledge of it. After the
earthquake, he left his home, and took refuge in a village south of
the Po. A Christian scholar, a neighbor in the new settlement, was
diverting his mind from the recent disturbing calamities, by perusing
the Letter of Aristeas. There is a rare charm in the scene that
followed. Finding some difficulties in the Letter, the Christian turned
to the Jew, suggesting that they should consult the Hebrew text. But
De Rossi was, to his chagrin, compelled to admit that there _was_ no
Hebrew text! Such a lamentable deficiency need not, however, continue.
In less than three weeks De Rossi had translated the Letter into
Hebrew, and with that act the modern study of Jewish records by Jews
opens.
Chroniclers were once upon a time fond of contrasting the physique and
the intellect of the worthies of former ages. Those were the days, one
might almost say, of “kakogenics,” if our own is the era of eugenics.
So we read of De Rossi that though “well-born” by ancestry, he was
“ill-born” in person. Graetz somewhat overcolors the record when he
writes of De Rossi thus: “Feeble, yellow, withered, and afflicted with
fever, he crept about like a dying man.” At all events, he was thin
and short, and neglectful of his bodily health. Yet he was not quite
the weakling Graetz presents, for he lived to the age of sixty-four
(1514-1578). Moreover, he assures us, giving full details of the
diet and treatment, that he was thoroughly cured of the malaria, of
the ravages of which Italian Jews so frequently complain. As to his
“family,” that was old enough. The legend ran that four of the families
settled by Titus in Rome survived into the Middle Ages; the stock
of the De Rossis (_min ha-adummim_) belonged to one of the famous
quartette. The other three were the Mansi, de Pomis, and Adolescentoli
groups.
This was the man who created modern Jewish “science”--to use the term
so beloved of our Continental brethren. De Rossi’s great work appeared
as a quarto in November, 1573 (some date it 1574). It was well printed
in the pretty square Hebrew type for which Mantua is famous. The author
called it _Meor ‘Enayim_, that is, “Light of the Eyes.” It was, indeed,
an illuminant. Graetz summarily asserts that “the actual results of
this historical investigation, for the most part, have proved unsound.”
Assuredly many of De Rossi’s statements are no longer accepted. He
was the father of criticism, yet he was often himself uncritical. In
his chapter on the antiquity of the Hebrew language, for instance, he
remarks: “I have seen among many ancient coins, belonging to David
Finzi of Mantua, a silver coin on which, on the obverse, is a man’s
head round which is inscribed ‘King Solomon’ in Hebrew square letters,
while the reverse bears a figure of the temple with the Hebrew legend
‘Temple of Solomon.’” As Zunz observes, this coin must have been a
modern fabrication. In many other points De Rossi erred. But some of
the “mistakes” for which he is blamed are not his but his critics’.
Zunz, like Graetz, had little patience with the Zohar. The literature
of the Kabbalah was to both these great scholars “false and corrupt.”
At this date we are much more inclined to treat the Kabbalah with
respect. De Rossi has been justified by later research. Then, again,
Zunz categorically includes among De Rossi’s blunders his acceptance of
the Letter of Aristeas as genuine. But in the year 1904 Mr. H. St. J.
Thackeray, in the preface to his new English translation of the Letter,
asserts “recent criticism has set in the direction of rehabilitating
the story, or at any rate part of it.” Here, one can have no hesitation
in claiming, De Rossi was right, and his critics wrong.
It is pleasing to be able to make this last assertion. The Letter of
Aristeas purports to tell the story how the Greek translation of the
Pentateuch was made in Alexandria. We are not now concerned with the
story itself. But, as we have already seen, it was this Letter which
induced De Rossi to write his book. The book, after a short section
on the Ferrara earthquake, in which the author collects much Jewish
and non-Jewish seismological lore, goes straight to Aristeas. Now, it
would be a somewhat unfortunate fact if Jewish criticism began with
the acceptance of a forgery, if the father of all our modern scholars
(including Zunz himself) had started off with a bad critical mistake.
We are spared this anomaly, for though Aristeas may not be as old as
it claims (the third century B. C. E.), it is demonstrably older than
its assailants made it out to be. De Rossi is far nearer the truth than
Graetz. Of course, we do not now turn to De Rossi for our critical
nourishment. Though editions of the _Meor ‘Enayim_ continued to appear
as late as 1866 (in fact one of the author’s books appeared for the
first time in London in 1854), his works are substantially obsolete.
For this reason I am not attempting any close account of their contents.
But while it is antiquated in this sense, it is a book of the class
that can never become unimportant. For let us realize what De Rossi
accomplished. In the first place he directed Jewish attention to the
Jewish literature preserved or written in Greek. He re-introduced
Philo to Jewish notice; not very accurately, it is true, yet he _did_
re-introduce him. Secondly, he showed how much was to be derived from
a study of non-Jewish sources. No one, after De Rossi, has for a
moment thought it possible to deal with Jewish history entirely from
Jewish records. Every available material must be drawn on if we are to
construct a sound edifice. It is a just verdict of Graetz’s that De
Rossi’s “power of reconstruction was small.” But he showed subsequent
generations how to build. De Rossi, finally, was not one who regarded
Jewish literature merely as the subject matter for research. He was
intensely interested in it for its own sake. He was a poet as well as
a historian. And this he shows both by his whole style and outlook as
well as by the Hebrew and Italian verses that he wrote. He was, indeed,
known both as Azariah and as Bonajuto, the latter being the Italian
equivalent. Let us end with this fact: the same man, who inaugurated
modern Jewish criticism, added some notable hymns to the synagogue
prayer-book.
GUARINI AND LUZZATTO
An aristocrat all his life, Guarini was out of place in the court life
of Ferrara. He spent his vigor in a vain attempt to accommodate himself
to the sixteenth century Italian conditions. Then, broken in strength
and fortune, he retired to produce his dramatic masterpiece. Not that
the _Pastor Fido_ can be truly termed dramatic. It is much more of a
lyric. But just as Banquo, himself no king, was the father of kings, so
Guarini, of little consequence as a dramatist, begot famous dramas. For
the _Faithful Shepherd_ deeply influenced European drama throughout the
two centuries which followed its publication in 1590.
The Hebraic muse owed much to Guarini. Moses Hayyim Luzzatto
(1707-1747) has been the only writer of Hebrew plays whose work counts
in the literary sense. Luzzatto derived his whole dramatic inspiration
from Guarini. Let no one question this assertion without first
comparing _La-Yesharim Tehillah_ and _Migdal ‘Oz_ with the _Pastor
Fido_. The characters and scenes, and even more, the style, are closely
alike. Nor is this latter fact wonderful. John Addington Symonds
describes Guarini’s work as “a masterpiece of diction, glittering and
faultless, like a bas-relief of hard Corinthian bronze.” Luzzatto
produces the same effect in his Hebrew imitation, using a similar
metre as well as similar dramatic conventions. In imitating, however,
he re-interprets. Guarini’s play is sometimes gross, it is never
truly rustic. But a Hebrew poet, moved by such models as the Song of
Songs, better knew how to be sensuous with purity; grossness must be
antipathetic to him. On the other hand, Hebrew poetry is genuinely
rustic. The biblical shepherd, whether in scriptural history or
romance, is the most beloved of heroes. Some of the great characters of
the Bible are shepherds: Abraham, Moses, David, Amos, Shulammith--but
why pile up instances? It is obvious that a Hebrew poet, adopting
a rural background for a lyrical drama, must inevitably write with
sincerity. He could not, at the same time, fail to write with delicacy.
Luzzatto took much from Guarini, but he both refined and adorned what
he borrowed.
Yet, though it is because of Luzzatto that I am writing of Guarini,
nevertheless, Guarini, and not Luzzatto, is my present subject. So I
will re-tell for the reader the story of the _Pastor Fido_. Not that
it is an easy task. Guarini, who influenced the late Elizabethans,
shared, with the best of the latter, the inordinate fancy for
complicated plots. Plot is entangled within plot, until we lose
sight of the main theme. Luzzatto--I find it impossible to keep the
Hebrew out!--here simplifies. He hardly gives us a story at all; he
provides an allegory, eking out Guarini with Midrash. In the process
of disentangling Guarini’s intricacies, he somewhat sacrifices the
chief merit of his Italian model. Luzzatto’s _dramatis personae_ are
almost abstractions; they remind us of the figures in morality plays.
A Luzzatto drama more resembles _Everyman_ than it does _As You Like
it_. Of Guarini, on the other hand, it may be said, that though he
means his characters to represent types, he draws them as individuals.
Silvio, to adopt Mr. Symond’s summaries, is “cold and eager”; Mirtillo
“tender and romantic.” Corisca’s “meretricious arts” contrast with
and enhance Amarillis’s “pure affection”; Dorinda is “shameless.” The
dramatist, however, be he Luzzatto or Guarini, writes with a distinct
tendency. His aim is to set up the country life and the country girl
as essentially superior to the city varieties. This _motive_ is as old
as satire, and as young as the “verses of society.” Austin Dobson’s
Phyllida is all that is sweet and natural, she is a foil to the
artificiality of the “ladies of St. James’s.” Guarini enjoys the honor
not of creating the mood, but of bringing it into new vogue.
But I am still keeping from the story. The scene is Arcadia. Yearly the
inhabitants must sacrifice a young maiden to Diana. Diana had suffered
through the perfidy of Lucrina; but the Oracle declares:
Your Woes, Arcadians! never shall have End,
Till Love shall two conjoin of heavenly Race,
And till a faithful Shepherd shall amend,
By matchless Zeal, Lucrina’s old Disgrace.
Montano, the priest of Diana, seeks, therefore, to join in marriage his
only son, Silvio, to the noble nymph, Amarillis, descended from Pan.
But Silvio thought more of hunting than of love. The young shepherd,
Mirtillo, becomes enamored of Amarillis, and she of him. The artful
Corisca, desiring the shepherd for herself, charges Amarillis with
infidelity--she is betrothed, though not wedded, to Silvio. Amarillis
is sentenced to death. Mirtillo offers himself, and is accepted, as
her substitute. Led to the--fatal, not the bridal--altar, Mirtillo’s
identity is discovered. The shepherd is Montano’s son. Let us read
the rest in the terms of the “argument” (as given in the 1782 English
version): “On which Occasion, the true Father, bewailing that it
should fall to his lot to execute the law on his own blood--(for to
Montano, as priest, the office of carrying out the sacrificial rite
belonged)--is by Tirenio, a blind soothsayer, clearly satisfied by the
interpretation of the Oracle itself, that it was not only opposite
to the will of the gods that this victim should be sacrificed, but
moreover that the happy period (_i.e._, end) was now come to the woes
of Arcadia, which had been predicted by the sacred Voice, and from
which, as every circumstance now strongly corresponded, they concluded
that Amarillis could not be, nor ought to be, the spouse of any other
than Mirtillo. And as a little previous to this, Silvio, thinking to
wound a wild beast, had pierced Dorinda, who had been exceedingly
distressed by the slight he had shown to her violent passion for him,
but whose wonted savageness was changed by this accident and softened
into compassion--after her wound was healed, which at first was thought
mortal, and after Amarillis was become the spouse of Mirtillo, he too
became now enamoured of Dorinda, and married her; by means of these
events, so happy and so extraordinary, Corisca is at length convinced
of and confesses her guilt, and, having implored pardon and obtained it
from the loving couple, her perturbed spirit now pacified and satiated
with the Follies of the World, she determines to change her Course of
Life.” The play ends with the wedding chorus for the hero and heroine
(Luzzatto, too, wrote his plays for marriage celebrations). In words
very like those used by Luzzatto, Guarini’s shepherds sing to Mirtillo
and Amarillis:
O happy pair!
Who have in Sorrow sown, and reap’d in Joy,
How hath your bitter share of grief’s alloy
Now sweetened and confirmed your present bliss!
And may ye learn from this,
Blind, feeble mortals! to distinguish right
What are true ills, and what is pure delight--
Not all that pleases is substantial good;
Not all which grieves, true ill, well understood--
That, of all joys, must be pronounced the best,
Which virtue’s arduous triumphs yield the breast.
In this story may be perceived the germs both of Fletcher’s _Faithful
Shepherdess_ and of Luzzatto’s _Unto the Upright Praise_. But while the
former seized upon and elaborated the sensuous element in Guarini’s
plot, giving us a truly disgusting figure in Chloe, Luzzatto pounced
on the finer aspects, and his heroines outshine even Amarillis in
purity and beauty of mind, just as his heroes surpass Mirtillo in
fidelity to the standards of manhood. That one and the same model
should have produced two such varied copies says much for the genius
of the original author. To him, it is true, we owe the tragi-comedy of
intrigue. But to him also we are indebted for idylls, as full-blooded
as those of Theocritus, but far more spiritual.
HAHN’S NOTE BOOK
The Hahn family came to Frankfort-on-the-Main from Nordlingen
(Bavaria), whence the Jews were expelled in 1507. Between that date and
1860 Nordlingen could not boast of a synagogue; such Jews as visited
the place were admitted for a day at a time to the fairs, or were
allowed temporarily to reside in war times. In each case a poll-tax was
exacted (see _Jewish Encyclopedia_, vol. ix, p. 335). In Frankfort,
the family dwelt in a house bearing the sign of “The Red Cock” (_Zum
rothen Hahn_). Graetz fully describes the regulations which compelled
the Jews of Frankfort to fix shields with various devices and names
on their houses. He cites “the garlic,” “the ass,” “green shield,”
“red shield” (Rothschild), “dragon.” The Frankfort Jews were forced
to name themselves after these shields. Hence, in the Jewish sources,
the author with whom we are now concerned is sometimes called Joseph
Nordlinger, from his original home, and sometimes Joseph Hahn, from the
family house-sign in Frankfort.
He himself was not permitted to live peaceably in Frankfort. Born in
the second half of the sixteenth century, he not only had to endure the
pitiable restrictions to which the Jews were at normal times subjected,
but he suffered in 1614 under the Fettmilch riot, as the result of
which, after many of the whole Jewish community had been slain and more
injured, the survivors left the town. In March, 1616, the Jews--Joseph
Hahn among them--were welcomed back amid public demonstrations of
good-will, and the community instituted the Frankfort Purim on Adar 20,
the anniversary of the return. Though the trouble thus ended happily,
we can understand how insecure the life of the German Jews was at the
beginning of the seventeenth century. Hence we need not be surprised
to find in Hahn’s book _Yosif Omez_ (§ 483) a form of dying confession
drawn up in Frankfort to be recited by those undergoing martyrdom. It
is a moving composition, simple in its pathos, yet too poignant in its
note of sorrow to be cited here in full.
Let it not be thought, however, that the book is a doleful one. Joseph
Hahn’s is a warm-hearted Judaism, and there was room in it for a
manifold human interest. The work, in a sense, is learned, but it
is written so crisply and epigrammatically that its charm surpasses
and even disguises its technicalities. It was printed in 1723, but
was written a good deal earlier, as we know that the author died in
1637. I have alluded to the manifold interests which occupied Hahn’s
mind. Questions of Jewish law and fundamental problems of morality are
considered; but so are matters of costume and cookery. How to wear a
special dress for synagogue and how to keep a special overcoat for the
benediction of the moon, how to rub off ink-stains from the fingers
before meals, how “it is a truer penance to eat moderately at ordinary
meals than to endure an occasional fast,” how the children should be
encouraged to read good books at table, and how, when such a book is
finished, there should be a jolly _siyyum_--these and many another
interesting view crowd Joseph Hahn’s delightful pages. He enjoyed a
cheerful meal, but he proceeds to denounce in unmeasured terms those
who (“and there are many such in our times,” he adds) sing love-songs
or tell indecent stories over their wine. “Do not esteem lightly,” he
cautions his readers (§ 183), “the advice of our sages,” as to first
putting on the right shoe and first removing the left. Joseph Hahn,
in truth, is a remarkable mixture of the old and the new; he loves old
customs, yet constantly praises new ones, such as the introduction
of Psalms and of _Lekah Dodi_ into the Friday night service. We are
so familiar with the hymn “Come, O friend, to meet the bride,” that
it is startling to be reminded that it dates from the sixteenth
century. Joseph Hahn thoroughly entered into the spirit of such lively
processions from place to place as accompanied _Lekah Dodi_, though he
held them more suitable for Palestine than Germany. He detested low
songs, and objected to games of chance, but he was no kill-joy. Again
and again he refers to the synagogue tunes, and revels in _hazzanut_.
His was a thoroughly Jewish synthesis of austerity and joviality.
He has many remarks as to the proper treatment of servants. An employer
shall not retain wages in trust for the servant, even at the latter’s
desire. He must first pay the wages, and the servant may then ask the
employer to save it (§ 361). He had a very loving heart as well as a
just mind. Delightful is his custom of saying _Sheheheyanu_ on seeing
a friend or beloved relative after an interval of thirty days. On the
other hand, he, with equal gravity, tells us (§ 455) how his father,
when he left the city, took a little splinter of wood from the gate,
and fixed it in his hat-band, as a specific for his safety, or sure
return. This is a wide-spread custom. The whole book is a wonderful
union of sound sense and quaintness. The author, in the midst of deep
ritual problems and of careful philological discussions of liturgical
points, will turn aside to warn us against buying the Sabbath fish
on Thursday. Fish, he says, must be fresh. In the same breath he has
this fine remark: “What you eat profits the body; what you spare for
God (that is, give to the poor) profits the soul.” He protests (§
547) against permitting the poor to go round to beg from house to
house; officials must be appointed to carry relief to the needy in
their homes. But do not forget to taste your _shalet_ on Friday to
test whether it be properly cooked! One of the most characteristically
Jewish features of life under the traditional _régime_ was the _man’s_
participation in the kitchen preparations. But Joseph Hahn takes a high
view of the woman’s part in the moralization of the domestic life. Just
as the husband was not excluded from the kitchen, so the wife was not
limited to it. Yet Hahn would not allow women to sing the _Zemirot_ or
table hymns.
I have said that our author loves the old, yet has no objection to
the new. The latter feature is exemplified by a long song on the
Sabbath Light, composed by Joseph Hahn for Friday nights. Each verse
is printed in Hebrew (§ 601) with a Yiddish paraphrase. He disliked
setting the _Zemirot_ to non-Jewish tunes. There is no sense, he adds,
in the argument of those who urge that these non-Jewish tunes were
stolen from the temple melodies! The children, we learn, had a special
Sabbath cake. A Jewish child, he relates (§ 612), was carried off by
robbers, but cried so pitifully for his cake on Friday night, that he
was eventually discovered by Jews and ransomed. He protests against the
“modern innovation” of introducing a sermon in the morning service;
this compels the old and ailing to wait too long for breakfast. The
sermon must, as of old, be given after the meal (§ 625). Yet he did
not mind himself introducing an innovation, for he instituted a simple
haggadic discourse on the afternoons of festivals, so as to attract the
people and keep them from frivolous amusements (§ 821). The greater
_Spinholz_ on the Saturday before a wedding was still customary in
the author’s time. He complains of those people who drink better wine
on Sundays than on Saturdays (§ 693). He objects to the practice of
the rich to have their daughters taught instrumental music by male
instructors (§ 890). But here I must break off, though it is difficult
to tear oneself from the book, even the narrowness of which has a
historical interest, and the prejudices of which entertain. As a whole,
it represents a phase of Jewish life which belongs to the past, yet
there runs through it a vein of homely sentiment which is found also in
our present.
LEON MODENA’S “RITES”
Said to have been composed at the request of an English nobleman for
the delectation of James I, Leon Modena’s account of Jewish ceremonial
was certainly intended for Christian readers. Though written in
Italian, it first appeared in France (Paris, 1637), through the good
offices of the author’s pupil and friend, J. Gaffarel. It was the
source of a whole library of similar books. Not only was it translated
into several languages, but onwards from Modena’s time, writers, Jewish
and Christian, competent and incompetent, devoted themselves to the
task of presenting to the world in general the teachings and customs
of Judaism. The recent treatise of Oesterley and Box is a lineal
descendant of Modena’s _Rites_.
Of the author it may be said that he was the Admirable Crichton of his
age (1571-1648). His range of knowledge and power was extraordinary.
As Dr. Johnson said of Oliver Goldsmith, he touched nothing which
he did not adorn. Besides writing many books on many subjects, he
filled the office of Rabbi at Venice with distinction, his sermons in
Italian attracting large audiences. Some of his German critics call
him “characterless.” Why? Because he denounced gambling, and yet was
a life-long victim to the vice. In his boyhood he produced a pamphlet
against card-playing, and in 1631 successfully protested against the
excommunication of card-players. But is there lack of character here?
Of many another great man could it be said that he saw and approved the
better yet followed the worse. And there are things which one dislikes
without wishing to put the offenders under a ban. On another occasion,
Modena severely attacked Rabbinism, and then published a reply to his
own attack. He assuredly was not the only man impelled to refute his
own arguments.
Modena was, one might rather say, a man of moods, and therefore of
singular openness and width of mind. He suffered not from lack of
character, but from an excess of impressionability. A bee has not
less character than a caterpillar, because the former flies from
flower to flower, while the latter adheres to the same cabbage leaf.
Modena, to put the case in yet another way, lived at a transitional
period, when Jews were only beginning to acclimatize themselves to
modern conditions, and when settled views on many subjects were
not only difficult but undesirable. Despite his vagaries, one is
rather attracted to him. There must have been solidity as well as
versatility in his disposition, or he could not possibly have retained
the important rabbinic post he filled for more than half-a-century.
Probably the secret was that he not only possessed personal charm, but
the real man was best known to those who knew him best. They--or many
of them--assuredly admired and loved him.
We will now turn to another figure--the first English translator of
Modena’s _Riti Ebraici_. This was Edmund Chilmead, who was born in
1610 and died in 1654. He was a good scholar and an accomplished
musician. Up to 1648 he resided in Oxford, but as a result of the
troubles between Charles I and the Parliament, he was expelled from the
University because of his royalist opinions. Two things, however, speak
well for Cromwell’s toleration. Chilmead was not only allowed to live
unmolested in London to the day of his death, but had no hesitation, on
the title-page of his translation of Modena, to describe himself still
as “Chaplain of Christ Church, Oxon.” The date of the translation gives
the clue. “The History of the Rites, Customes, and Manner of Life of
the Present Jews throughout the World” was printed “for Jo. Martin and
Jo. Ridley, at the Castle in Fleet Street, by Ram Alley” in 1650. By
that time Cromwell was probably thinking of the Jewish question, and he
must have welcomed this first-hand statement on the Jewish religion.
Chilmead’s edition, one must confess, is badly printed, and is not very
creditable to the printing capacity of the “Castle in Fleet Street.”
One might pardon the many misprints in the Hebrew, but it is hard to
overlook the numerous faults in the English. It is not wonderful that,
in the following century, Ockley thought it necessary to issue a new
version.
Modena’s own original was not, as the title suggests, a history. It
does not so much give sources as facts. But this circumstance, that
it is mainly _descriptive_, confers on it a permanent value. For it
thus becomes a document. It helps us to realize several aspects of the
Jewish position at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The author
uses the term _history_ in the sense of narrative; as he states in his
Prefatory Epistle, he is concerned with the _what_ and not with the
_why_ (“Quod sunt,” not “Propter quod sunt,” as he expresses it). He
deals with his present, not with the past, and for that very limitation
we may be grateful. He claims, too, that he is a “Relater,” not a
“Defender.” That being so, it is of peculiar interest to find what we
do in his work, arranged in five books, “according to the number of the
Books of the Law.”
Several forms of prayer appear for the first time in his pages.
Certainly Chilmead is the earliest to give us in English the Prayer for
the Government, or a translation of the Thirteen Articles drawn up by
Maimonides. Modena, again, tells us that in his day it was customary
to “leave about a yard square of the wall of the house unplaistered
on which they write either the verse of Psalm 137, ‘If I forget
thee, O Jerusalem,’ or the words _Zecher Lahorban_--a Memorial of
the Desolation.” He knows only _wooden_ Mezuzahs. Jews in Italy have
pictures and images in their houses, “especially if they be not with
Relief, or Imbossed work, nor the Bodies at large.” Few, he reports,
take heed to the custom of placing the beds north and south; many
attach significance to dreams. Jewish men never paint their faces,
for the custom is “effeminate”; and “in whatsoever country they are,
they (the men) usually affect the long garment, or Gown.” The women
dress “in the habite of the countries where they inhabite”; but after
marriage wear a _perruke_ to cover their natural hair. The Jews
build their synagogues wherever they can, “it being impossible for
them now to erect any statelie or sumptuous Fabricks.” Things, as we
know, soon after Modena’s time became different, for by the middle of
the seventeenth century, several fine synagogues were built in Rome
and elsewhere. The women “see whatever is done in the _School_ (thus
Chilmead renders _scuola_ or synagogue), though they are themselves
unseen of any man.” In the same city there will be places of worship
“according to the different customes of the Levantines, Dutch (German),
and Italians.” Then, “in their singing, the Dutch far exceed all the
rest: the Levantines and Spaniards use a certain singing tone, much
after the Turkish manner; and the Italians affect a more plain, and
quiet way in their devotions.” The “Favours” of “having a hand” in the
acts connected with the reading of the Law “are bought of the Chaunter,
and he that biddeth most, shall have a share in them.”
Willingly, did space permit, we would follow the author through his
account of the Judaism of his time. The majority of Jews, he says, are
poor, yet annually they send “Almes to Jerusalem, Safed, Tiberias,
and Hebron.” The Jews never “torment, or abuse, or put to any cruel
death, any Brute Beast.” Very few Jews are able to speak Hebrew; all
learn the language of the countries where they are born. “Onely those
of the Morea still retain the Hebrew Tongue also, and use it in their
Familiar Letters.” In Italy, he records, the Talmud “continues utterly
prohibited,” and copies are not to be found in the country. Jews do not
regard “Vowes” as “commendable”; yet “when they are made, they ought
to be kept.” Not many now observe the “tradition” against eating “Fish
and Flesh together.” He tells us of an arrangement by which, for the
Sabbath, some “so ordered the matter aforehand, that the Fire should
kindle itself at such and such a time.” The Passover bread is made in
“flat cakes of divers forms and shapes.” The “Ceremonie with a Cock,”
on the eve of the Day of Atonement, “is now left off both in the East
and in Italy, as being a thing both Superstitious and Groundlesse.”
But they still, on Purim, “as often as they hear Haman named, beat
the ground, and make a great murmuring noise.” Bigamy “is seldome or
never used.” Marriages are usually performed before full moon, and the
favorite days are Wednesdays and Fridays, with Thursdays for widows.
“Little boyes, with lighted torches in their hands,” sing before the
bridal couple, who are seated under the canopy. The Ketubah is read
at the marriage. Modena mentions the charms against _Lilit_, and
name-changing in case of sickness. He describes how, in Germany, in
the case of girls, “the Chaunter goeth home to the Parents house, and
lifting the child’s cradle on high, he blesseth it, and so giveth it
the Name.” Modena also informs us that the Karaites were, in his time,
numerous in Constantinople, Cairo, and Russia.
Modena records that among the Jews “there are many women that are much
more devout and pious than the men, and who not only endeavour to bring
up their children in all manner of Vertuous Education; but are a means
also of restraining their husbands from their Vitious Courses, they
would otherwise take, and of inclining them to a more Godly way of
Life.” With which handsome and just compliment we will take leave of
our author.
PART III
PART III
MENASSEH AND REMBRANDT
On April 25, 1655, six months before starting on his mission to
Cromwell, Menasseh ben Israel--visionary about to play the rôle of
statesman--completed in Amsterdam the Spanish book which forms the
subject of this paper. Duodecimo in size (5¹⁄₄ x 2⁷⁄₈ inches), it
consists of 12 + 259 pages, with a list of the author’s works published
or projected, and on the last of the unpaginated leaves a Latin version
of Psalm 126. In the catalogue of his works appended to the _Vindiciæ
Judæorum_ (London, 1656) Menasseh includes “_Piedra pretiosa_, of
_Nebuchadnezzar’s_ image, or the fifth Monarchy.” This was not,
however, the real title. The title was, in truth, in Hebrew _Eben
Yekarah_, and in Spanish _Piedra Gloriosa_, i.e., the “Precious Stone.”
The date given above for the completion of the book is fixed by the
dedication, which is addressed to Menasseh’s Christian friend, Isaac
Vossius.
On a casual glance the book seems a hopeless jumble of incongruities.
Nebuchadnezzar’s image, Jacob’s dream, the combat of David and Goliath,
the vision of Ezekiel--what have these in common, and what has the
title to do with them? The answer to these questions is soon found.
The whole work is Messianic, and in his usual symbolic style, Menasseh
seizes on a “Stone” as the central feature for his little treatise.
There was the stone, “cut out without hands,” which smote the image
seen by the king of Babylon. There was the stone, gathered from the
field of Beth-el, on which Jacob laid his weary head to rest when
fleeing from his brother. There was the stone, picked smooth from the
brook, with which David slew the Philistine. Perhaps the three were
one and the same stone, Menasseh seems to imply. Anyhow, he saw in all
these incidents a Messianic reference. Nebuchadnezzar’s image, with its
feet of clay, typified the Gentiles that were to rise and fall before
the great day of the Lord. The ladder of Jacob, with its ascending and
descending angels, typified again the rise and fall of nations. David’s
victory over Goliath foreshadowed the triumph of the Messiah over the
powers of earth. And the whole is rounded off with Ezekiel’s vision
of the chariot with its strange beasts and emblems--a chariot which,
in the view accepted by Menasseh, typified the Kingdom of the Messiah.
[Illustration: MENASSEH BEN ISRAEL
(From an etching by Rembrandt, in the possession of Mr. Felix Warburg,
New York)]
Following the dedication to Vossius is an explanatory note to “the
Reader.” In this note the author explains that to make his meaning
clear he has added four illustrations. He does not name the artist.
But we know that he was none other than Menasseh’s neighbor and
intimate, Rembrandt. Four etchings, signed by Rembrandt and dated
1654, are possessed by more than one library; probably the fullest
sets are to be found in the Fitzwilliam and British Museums. They were
originally etched on one plate, which was afterwards cut into four.
When all four etchings formed one plate, the arrangement was (as Mr.
Middleton explains in his _Descriptive Catalogue of the Etched Work of
Rembrandt_, p. 240):
(I) Upper left: _Nebuchadnezzar’s Image_. Clothed only about the
loins; there is a band or fillet about the head, and a short cloak
hangs behind. The stone which breaks the legs of the image (the feet
are seen falling to the left) has been cast from a roughly shaped
rock. The stone is near part of a globe; illustrating the text “And
the stone that broke the image became a great mountain, _and filed
the whole earth_” (Daniel 2. 35). The brow is inscribed “Babel,” the
right and left arms “Persae” and “Medi,” the waist “Graeci,” the legs
“Romani” and “Mahometani.” These names only appear in the _fifth_
“state” of the etching. There’s a proof of the fourth “state” in
Paris, which bears the names written in Rembrandt’s own hand.
(II) Upper right: _Vision of Ezekiel_. The lower part, in the
foreground, shows the four creatures of the chariot; above is a
“glory,” amid the rays of which is seen the Almighty, surrounded by
adoring angels.
(III) Lower left: _Jacob’s Ladder_. The patriarch, bearded, lies
half-way up the ladder, tended by an angel, others are bending down in
gaze, while one figure is seen mounting the rungs immediately above.
(IV) Lower right: _Combat of David and Goliath_. The most spirited
drawing of all; in a scene overhung by rocks with warriors looking on,
the giant grasps his lance in his left hand and with shield advanced
on his right arm is charging David, who has his sling in action over
his right shoulder.
The Museum, as already implied, possesses proof of the etchings
in various “states”--the artist touched and retouched them, until
they assumed the state reproduced by the present writer in 1906, in
commemoration of the tercentenary of Rembrandt’s birth. The etchings
are beautiful tokens of sympathy between the Rabbi and the painter.
The various “states” show, as Mr. I. Solomons has suggested, that
Rembrandt took unremitting pains to obtain Menasseh’s approval of his
work.
Yet he failed to win this approval. It is pretty certain that the
etchings were never used. Mr. Fairfax Murray possessed the _Piedra
Gloriosa_ with the etchings, and has now presented the volume to the
University Library, Cambridge; another copy is to be seen in the Musée
Carnavalet, Paris, a copy formerly owned by M. Dutuit of Rouen. But
Mr. Solomons seems right in asserting that “the original etchings in
the copies of Mr. Murray and M. Dutuit were no doubt inserted after by
admirers of Rembrandt’s work, but certainly not with the knowledge and
sanction of Menasseh.” Why not? The etchings are good work; they really
illustrate their subject, and must have added to the commercial, as
well as to the artistic value of Menasseh’s work.
The most curious fact is that, though Rembrandt’s etchings were never
used, a set of copper-plate engravings, based, as Mr. Solomons guesses,
by the Jewish engraver Salom Italia on Rembrandt but not identical with
his work, is found in some copies of Menasseh’s book--copies possessed
by Mr. Solomons, M. Didot, and the Levy Collection in Hamburg. These
engravings are laterally inverted, the right of Rembrandt’s etchings
becomes the left of Salom Italia’s engravings. There are other
differences in detail, all calculated to render the pictures more
fitted for book illustration, but of all the changes only one is of
consequence, and it was Mr. Solomons who detected the real significance
of the change.
The change referred to gives the clue to the whole mystery. On
comparing the two versions of the Vision of Ezekiel a striking
variation is discernible. The figure of the Almighty has been
suppressed! Here was the fatal defect in Rembrandt’s work. Menasseh
could not possibly use a drawing in which the Deity is represented;
he was not the one to repeat the inadvertence of the artist of the
Sarajevo Haggadah. Possibly he only detected the fault at the last
hour. But a fatality clung to the second set of illustrations also.
Several copies of the _Piedra Gloriosa_ are extant without any pictures
at all.
LANCELOT ADDISON ON THE BARBARY JEWS
“Justice is done to the private virtues of the Jews of Barbary.” So
Mr. Francis Espinasse remarks in his biography of Lancelot Addison.
It is an accurate comment. Lancelot, the father of the more famous
Joseph Addison--who himself wrote so amiably of the Jews a generation
later--spent several years in Africa as English chaplain. Born in 1632,
he showed an independent mind at Oxford. He roughly handled some of
the University Puritans in 1658, and was promptly compelled to recant
his speech on his knees in open Convocation. Tangier came into the
possession of Charles II in 1662. Lancelot Addison had officiated in
Dunkirk for the previous three years; but when that port was given up
to the French, Addison was transferred to Morocco.
Here he kept his eyes open. Several lively volumes came from him
on Tangier life, on Mohammedanism, on Moorish politics. The most
remarkable of these deals with the Jews. So popular was this volume
on their “Present State” that three editions were called for. The
first came out in 1675. If one may judge by the British Museum copy,
it lacked the awesome frontispiece which may be seen in the edition of
1676. Though superscribed “The Present State of the Jews in Barbary,”
the almost naked figure is not meant to represent a child of Israel.
The personage depicted wears a gorgeously feathered hat and a short
waist-covering, also of feathers. Add to this a spear bigger than its
wielder, and you have his full costume. It is less Addison’s than his
illustrator’s idea of a typical Moor.
From the very opening paragraph of the dedication we see that Lancelot
possessed some of his son’s gift of gentle humor. He had inscribed
a former book to Secretary Williamson, and he now repeats the act,
“it faring with Scriblers, as with those Votaries who never forsake
the Saint they once finde propitious.” As for his account of the
Jews, he claims that his is more “particular and true” than other
descriptions, “this being,” he says, “the result of Conversation
and not of Report.” (“Conversation,” of course, he uses in the old
sense of “direct intercourse”). Some of the modern assailants of the
Jews who appropriate aristocratic names will hardly like Addison’s
justification of his interest. It is because of their clear
genealogies and ancient lineage that he in the first instance admires
the Jews. And if their ancestry was noble, they were not less happy in
their primitive religion. “Now seeing that they have been the channel
of so many benefits to the rest of mankind, they ought to be the matter
of our thankful Reflection, and not of our obloquy and reproach.”
With fine indignation, he goes on to resent the manner in which the
Jews of Barbary were “lorded over by the imperious and haughty Moor.”
The Moorish boys beat the Jewish children, and the latter dare not
retaliate. “The Moors permit not the Jews the possession of any
war-like weapons, unless in point of Trade.” Addison adds that this
gratifies the Jews, who are, he asserts, as “destitute of true courage
as of good nature.” It is important to remember these severe remarks on
the Jewish character, as it shows that when the author praises he does
so not from partiality but from conviction. Curiously enough, he has
hardly done calling them cowards, when he tells us that the Christians
and Moors use the Jews for “sending them upon hazardous messages,” such
as “collecting the maritime imposts,” an office which must have needed
more than a little hardihood.
Our author contrasts the black caps of the Jews with the red of the
Moors, and has other quaint details as to costume. He then calls
attention to the religious unanimity of the Jews. “They are signally
vigilant to avoid divisions, as looking upon those among Christian
Professors, to be an argument against the truth of the things they
profess.” This is amusing, coming from a man who, throughout his life,
was a rather sturdy opponent of union among the Christian bodies. And
what would he think of the unity among Jews if he could see _our_
“present state”? Addison then enters into a eulogy of the sobriety
and temperance of the Jews; he terms their conduct “well civilised,”
and declares that they “cannot be charged with any of those Debauches
which are grown unto reputation with whole nations of Christians.”
Then he specifies. “Adultery, Drunkenness, Gluttony, Pride of Apparel,
etc., are so far from being in request with them that they are
scandalised at their frequent practice in Christians.” Again and again
the author laments that he has to praise the Synagogue at the expense
of the Church. But he takes it out in firm abuse of the rabbinic
theology, information on which he obtained from a local Rabbi, “Aaron
Ben-Netas”--a not unlearned man, he says, one who only needed to be a
Christian to be thoroughly worthy of esteem.
But we must pass over Addison’s elaborate analysis of the Jewish
creed, and of his many curious and mostly accurate details on rites
and superstitions. The notable thing is that as soon as he touches
fundamental social questions, his eulogy of the Jews reappears.
“Orderly and decent” are the adjectives he uses of the Jewish marriage
customs. I regret that I am unable to find space for Addison’s allusion
to the fashions of dressing the brides for the canopies, or rather
“bowers and arbours,” which in Barbary replaced the canopies used in
other countries. Thus the custom in some American homes of performing
Jewish marriages under a floral bower rather than a canopy has its
analogue in the past. Very significant is another statement about
marriage. Theoretically he found polygamy defended, but monogamy was
the rule of life. “The Jews of whom I now write, though they greatly
magnify and extol the concession of polygamy, yet they are not very
fond of its practice.” He ascribes this abstinence to policy rather
than to religion, and there is more truth in this than Addison saw.
For such social institutions are entirely a matter for the social
conscience, and “policy” dictates them. So long as social institutions
remain within the bounds of such sanctification as religion can
approve, religion must be content to follow “policy.” Monogamy is
so clearly felt to be the best policy for mankind, under modern
conditions, that religion in the West maintains it. “Religion” and
“policy” are here at one.
Addison fairly gives his enthusiasm the rein when he discusses Jewish
education. “The care of the Jews is very laudable in this particular,
there being not many people in the world more watchful to have their
children early tinctured with religion than the present Hebrews.”
Though they usually speak “_Moresco_, the Language of their Nativity,
and a sort of Spanish which enables them for Traffick,” they learn
Hebrew. The children, he informs us, are usually taught the Hebrew for
the domestic utensils and “terms of Traffick Negotiation.” The method
was quite in accord with modern ideas of teaching a language. “By
this Order they furnish the Children with a _Nomenclature of Hebrew_
Words; and all this before they admit them to Syntax and Construction.”
Addison pictures the Jewish Sabbath with some charm; he even cites
passages from Luria, to whom the home and synagogue rites of the day
of rest owe so much. On no subject is our author more interesting than
with regard to the Jewish charities. The Jews live “in a more mutual
charity of alms than either the Moor or Christians”; and Addison
admits, “it cannot be denied that the Jews’ manner of relieving the
poor, is regular and commendable.” In his day it was, as it is in ours,
the Synagogue’s ideal to relieve its own poor. There were no beggars
in the Barbary Jewry. “For though among the Jews of Barbary there is
a great store of needy persons, yet they are supplied after a manner
which much conceals (as to men of other religions) their poverty.”
Obviously Addison would like these people to become Christians. Why
do they refuse? The “stiffness of their necks,” on the one hand, and
the “naughtiness of our lives,” on the other, cries the author. The
“naughtiness” will, let us hope, be more easily removed than the
“stiffness.” Lancelot Addison, says Macaulay, “made some figure in the
world.” He deserved to do so. His book on the Jews was a credit to his
power of observation and his goodness of heart.
THE BODENSCHATZ PICTURES
Johann Christoph Georg Bodenschatz, a priest of Uttenreuth, underwent
a triple training for his great work on Jewish Ceremonial. He
studied literature, observed facts, and used his hands. The _Jewish
Encyclopedia_ remarks that he “is said to have made elaborate models
of the Ark of Noah and of the Tabernacle in the Wilderness.” There is
no reason for the qualifying words “is said.” In a dedicatory epistle
to the Margrave Friederich of Brandenburg, Bodenschatz distinctly
informs us that in 1739 he constructed these models, “after the records
of Scripture and of Jewish Antiquities.” He adds that the models were
preserved in the royal _Kunst und Naturaliencabinet_. I cannot say
whether they still exist; but at the beginning of last century, the
Tabernacle was at Bayreuth and the Ark at Nuremberg.
In 1748 Bodenschatz began to issue his work on the Jews; he completed
the publication in the next year. In it he dealt with the Jewish
religion (_Kirchliche Verfassung der heutigen Juden, sonderlich derer
in Deutschland_). He had planned a continuation on the Civil Laws
of the Synagogue. But he left it unfinished, though he lived another
half-century. Perhaps he had exhausted all his means, for the thirty
copper-plates must have been expensive. The very title-page states he
paid for them out of his own pocket. These illustrations he introduced
with a double object: they were, in part, to serve as an ornament, but
chiefly as an elucidation of the text. Both his book and his pictures
became very popular, and did much to secure for Judaism a favorable
consideration in Germany.
As we know that Bodenschatz possessed some artistic skill, we may
safely assume that he inspired and assisted the artists whom he
employed. He does not appear, however, to have done any of the drawings
with his own hand. Nearly all the pictures are signed. Most of them
were designed by Eichler in Erlangen, and engraved by G. Nusbiegel in
Nuremberg. Both of these belonged to artistic families; there were
three generations of Eichlers, and a Nusbiegel engraved illustrations
for Lavater’s works. One of the Bodenschatz pictures was engraved
by C. M. Roth; another, among the best of the whole series--the
illustration of Shehitah--was drawn by Johann Conrad Müller. It would
be interesting to collect the names of those Christian artists and
mechanics who, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, were
engaged in illustrating books on Judaism. There was, for instance, the
Englishman R. Vaughan who worked at Josephus (Josippon); there was the
Frenchman Bernard Picart; and there were very many others, though the
exquisite medallions, which adorn the title-pages of all six volumes of
Surrenhusius’ Latin Mishnah, were from a Jewish hand.
Bodenschatz made use of his predecessor Picart, whose twenty plates
illustrative of the “Ceremonies des Juifs” appeared in Amsterdam in
1723. But what he chiefly owed to Picart was the composition of the
groups; the details are mostly original. Similarly he derived his idea
for the processions of the bride and the bridegroom, with their musical
performers, from Kirchner, but here, again, the details are his own,
and the total effect is full of charm. I do not wish, by any means,
to depreciate Kirchner, who in his _Jüdisches Ceremoniel_ (1726) has
some fine engravings. One of them, depicting the preparation of the
Passover bread, is as vigorous as anything in Bodenschatz, though I
think that the latter is, on the average, superior to Kirchner. Readers
can easily judge the character both of the Bodenschatz and the Kirchner
pictures from the specimens so wisely reproduced in the volumes of the
_Jewish Encyclopedia_. No one need complain that the _Encyclopedia_
prints these illustrations too profusely. For--to limit my remarks to
Bodenschatz--though copies of that worthy’s book are common enough,
many of them are incomplete. From the British Museum example, six of
the thirty plates are missing; the Cambridge copy also lacks some of
the plates, in particular the marriage ceremony under the canopy,
which, however, may be seen in the _Jewish Encyclopedia_, vol. vi, p.
504. On the other hand, the _Encyclopedia_ (vol iii, p. 432) somewhat
exaggerates the glare of the eyes in the grim realism of Bodenschatz’s
picture of an interment.
What is assuredly one of the most interesting of Bodenschatz’s plates
does not, so far as I have noticed, appear in the _Encyclopedia_. I
refer to the Pentecost celebrations, where Bodenschatz shows us both
the cut flowers and the growing plants in the synagogue decorations
of the day. The floral border of this plate is particularly well
conceived. Very attractive, too, is the picture of Blessing the New
Moon: the outlines of the houses stand out in bold relief. Bodenschatz
is careful to inform us that the favorite time for the ceremony is
a Saturday night, when the men are still dressed in their Sabbath
clothes, and thus make a good show. The Priestly Benediction is also a
notable success; the Cohen with his hands to his eyes impresses. More
than once Bodenschatz depicts a curious scene, once common now almost
unknown. On the front of the synagogue is a star, cut in stone, and
after the marriage the husband shatters a vessel by casting it at the
star. The glass, where the custom is retained, is now broken under the
canopy. By the way, the author also introduces us to the more familiar
ceremony of the same nature at the actual wedding or betrothal.
Altogether ingenious is the plate on which are diagrammatically
represented the various forms of boundaries connected with the Sabbath
law.
Naturally a goodly number of the pictures deal with curiosities. The
quainter side of Jewish ceremonial obviously appeals to an artist.
Thus the waving of the cock before the Day of Atonement, the _Lilit_
inscriptions over the bed of the new-born infant, the Mikweh, the
Halizah shoe, make their due appearance. But Bodenschatz does not show
these things to ridicule them. He is among the most objective of those
who, before our own days, sought to reproduce synagogue scenes. He
must have had a very full experience of these scenes; he must have
been an eye-witness. It would seem as though he meant us to gather
this from one of his Sabbath pictures, of which he has several. I do
not refer to the vividness of the touches in his representation of the
Friday night at home--though this illustration presupposes personal
knowledge. Nor do I refer to his pictures of Sabbath ovens, for these
could have been examined in shops. But what I allude to is this. In his
picture of the interior of the synagogue, we see the Sabbath service
in progress. Standing on the right, looking on, is a hatless observer.
Does Bodenschatz mean this for himself, thus suggesting that he had
often been a spectator where the rest were participators? It may be so.
Anyhow, most of those who have had to steep themselves in literature
of this kind have a warm feeling of regard for Bodenschatz. He was not
invariably just, but he was never unkind; no mistakes that he made (and
he is on the whole conspicuously accurate) were due to prejudice. Any
scholar, any artist, would be proud to deserve such a verdict.
LESSING’S FIRST JEWISH PLAY
There are bigger virtues than consistency, and I have spared a good
word for that human chameleon Leon Modena. But, undeniably, a great
career is all the nobler when through it there runs a consistent
purpose. Wordsworth, in a famous poem, asked:
Who is the happy warrior? Who is he
That every man in arms should wish to be?
And the first sentence of his answer runs:
It is the generous spirit, who, when brought
Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought
Upon the plan that pleased his childish thought.
If this be so, then Lessing was a happy warrior indeed. For religious
tolerance is interwoven with his combative life. It was the ideal of
his boyhood and of his age. It is to be seen in his “Nathan,” the
masterpiece of his mature genius, and it equally underlay his youthful
drama _The Jews_. Nathan the Wise is Mendelssohn, and was drawn on
the basis of experience; but the “Traveller,” who is the hero of
_Die Juden_ is no individual, having been drawn by Lessing out of
his own good heart. Thirty years separate the two plays (written,
respectively, in 1749 and 1779). But they are united in spirit.
_Die Juden_ is a short composition, even though it includes
twenty-three scenes. Some of these scenes are very brief. The plot is
quite simple. A baron and his daughter are saved by a traveller from
robbers; the impression made by the rescuer is so great, that the baron
is inclined to find in him a son-in-law. Then the traveller reveals
the fact that he is a Jew. Baron and Jew part with mutual esteem.
Dramatically, the play is not of much merit. The “Traveller” is not so
much a person as a personification. He is the type of virtue, honor,
magnanimity. He leaves one cold, not because, as Michaelis objected in
1754, he is impossibly, or at least improbably, perfect, but because he
is crudely and mechanically drawn. Mendelssohn completely rebutted the
criticism of Michaelis; but, none the less, the “Traveller” possesses
little of that human, personal quality which makes “Nathan” so
convincing and interesting. On the other hand, the baron is admirably
painted. He is not a bigoted Jew-hater; he is simply animated by a
conventional dislike of Jews. Lessing, even in his student years, was
too good an artist to daub on his colors too glaringly.
The importance of _Die Juden_ is to be found, as we have seen, in its
anticipation of _Nathan der Weise_. Sometimes the identity of thought
is strikingly close. In the fourth act of _Nathan_ occurs this dialogue:
_Friar_: Nathan! Nathan! You are a Christian! By God, you are a
Christian! There never was a better Christian!
_Nathan_: We are of one mind! For that which makes me, in your eyes, a
Christian, makes you, in my eyes, a Jew!
Compare (as Niemeyer has done) the exchanges in _Die Juden_:
_Baron_: How estimable would the Jews be if they were all like you!
_Traveller_: And how admirable the Christians, if they all possessed
your qualities!
A Tsar is said to have repeated pretty much the baron’s speech to
Sir Moses Montefiore. It is not recorded that the latter made the
traveller’s reply.
Edmund Burke, in one of his speeches on America, protested that it
was impossible to draw up “an indictment against a whole people.” He
forgot the frequency with which such indictments are drawn up against
the Jews. Now if there was one thing that more than the rest roused
Lessing’s anger, it was just this tarring of all Jews with one brush.
One can conceive the glee with which Lessing wrote the passage in which
the baron commits this very offence, unconscious of his peculiarly
unfortunate _faux pas_, for he has no notion yet that the traveller is
a Jew:
_Baron_: It seems to me that the very faces of the Jews prejudice one
against them. You can read in their eyes their maliciousness, deceit,
perjury. Why do you turn away from me?
_Traveller_: I see you are very learned in physiognomies--I am afraid,
sir, that mine....
_Baron_: O, you wrong me! How could you entertain such a suspicion?
Without being learned in physiognomies, I must tell you I have never
met with a more frank, generous, and pleasing countenance than yours.
_Traveller_: To tell you the truth, I do not approve of
generalizations concerning a whole people.... I should think that
among all nations good and wicked are to be found.
These quotations will suffice to convey an idea of the aim of the
dramatist and of the manner in which it is carried out. There is a
certain amount of comic relief to the gravity of the main plot. The
foot-pad and garroter, Martin Krumm, cuts an amusing figure as an
assailant of the honesty of the Jews. “A Christian would have given
me a kick in the ribs and not a snuff-box,” says Christopher, the
traveller’s servant. Christopher is a funny rogue. When his master
cannot find him, and naturally complains, the servant replies: “I can
only be in one place at one time. Is it my fault that you did not go to
that place? You say you have to search for me? Surely you’ll always
find me where I am.”
There were a few attempts prior to Lessing to present the Jew in a
favorable light on the stage, as Sir Sidney Lee has shown. But between
Shylock and Nathan there stretches a lurid desert, broken only by the
oasis of _Die Juden_. To some it may occur that the battle of tolerance
fought by Lessing did not end in a permanent victory. Lessing himself
would not have been disquieted at that result. As he expressed it, the
search for truth rather than the possession of truth is the highest
human good. A leading Viennese paper said some few years ago that if
_Nathan the Wise_ had been written now, it would have been hissed
off the German stage. It is not unlikely. Fortunately, Lessing wrote
before 1880! _Nathan_ does not remain unacted. I saw Possart play the
title-role in Munich in the nineties. His splendid elocution carried
off Nathan’s long speeches with wonderful absence of monotony.
A thing of truth is a boon forever, because it makes further progress
in truth-seeking certain. Because there has been one Lessing,
there _must_ be others. And if _Nathan the Wise_ be thus a lasting
inspiration, let us not forget that the poet was trying his hand,
and maturing his powers, by writing the play which has served as the
subject of this sketch.
ISAAC PINTO’S PRAYER-BOOK
It was in America that the first English translation of the Synagogue
Prayer-Book appeared (1761 and 1766). Often has attention been drawn
to the curiosity that this latter volume was published not in London
but in New York. The 1761 edition has only recently been discovered by
Dr. Pool; with the 1766 work we have long been familiar. According to
the _Bibliotheca Anglo-Judaica_ (p. 174), “the Mahamad would not allow
a translation to be printed in England.” If such a refusal was made,
we must at least amend the last words, and read _in English_ for _in
England_. For it was in London, in 1740, that Isaac Nieto’s _Spanish_
rendering of the prayers for New Year and Day of Atonement saw the
light of publication.
Indeed, in Isaac Pinto’s preface the point is made quite clear. “In
Europe,” he says, “the Spanish and Portuguese Jews have a translation
in Spanish, which, as they generally understand, may be sufficient;
but that not being the case in the British Dominions in America, has
induced me to attempt a translation, not without hope that it may
tend to the improvement of many of my brethren in their devotion.”
Admittedly, then, Pinto designed his work for American use; at all
events, the objection of the Mahamad must have been to the language
used by Pinto. We know how resolutely Bevis Marks clung to Spanish,
and how reluctantly it abandoned some of the quaint uses made of it in
announcements and otherwise.
“Some crudities there are in this translation, but few mistakes, and
the style has a genuine devotional ring,” says Mr. Singer. Pinto could
not easily go wrong, seeing that he made use of Haham Nieto’s “elegant
Spanish translation.” Dr. Gaster remarks that Pinto’s rendering
“rests entirely,” as the author declares, on Nieto’s. Pinto’s exact
words are: “In justice to the Learned and Reverend H. H. R. Ishac
Nieto, I must acknowledge the very great advantage I derived” from
Nieto’s work. Mr. G. A. Kohut shares Mr. Singer’s high opinion of
Pinto’s style. “The translation,” he asserts, “seems to be totally
free from foreign expressions, and is characterized throughout by a
dignity and simplicity of diction which is on the whole admirable.”
With this favorable judgment all readers of Pinto will unhesitatingly
concur. A remarkable feature which Pinto shares with Nieto is this:
the translation appears without the Hebrew text. Commenting on the
absence of Hebrew, Mr. Singer observes: “This fact would seem to show
that there must have been an appreciable number of persons, who,
for purposes of private worship at least, and perhaps also while
in attendance at synagogue, depended upon English alone in their
devotions.” On the other hand, it is possible that, as Hebrew printing
must have been costly in London and New York in the eighteenth century,
the absence of the Hebrew may be merely due to the desire to avoid
expenses. The translations may have been meant for use with copies of
the Hebrew text printed in Amsterdam and elsewhere on the continent of
Europe.
Pinto’s book was small quarto in shape; it contained 191 pages. There
are some peculiarities on the title-page, of which a facsimile may
be seen in the _Jewish Encyclopedia_, vol. x, page 55: “Prayers for
Shabbath, Rosh-Hashanah, and Kippur, or the Sabbath, the Beginning of
the Year, and the Day of Atonements; with the _A_midah and Musaph of
the Mo_a_dim, or solemn seasons. According to the Order of the Spanish
and Portuguese Jews. Translated by Isaac Pinto. And for him printed by
John Holt, in New York, A. M. 5526” (= 1766). It will be noted that
Pinto indicates the _ayin_ by the use of italics in the words _A_midah
and Mo_a_dim. Also, though he employs the ordinary Sephardic term for
the Day of Atonement (_Kippur_ without the prefix of _Yom_), he does
not translate the singular, but the plural, for he renders it the “Day
of Atonements,” which is not exactly a blunder (though the Hebrew
_Kippurim_ is, of course, really an abstract plural with a singular
sense).
But who was Isaac Pinto? It is not at all clear. Some have hastily
spoken of him as though he were identical with Joseph Jesurun Pinto,
who was sent out by the London Sephardim to New York in 1758. The home
authorities, at the request of the New York Congregation Shearith
Israel, elected a Hazan, but the chosen candidate, “having since
declined going for reasons unknown to us,” writes the London Mahamad,
through its treasurer, H. Men. da Costa, “we this day (June 7, 1758)
proceeded to a second election, and our chois fell on Mr. Joseph
Jesurun Pinto, who was examined by our direction and found very well
versed in the reading of the Pentateuch and in the functions of a
Hazan.” This Hazan could do more: he was able, as Mr. Kohut shows,
to write Hebrew, for in October, 1760, he composed a prayer for
recitation on the “General Thanksgiving for the Reducing of Canada to
His Majesty’s Dominions.” The prayer was written in Hebrew, but printed
in English, being translated by a “Friend of Truth.” A note at the
end of the booklet runs thus: “N. B. The foregoing prayer may be seen
in Hebrew, at the Composer’s Lodgings.” Mr. Kohut adds: “Apparently
original Hebrew scholarship was a curiosity in New York City in 1760.”
A year before, Joseph Jesurun Pinto instituted the keeping of records
as to those “entitled to Ashcaboth” (memorial prayers), and drew up
a still used table of the times for beginning the Sabbath for the
meridian of New York; he must have been a man of various gifts and
activities.
What relation Isaac Pinto was to the Hazan we have no means of telling.
Joseph’s father was named Isaac, but this can scarcely have been our
translator. An Isaac Pinto died in 1791, aged seventy; he may be (as
Mr. Kohut suggests) the translator in question; in 1766 he would have
been in his forty-fifth year. Steinschneider thought that he was
identical with the author of a work against Voltaire (Amsterdam, 1762)
and other treatises. “But,” as Mr. Kohut argues, “this versatile
author lived at Bordeaux, while our translator was in all probability
a resident of New York.” Mr. L. Hühner accepts this identification,
and adds the possibility that this same Isaac Pinto was settled in
Connecticut as early as 1748. More certain is it that Isaac Pinto
is the same who appears in the earliest minute-book of the New York
Congregation Shearith Israel as a contributing member and seat-holder
(1740, 1747, and 1750).
Isaac Pinto was certainly living in New York in 1773. Ezra Stiles
was president of Yale from 1778 till 1795, and in his diary he makes
many references to Jews, as is well known from the publications of
the American Jewish Historical Society. Under date June 14, 1773,
Stiles has this entry: “In the forenoon I went to visit the Rabbi
(Carigal)--discoursed on Ventriloquism and the Witch of Endor and the
Reality of bringing up Samuel. He had not heard of Ventriloquism before
and still doubted it. He showed me a Hebrew letter from Isaac Pinto to
a Jew in New York, in which Mr. Pinto, who is now reading Aben Ezra,
desires R. Carigal’s thoughts upon some Arabic in Aben Ezra.” Prof.
Jastrow, from whose essay I cite the last sentence, adds: “As late as
April 14, 1790, Stiles refers to a letter received from Pinto, whom he
speaks of as ‘a learned Jew in New York,’ regarding a puzzling Hebrew
inscription found by Stiles in Kent in the fall of 1789. Unfortunately
there is no other reference to this supposed Hebrew inscription, on
which Pinto was unable to throw any light.” Stiles does not seem to
have provided sufficient data. We would fain know more of this Isaac
Pinto. But the glimpses we get of him are enough to satisfy us that he
was a man of uncommon personality.
MENDELSSOHN’S “JERUSALEM”
Of a hundred who discuss Moses Mendelssohn’s conception of Judaism,
perhaps barely five have read _Jerusalem_, the book in which that
conception is most lucidly expressed. It is a common fate with certain
literary masterpieces that they are read in their own day and talked
about by posterity. The fame of Mendelssohn, moreover, underwent
something like an eclipse during the last generation. To paraphrase
what Antony said of Cæsar, but yesterday his word might have stood
against the world; now, none so poor as to do him reverence.
The depreciation of Mendelssohn was due to two opposite reasons. For
some time, though most Jews were unconscious of it, it was becoming
obvious that there were two, and only two, thorough-going solutions of
the Jewish problem for the modern age. The one may be termed religious
liberalism, the other territorial nationalism. Now, Mendelssohn’s views
are in accord with neither of these tendencies. He was so far from
being a territorialist--and I use that term in the widest sense--that
he has been acclaimed and denounced as the father of assimilation.
He was so remote from liberalism, that he has been acclaimed and
denounced as the founder of neo-orthodoxy. His theory of life was
that the emancipated Jew could and must go on obeying under the new
environment the _whole_ of the olden Jewish law. This is not possible!
cry both the liberal and the nationalist. Hence the liberal asserts
one-half, the nationalist the other half of the Mendelssohnian theory.
The liberal would modify the law, the nationalist would change the
environment. In other words, instead of holding Mendelssohn in low
esteem, both sides ought to recognize that they each derive half their
inspiration from him.
And it is fortunate that Jews are, at this juncture, coming to
appreciate Mendelssohn all over again. Our German brethren have just
initiated a capital series of little books which cost less than a
shilling each. The first of these “Monuments of the Jewish Spirit”
contains the _Jerusalem_, and much else of Mendelssohn’s work. Here
one reads again the words first penned by the Berlin Socrates in 1783:
Judaism knows nothing of a revealed religion, Israel possessed a divine
legislation. “Thought is free,” we can hear Mendelssohn thundering--if
so harsh a verb can be applied to so gentle a spirit--“let no
Government interfere with men’s mode of conceiving God and truth.”
State and religion are separated as wide as the poles. Israel has its
own code, which in no way conflicts with the State; still less does
Israel seek to impose that code on the State. Mendelssohn did not
believe that all men were destined to attain to truth by the road of
Judaism. “Judaism boasts of no exclusive revelation of immutable truths
indispensable to salvation.” Hence, too, “Judaism has no articles of
faith.” It follows that not unbelief was punished under the Jewish
_régime_, but contumacious disobedience. The Jew was never commanded:
believe this, disbelieve that; but do this, and leave that undone.
Judaism is the Jew’s way of attaining goodness, other people can attain
it in other ways. Not consonance but manifoldness is the design and end
of Providence. “Religious union is not toleration, it is diametrically
opposed to it.” Toleration consists rather in this: “Reward and punish
no doctrine; hold out no allurement or bribe for the adoption of
theological opinions.” How far in advance of his age Mendelssohn was!
It took a full century after his _Jerusalem_ for England to abolish
theological tests at the universities, tests which indeed did “reward
and punish” doctrines. Mendelssohn goes on: “Let everyone who does not
disturb public happiness, who is obedient to the civil government,
who acts righteously towards his fellow-man, be allowed to speak as he
thinks, to pray to God after his own fashion, or after the fashion of
his fathers, and to seek eternal salvation where he thinks he may find
it.” No one, unless it be that earlier Jewish philosopher Spinoza, had
ever put the case for toleration so cogently. Whether Mendelssohn’s
own principles are consistent with his further conclusion that once a
Jew always a Jew, will ever be doubted. The Talmud (Sanhedrin 44a) had
said: An Israelite, though he sin, remains an Israelite. Mendelssohn
rather said: An Israelite has no right to sin. True, the world need
not accept Judaism, but the Jew may never reject it. “I do not see,”
cries Mendelssohn, “how those who were born in the house of Jacob can,
in any conscientious manner, disencumber themselves of the law. We are
allowed to think about the law, to inquire into its spirit ... but all
our fine reasoning cannot exonerate us from the strict obedience we owe
to it.” I am not now criticising Mendelssohn. I am trying to expound
him. To live under the law of the State and at the same time to remain
loyal to the law of Judaism is hard. But Mendelssohn went on: _Bear
both burdens_. That assuredly is a counsel which should be inscribed
in golden letters over the portal of Judaism now, even though we may
interpret the burdens differently in our different circumstances.
Mendelssohn’s masterpiece includes much else. But what precedes ought
to be enough to whet readers’ appetites for the whole meal. On an
occasion when I had a long talk with William James, I spoke to him
of Mendelssohn, and he admitted that his own Pragmatic theories were
paralleled by the _Jerusalem_. He promised to write on the subject,
but death claimed him all too soon. Whether we agree with Mendelssohn
or not, let us at least agree in appreciation of his genius. What he
did, and what we do not do, is to face unflinchingly the discussion
of fundamentals. Reading Mendelssohn is to breathe the fresh air. But
there’s the rub! _Read_ Mendelssohn? How, if we know no German? It is
deplorable that the _Jerusalem_ is no longer accessible in English. I
say no longer, because once it was accessible. And not once only, but
twice.
In 1852, Isaac Leeser published an English version in Philadelphia.
No wonder our American brothers still hold Leeser in such reverent
esteem. He deserved well of the Jewry of his land. But Leeser’s was
not the first English translation of _Jerusalem_. In 1838, M. Samuels
issued in two volumes an English version in London; it was dedicated to
Isaac Lyon Goldsmid, and contained much besides the _Jerusalem_. I know
nothing of the translator except one thing that he was not, and another
thing that he was. He was not a native Englishman, and he was a good
scholar. About a dozen years earlier (1825) he had produced a volume,
entitled “Memoirs of Moses Mendelsohn” (what a pitfall that double
_s_ is to printers! Throughout M. Samuels’ earlier book an _s_ is
missing in the name; in the later publication it has been recovered).
Samuels asserts himself a “disciple of the leading system of the work”;
perhaps this accounts for his enthusiasm, shown in his conscientious
annotations, which are fragrant with genuine Jewish thought. With very
slight furbishing up, Samuels’ rendering could be reprinted to-day.
One of the most urgent needs of our age in English-speaking lands is
that Jews should once more become familiar with the thought of the
eighteenth century, and particularly of Mendelssohn. Like many another
of my generation, I was brought up rather to decry him. I have learned
better now, and would fain urge others to a like reconsideration.
HERDER’S ANTHOLOGY
Johann Gottfried von Herder belonged to the school of Rousseau. The
latter, from whom the French Revolution derived its philosophy, was
enamored of the primitive and the ancient. Nature began far better
than she became after man mis-handled her. Herder (1744-1803) plays
on the word “simplicity.” He loved the Hebrew poetry because it was
so spontaneous, so untainted by artificiality. Herder’s work on
the _Spirit of Hebrew Poetry_ (1772-3) is fairly characterized by
Graetz when he terms it epoch-making. Herder was among the first of
the moderns to rouse interest in the Bible as literature. What his
contemporary Lessing did in Germany for Shakespeare, Herder did for the
Psalter.
Now Herder’s treatment of ancient literature rendered a lasting service
despite his fundamental misconception. What James Sully calls Herder’s
“excessive and sentimental interest in primitive human culture”
prepared the way for the “genetic” theories of our time. He thoroughly
realized the natural element in national poetry. He explained genius in
terms of race. To him is due some part of the conception of a “Jewish
culture,” as formulated by present-day Zionists of Ahad ha-‘Am’s
school. It is rather curious that while, on the one hand, Herder’s
theories helped national anti-Semitism, on the other hand, they gave
suggestions to national Judaism. By laying undue stress on the natural,
Herder exaggerated the national in the human spirit. In his early
manhood Herder had thought of training as a physician. But he abandoned
the idea because he could not endure the dissecting-room. When he came
to discuss the world’s genius he used the scalpel freely enough. His
gorge rose against cutting up the body, but he felt no reluctance to
dissect the spirit.
Earlier writers had overlooked the national element in the Bible.
Herder saw in the Old Testament nothing but national songs. The thought
often led him right. He strongly opposed, for instance, the mystic and
allegorical interpretations of the Song of Songs. To him it was a love
poem, the purest, most delicate love poem of antiquity (“den reinsten
und zartesten Liebesdichtung des Altertums”). Hebrew literature was
national, but it revealed its nationality under unique conditions, for
it was marked by the “poetic consciousness of God.” In all this Herder
was magnificently right. But he could not leave well alone. In one
of his latest essays he summed up the Hebrew poetry as distinguished
indeed by religiosity, but also by simplicity (“kindliche Naivetä,
Religiosität, Einfalt”). No term could be worse chosen. Hebrew poetry
shows consummate art. If it conveys the sense of simplicity, it is
because the poet’s art so thoroughly conceals its workings. Herder made
aesthetically the same mistake as Wellhausen perpetrated theologically.
According to Wellhausen, the prophets of the eighth century before
the Christian era suddenly appeared as an utterly new phenomenon on
the Hebraic horizon, whereas, in truth, by the time we reach Amos we
have got to a very advanced stage in the religious history of Israel.
So, too, is it with the biblical poetry. It is, even in its earliest
fragments, such as the Song of Deborah, a highly cultivated form.
“Simplicity” is the last word to apply to it. It is powerful, it is
sincere, but it is not naive. The Greek athlete who conquered at the
Olympic games was robust, but he had gone through a long process of
training. Vigor is not synonymous with artlessness. Trench wrote a
charming book on the “use of words.” An equally entertaining book
could be compiled on the “misuse of words.” In such a book, a front
place would be assignable to Herder’s “simplicity.”
What distinguished Hebrew poetry was not that element which it derived
from the narrowing fetters of locality and epoch. Why is the Bible the
most translatable book? Why has it been found the easiest of the great
classics to re-express in the manifold tongues of man? Because it is
so independent of the very qualities by which Herder sought to explain
it! The poetry of Israel was “natural” and “national” in the sense that
it corresponded to human nature, and was susceptible of interpretation
in terms of every nationality. Over Herder’s tomb was inscribed the
legend “Licht, Liebe, Leben.” Herder might have inscribed these or
similar words over certain of the gems of Hebrew literature. “Light,
love, life” are a truer characterization than “naiveness, religiosity,
simplicity.”
Graetz thought that, though Herder dreamed of the time when Jew and
Gentile would understand and appreciate each other, he was ill-disposed
to the Jews. He was, it is true, not one of those who fell under
the spell of Moses Mendelssohn’s personality. He was disinclined
to subject himself to the spell. When Mendelssohn sought Herder’s
acquaintance, the latter received the proposal coldly. This was not
necessarily due to unkindness. It seems to me that Herder, who much
admired Lessing, was rather resentful of the close intimacy between
the hero and the author of _Nathan the Wise_. Herder had no desire to
form one of a _ménage à trois_. As Graetz adds, Mendelssohn and Herder
did come closely together after Lessing’s death. Herder, in one of his
essays, dated 1781, the very year in which Lessing passed away, pays
Mendelssohn a pretty compliment, praising him as an exponent of Jewish
ideals.
Herder’s essay was prefixed to his “Anthology from Eastern Poets”
(_Blumenlese aus morgenländische Dichtern_). Few of us remember that
the word _Anthology_ corresponds exactly with _Blumenlese_; it means
a “collection of flowers.” (Compare Graetz’s _Leket Shoshannim_.)
Foremost among the floral graces of Herder’s Oriental garland are the
famous selections made from the Talmud and Midrash. Here, as elsewhere,
Herder was rather too inclined to treat the rabbinical legend and
parable as “naive.” He was, moreover, a little patronizing to the
Haggadists when he declared that “people laughed at what they did not
understand”--referring to the supposed grotesqueness of some of the
rabbinic modes of expression. But he was happier when he described
vandals like Eisenmenger as men who “rough-handled the butterfly, and
who, mangling the beauteous creature between their coarse fingers,
wondered that all they found on their hands was a particle of dust.” No
one has ever translated rabbinic parables so successfully as Herder.
His very love for the unfamiliar stood him in good stead. He does not
tell us whence he derived his knowledge of the originals. Probably
it was in oral intercourse with Jews. Such a spelling of _Lilit_ as
_Lilis_ looks as though he heard it pronounced by a German Jew.
Be that as it may, Herder enters into the spirit of the rabbinic
apologues with rare understanding. He chose the subjects with judgment,
and executed the renderings with felicity. There could have been
nothing but love for Judaism in the man who thus selected and who
thus translated. Graetz was unduly hard on him. It was quite possible
for a man to be fond of Jews and yet not drawn to Mendelssohn. The
last-named fascinated so many that he could afford to find one person
antipathetic--if indeed he was so. Long before others took to a cult
of the rabbinic wit and wisdom, long before Emanuel Deutsch startled
the English world in October, 1867, by his question in the _Quarterly
Review_: “What is the Talmud?”, Herder had introduced the German world
to it, and had in part answered Deutsch’s question by anticipation.
From several points of view, therefore, Herder is of import for the
Jewish student of nineteenth century history.
WALKER’S “THEODORE CYPHON”
Cumberland’s play, _The Jew_, appeared in 1794, and two years later
was published _Theodore Cyphon_. The author was George Walker, a
book-seller of London and a prolific writer of novels. His works are
a curious compound of wild melodramatic incident with comments, often
shrewd enough, on social and political actualities.
_Theodore Cyphon_ well represents Walker’s method. The main plot
is a tiresome story, told in retrospect, of Theodore’s heroism and
misfortunes in several walks of life, from the Minories to Arabia. He
ends on the scaffold for an offence which was in truth his noblest act
of chivalry. In between we have a quite able discussion on the cruelty
of inflicting capital punishment in cases of mere robbery. The author
concludes his Preface with the fear that readers may exclaim: “Well, it
was very tragical; but I am glad the hero is settled at last.” That, at
least, is the sentiment of a modern reader.
This novel of Walker’s, however, arrests attention by being set in
a Jewish frame. The term frame is used advisedly, since the main
narrative is independent of the setting.
The full title of the book is _Theodore Cyphon, or the Benevolent
Jew_. There were two editions of it. The first came out in 1796, the
second in 1823. Of the second edition the British Museum possesses a
complete copy; of the first edition an imperfect example--consisting
of the first of the three volumes--has recently been presented to the
University Library, Cambridge. The “benevolent Jew” is one Shechem
Bensadi, and he is drawn with more than sympathy. Shechem lends money
at exorbitant rates to the improvident aristocracy, and devotes his
gains to the relief of deserving unfortunates. Nay, his clients are
not always deserving. When robbed, Shechem refuses to prosecute; he
showers favors on those who treat him despitefully. His philanthropy
is extended to Jew and Gentile alike. There is one remarkable scene in
the fifth chapter, in which Shechem is shown in a large storehouse,
surrounded by scores of poor Jews to whom he supplies goods, thus
enabling them to earn a livelihood. In equally striking chapters
Shechem plays the rôle of benefactor and friend to others than his own
coreligionists.
The first edition of _Theodore Cyphon_ was obviously suggested by
Cumberland’s success. Curiously enough, the sub-title, _The Benevolent
Jew_, is used in the sheet concerning Cumberland’s play printed in
vol. vii of the _Transactions_ of the Jewish Historical Society of
England, p. 177. It is not improbable that the second edition of
_Theodore Cyphon_ was due to the popularity of Scott’s _Ivanhoe_,
which was published in December, 1819. There are not wanting some
superficial parallels between Scott’s masterpiece and Walker’s earlier
and more moderate production. Eve, Shechem’s daughter, nurses Walker’s
hero, just as Isaac’s daughter Rebecca nurses Scott’s hero. The most
interesting parallel--perhaps the only real one--is presented in two
scenes, one in _Ivanhoe_, the other in _Theodore Cyphon_. The first is
the occasion on which Rebecca sings her famous hymn. Scott describes
his poem as a “translation” of a hymn with which the evening ritual of
the Synagogue concluded. It is really an original composition inspired
by various scriptural texts, and in its turn may have suggested some
great lines in Kipling’s _Recessional_. Is it possible that Scott’s
idea of Rebecca’s hymn was suggested by Walker? For, in the second
scene alluded to above, Eve, too, is overheard singing a song to “music
wild, yet so soft.”
Walker gives us only the last stanza of Eve’s song, which runs thus (p.
46 of vol. i of the 1796 edition):
The wand’rers of Israel, through nations dispers’d,
Shall again dwell in safety, again rest in peace;
And the harp, that so plaintive our sorrows rehears’d,
Shall thrill with new pleasures, as pleasures increase;
The sweet, spicy shrubs, that wave over the hills,
Untouch’d by the simoom, eternally blow,
Frankincense and myrrh from their bosom distils,
And love shall attend on our path as we go.
Scott, of course, had other models beside Walker. Byron’s _Hebrew
Melodies_ came out both with and without Nathan’s musical
accompaniment, in 1815, four years before _Ivanhoe_ was written.
It is curious, by the way, to note that Rudolf Eric Raspe, the
original of the character whom Scott so mercilessly caricatures as
Dousterswivel in his novel _The Antiquary_, was not only the author of
_Baron Münchausen_, but was also the first translator into English of
Lessing’s _Nathan der Weise_ (London, 1781). Scott does not seem to
have been acquainted with Lessing’s play, either in the original or in
translation. Scott’s indebtedness to Marlowe, on the other hand, has
already been pointed out by the present writer.
Having drawn attention to the parallel between Walker and Scott, it
will be useful to note an equally striking contrast. On pages 110-112
of _Theodore Cyphon_ occurs the passage:
“His chief concern was for Eve, whom he saw, notwithstanding Theodore’s
supposed engagements, and the restrictions of religion, still encourage
sentiments which sapped the foundation of her happiness, and which
no expedient offered to remove, but by parting with its object, or
suffering their marriage spite of religion and law.
“Though a Jew, skilled in the learning of the Talmud and Mosaic law,
he was without those prejudices that attend on superstition. He saw
clearly that, when those precepts were first instituted, they were
designed as a prevention of communication between the Israelite and
Heathen, lest by the influence and interchange of the softer sex,
they might be led into the practice of idolatry. Yet now, taking up
the argument in a religious way, the danger existed no longer; both
Jew and Christian agreeing in the chief article of worship, though
divided about what the understanding of neither can comprehend. In a
civil light, man was created for the society of man. The distinction
of kingdom and people were childish, and fit only to insult the
understanding. But whilst he indulged himself in these speculations,
he avoided hinting to Eve that there was a possibility she should ever
become the wife of Theodore, that the unattainability of the object
might blunt or destroy the ardour of hope: for however he might have
wished for such a character (so far as observation could judge) as his
son-in-law, under the present circumstances he could not have allowed
it, had even the affections of Theodore been placed upon her, which he
believed was far from the case, as the observation he had made when
he entered his chamber abruptly, and the words, ‘O Eliza,’ which his
daughter had heard, led him to conclude some prior engagement retained
him.”
The sequel shows that Theodore is already married to Eliza. With
Walker’s view, however, as to such a marriage, it is fruitful to
compare the noble passage, on the same subject, with which Scott
concludes the preface to the 1830 edition of _Ivanhoe_:
“The character of the fair Jewess found so much favour in the eyes
of some fair readers, that the writer was censured, because, when
arranging the fates of the characters of the drama, he had not assigned
the hand of Wilfred to Rebecca, rather than to the less interesting
Rowena. But, not to mention that the prejudices of the age rendered
such an union almost impossible, the author may, in passing, observe
that he thinks a character of a highly virtuous and lofty stamp is
degraded rather than exalted by an attempt to reward virtue with
temporal prosperity. Such is not the recompense which Providence has
deemed worthy of suffering merit, and it is a dangerous and fatal
doctrine to teach young persons, the most common readers of romance,
that rectitude of conduct and of principle are either naturally allied
with, or adequately rewarded by, the gratification of our passions,
or attainment of our wishes. In a word, if a virtuous and self-denied
character is dismissed with temporal wealth, greatness, rank, or the
indulgence of such a rashly-formed or ill-assorted passion as that of
Rebecca for Ivanhoe, the reader will be apt to say, Verily, virtue
has had its reward. But a glance on the great picture of life will
show, that the duties of self-denial, or the sacrifice of passion
to principle, are seldom thus remunerated; and that the internal
consciousness of their high-minded discharge of duty produces on their
own reflections a more adequate recompense, in the form of that peace
which the world cannot give or take away.”
From the artistic point of view, Walker’s novel has little merit. But
it deserves to be better known from the historical point of view. It
was another expression of the new attitude towards the Jew, which began
to distinguish English letters in the latter part of the eighteenth
century.
HORACE SMITH OF THE “REJECTED ADDRESSES”
Horace Smith and his brother James are famous as the joint authors of
the most successful parody ever perpetrated. Drury Lane Theatre was
re-opened on October 10, 1812, having been rebuilt after the fire which
destroyed it some three years previously. The Committee advertised a
competition for the best address to be spoken at the re-opening. It is
easy to imagine what occurred. Masses of poems were sent in, and in
despair all of them were rejected, and Byron was invited to write a
prologue. It occurred to the Smiths to produce a series of parodies in
the style of the poets of their day. They pretended that all, or most
of them, had been candidates for the prize, and on the very day of the
re-opening was published the volume of _Rejected Addresses_, which,
conceived, executed, printed, and published within the space of six
weeks, continues in the general judgment of critics the finest _jeu
d’esprit_ of its kind.
Interesting enough it would be to linger over the general aspects of
this book. We must, nevertheless, resist the temptation to recall
the marvellous imitations of that genial friend of ours, the author
of _Ivanhoe_--or of that crabbed foe of Jewish emancipation, William
Cobbett. Capital, too, is the skit on Thomas Moore. Eve and the apple
come into that effusion as a matter of course. To Moore, Eve was as
Charles’ head to Mr. Dick. One could compile a fair-sized volume out
of the Irish sentimentalist’s allusions to the first pair in Paradise.
Moore used the allusion seriously and humorously. In the _Lives of the
Angels_, Adam is driven not from but into Paradise, for as Eve had to
go, it would have been the reverse of bliss for him to be left behind
in Eden. In another poem, Moore plays on the rabbinic suggestion that
woman was made out of the man’s tail, and so, comments the poet, man
ever after has followed the original plan, and leaves his wife behind
him whenever he can. Again and again, Moore in his poems claims close
acquaintance with rabbinic lore, of which, in fact, he knew only a few
scraps from second-hand sources.
So we might continue to glean thoughts from _Rejected Addresses_. It
needs gleaning, because the direct references to contemporary Jews are
very few. This negative point is not without interest. A dramatic
squib nowadays would almost certainly have its hits against Jews. The
Smiths only once refer to a Jew--the unfortunate Lyon Levi or Levy, who
committed suicide by flinging himself over the London Monument. He was
a merchant of Haydon Square, and the newspapers of January 19, 1810,
record the event as having occurred on the previous day. It is not
surprising that the incident should be fresh in men’s minds when the
Smiths wrote three years later. For after an interval of thirty-seven
years, we again find an allusion to it in the _Ingoldsby Legends_. Levi
was neither the first nor the last to precipitate himself from the
summit of Wren’s column; eventually the top was encaged, to bar others
from a similar temptation.
It was remarked above that the _Rejected Addresses_ were absolutely
free from anti-Jewish gibes. Impossible would it have been for the
Smiths to have acted otherwise. Horace, in particular, was an ardent
admirer of Richard Cumberland, writer of _The Jew_, which at the end of
the eighteenth century did so much to rehabilitate the Jews in English
good-will. We can see Horace Smith’s tendency, negatively, in one of
his other poems. In the “Culprit and the Judge,” he deals with a case
of coin-clipping in medieval France. As with all of Horace’s verses,
it is full of good points. The judge denounced as profanation the crime
of filing the similitude of good King Pepin, and ordered the offender
to be punished with decapitation. This is the clever reply of the
culprit:
“As to offending powers divine,”
The culprit cried,--“be nothing said:
Yours is a deeper guilt than mine.
I took a portion from the head
Of the King’s image; you, oh fearful odds!
Strike the whole head at once from God’s!”
One wonders whether the author had ever heard of the closely parallel
idea of the ancient Rabbi, who denounced the murderer as one who
diminished the divine image in which man had been made. Observe,
however, how Horace Smith refrains from making cheap capital out of
the joke by describing the offender as a Jew. Smith knew the truth too
well. He knew that, though some Jews were given to coin-clipping, there
were many offenders who were not Jews. It is absolutely characteristic
of Horace Smith that he should have refrained from libelling all Jews
for the sins of some.
Horace Smith was, as already suggested, actuated in his philo-Semitism
by knowledge. And this is the reason why, though his brother James
wrote some of the best of the parodies in _Rejected Addresses_, this
present article deals less with him than with Horace. For that the
latter knew and understood Judaism can be demonstrated by the clearest
evidence. In 1831 he published a prose volume, which ought to be better
known to English Jews than it is. The title is “Festivals, Games, and
Amusements, Ancient and Modern.” The second chapter deals with the
ancient Jews. It reveals an almost perfect insight into the Jewish
conception of life. Only one or two passages require amendment to make
it quite perfect. I need not expound, it will suffice to quote a single
passage:
“It is worthy of remark that the government he (Moses) established, the
only one claiming a divine author, was founded on the most democratical
and even levelling principles. It was a theocratical commonwealth,
having the Deity Himself for its King. Agriculture was the basis of
the Mosaic polity; all the husbandsmen were on a footing of perfect
equality; riches conferred no permanent preeminence; there was neither
peasantry nor nobility, unless the Levites may be considered a sort
of priestly aristocracy, for they were entitled by their birth to
certain privileges. But this is foreign to our purpose. The most
distinguishing features of the government were the vigilant, the most
anxious provisions made for the interests, enjoyments, and festivals of
the nation; and that enlarged wisdom and profound knowledge of human
nature, which led the inspired founder of the Hebrew commonwealth to
exalt and sanctify the pleasures of the people by uniting them with
religion, while he confirmed and endeared religion by combining it with
all the popular gratifications.”
When Sir Walter Scott saw the verses attributed to him in _Rejected
Addresses_, he exclaimed: “I certainly must have written this myself,
though I forget on what occasion.” Some of us might say the same of
certain of the phrases in the passage just quoted. The joyousness
of Judaism has not been asserted with more sureness of touch by any
Jewish writer than it was by Horace Smith. In another part of his book,
he misconceived the attitude of the Pentateuch to the non-Jew, but
otherwise he well understood Moses and the Law.
PART IV
PART IV
BYRON’S “HEBREW MELODIES”
No selection from Byron’s poetry is complete unless it contain
some of the “Hebrew Melodies.” Matthew Arnold included five of the
twenty-three pieces; Bulwer Lytton adopted them all. Swinburne, it is
true, gave us a volume of selections without a Hebrew melody in it, but
curiously enough he admits the verses beginning: “They say that Hope
is happiness,” which, it would seem, were intended for the melodies,
though they do not appear among them. Nathan duly adds the lines to
his collection, where they form the last item of the fourth and final
“Number.” The musician also includes “Francesca,” and, on the other
hand, omits the “Song of Saul before his Last Battle.”
The “Melodies” first came out with settings by the Jewish musician,
Isaac Nathan. The tunes, partly derived from the Synagogue, were not
well chosen; hence, though the poems have survived, the settings are
forgotten. In the same year (1815), John Murray also published the
verses without the music. Before consenting to this step, Byron wrote
to Nathan for permission to take it. He wished, he said, to oblige Mr.
Murray, but “you know, Nathan, it is against all good fashion to give
and take back. I therefore cannot grant what is not at my disposal.”
Nathan readily consented, and the volume of poems was issued with
this Preface: “The subsequent poems were written at the request of
the author’s friend, the Hon. D. Kinnaird, for a selection of Hebrew
melodies, and have been published with the music arranged by Mr. Braham
and Mr. Nathan.” In point of fact, Braham had nothing to do with the
musical arrangement. Though his name is associated with Nathan’s on the
title page of the original edition, it is removed in the reprints.
[Illustration: TITLE-PAGE OF THE FIRST EDITION OF BYRON’S “HEBREW
MELODIES”]
It has been said above that the musical setting has not retained
its hold on public taste. The Rev. Francis L. Cohen (in the _Jewish
Encyclopedia_, vol. ix, p. 179) speaks of it as having “deservedly
sunk into oblivion.” I have recently had several of them played over
to me, and my verdict is the same as Mr. Cohen’s. In themselves the
tunes are sometimes good enough, _Maoz Zur_ appears among them. But
the words and the airs rarely fit, and Nathan lost chances by ignoring
the Sephardic music. Nathan’s contemporaries had, however, a higher
opinion of the work. Perhaps it was because the composer sang his songs
so well; Braham does not seem to have included them in his repertoire.
But Nathan’s auditors were charmed by his renderings. Byron himself
was most moved by “She Walks in Beauty”--to a modern ear Nathan’s is a
commonplace and inappropriate setting--and “he would not unfrequently
join in its execution.” The verses were really written for the tunes,
and the poet often consulted the musician as to the style and metre
of the stanzas. Nathan (in his _Fugitive Pieces_, 1829), records many
conversations during the progress of the joint work. He tells us, for
instance, how Byron refused to alter the end of “Jephtha’s Daughter.”
As Nathan read the Scripture, and as many others also read it,
Jephthah’s daughter did _not_ perish as a consequence of her father’s
vow; but Byron observed: “Do not seek to exhume the lady.” On another
occasion, Nathan was anxious to know what biblical passages were in the
poet’s mind when he wrote some of the verses, such as “O snatch’d away
in beauty’s bloom!” Byron vaguely answered: “Every mind must make its
own reference.” The local color of the poems, besides their substance,
is in fact sometimes at fault. “Each flower the dews have _lightly_
wet,” is not a Palestinian touch; the dews there are remarkable for
their heaviness.
At this point let us for a moment interrupt Nathan’s reminiscences
of Byron himself, and cite what he tells us of another famous poet’s
appreciation of the “Melodies.” “When the Hebrew melodies were first
published,” says Nathan, “Sir Walter, then Mr. Scott, honoured me with
a visit at my late residence in Poland Street. I sang several of the
melodies to him--he repeated his visit, and requested that I would
allow him to introduce his lady and his daughter. They came together,
when I had the pleasure of singing to them ‘Jephtha’s Daughter,’ and
one or two more of the favourite airs: they entered into the spirit
of the music with all the true taste and feeling so peculiar to the
Scotch.” Another admirer of Nathan’s singing of the melodies was Lady
Caroline Lamb, herself the author of what the conventions of the period
would have termed “elegant verses.” Once she wrote to Nathan: “I am,
and have been, very ill; it would perhaps cure me if you could come
and sing to me ‘Oh Mariamne’--now will you? I entreat you, the moment
you have this letter come and see me.” The same lady translated for
him a Hebrew elegy which he wrote on the death of his wife. Nathan
must obviously have been an amiable companion and a charming renderer
of his own music, or he would not have gained the applause of these
distinguished judges.
As has been seen from the conversations recorded above, Byron and
Nathan became very intimate in the course of their collaboration over
the “Hebrew Melodies.” It was this work that brought them together,
though they were contemporaries at Cambridge about 1805, Byron
being a student at Trinity College, and Nathan a pupil at Solomon
Lyon’s Jewish school in Cambridge town. But they naturally did not
become acquainted then. Douglas Kinnaird (according to Mr. Prothero)
introduced them to one another. Kinnaird was Byron’s banker and
Cambridge friend. This mention of Mr. Prothero reminds me that in his
edition of Byron’s Letters, he cites a note written by the poet to
thank Nathan for a “seasonable bequest” of a parcel of _matsos_. Byron
must have grown very attached to Nathan. An officious friend of the
poet exhorted the musician to bring the melodies out in good style, so
that his lordship’s name “might not suffer from scantiness in their
publication.” Byron overheard the remark, and on the following evening
said to Nathan: “Do not suffer that capricious fool to lead you into
more expense than is absolutely necessary; bring out the book to your
own taste. I have no ambition to gratify, beyond that of proving useful
to you.” The poet was, indeed, so indignant that he generously offered
to share in the cost of production, an offer which Nathan as generously
declined.
Readers of the “Hebrew Melodies” must have been struck by the
appearance of _two_ poems based on Psalm 137. Byron first wrote:
“We sate down and wept by the waters,” and later on another version
beginning: “In the valley of waters we wept.” Byron himself observed
the duplication, and wished to suppress the former copy. It is well
that he yielded to Nathan’s importunities, for the first version is
assuredly the finer. But the incident shows the close connection
between the verses and the music. For Byron ended the discussion with
these words: “I must confess I give a preference to my second version
of this elegy; and since your music differs so widely from the former,
I see no reason why it should not also make its public appearance.”
Such being the close bond between poet and musician, it is all the
more regrettable that the latter did not make a more competent use of
his opportunity. A better fate befell the earlier collaboration which
(in 1807) resulted in Thomas Moore’s “Irish Melodies”--a title which
suggested that given to Byron’s series. Stevenson served Moore better
than Nathan was able to serve Byron. Yet it seems a pity to leave
things in this condition. Such poems as those already alluded to--and
such others as “Saul,” the “Vision of Belshazzar,” and the “Destruction
of Sennacherib”--all bear the clearest marks of their design; they were
written to be sung, not merely to be read or recited. Jeffrey spoke
of their sweetness; Lytton of their depth of feeling; Nathan himself
realized that “Oh! weep for those” reaches the acme of emotional
sympathy for persecuted Israel. Here, then, there is a chance for a
modern Jewish musician. S. Mandelkern, in 1890, gave us a spirited
translation of the verses into the Hebrew language. Let a better artist
than Nathan now translate them musically into the Hebrew spirit.
COLERIDGE’S “TABLE TALK”
Coleridge was not master of his genius; his genius was master of
him. In one place he speaks of the midrashic fancies about the state
of our first parents as “Rabbinic dotages”; in another he laments,
with Schelling, that these same rabbinic stories are neglected, and
proceeds in his periodical, _The Friend_, to quote several with
obvious approval. Again, he writes in one passage of the “proverbial
misanthropy and bigotry” of Pharisaism; then, in another, he asserts,
on the authority of Grotius, that the “Lord’s Prayer” was a selection
from the liturgy of the Synagogue.
The truth is that a large part of Coleridge’s work is of the nature
of table talk. His relative indeed published the poet’s “Table Talk,”
but a good deal else in Coleridge belongs to the same category. His
thoughts are, for the most part, _obiter dicta_, stray jottings, often
stating profound truths, often expressing sheer nonsense. On the
whole, he was not unkind to the Jews. He delivered many lectures on
Shakespeare, but he never spoke on the _Merchant of Venice_. He alludes
with contempt to the incident of the pound of flesh. Jacob, it is
true, he regards as “a regular Jew” because of his trickiness; but he
hastens to take the sting out of the remark by adding: “No man could be
a bad man who loved as he loved Rachel.”
Throughout we find, in Coleridge’s remarks on the Jews and Judaism, the
same mixture of conventional views and original judgments. He notes the
theory that the Jews were destined to “remain a quiet light among the
nations for the purpose of pointing out the doctrine of the unity of
God,” but spoils the compliment by the comment: “The religion of the
Jew is, indeed, a light; but it is the light of the glow-worm, which
gives no heat, and illumines nothing but itself.” He can see in the Jew
only love of money, yet he always found Jews “possessed of a strong
national capacity for metaphysical discussions.”
The last remark points to his personal familiarity with Jews. This
was actually the case. “I have had,” he says, “a good deal to do with
Jews in the course of my life, although I never borrowed any money
from them.” He records several conversations with Jews, and does not
hesitate to admit that he mostly got the worst of the argument. He
argued with one Jew about conversion, and he cites the Jew’s answer:
“Let us convert Jews to Judaism first”--an epigram which has been a
good deal repeated in other forms since 1830, when Coleridge first
recorded it. On one occasion he accosted an “Old Clothes” man, and in
a hectoring tone exclaimed: “Why can’t you pronounce your trade cry
clearly, why must you utter such a grunt?” The Jew answered: “Sir, I
can say ‘Old Clothes’ as well as you can, but if you had to say it ten
times a minute, for an hour, you would say, ‘Ogh clo’’ as I do now,”
and so he marched off. Coleridge confesses that he “felt floored.” He
was so much confounded by the justice of his retort, that, to cite his
own words again: “I followed, and gave him a shilling, the only one I
had.”
Of one particular Jewish friend we know. Coleridge had a deep affection
for Hyman Hurwitz, whom he terms “pious, learned, strong-minded,
single-hearted.” Afterwards Professor of Hebrew at University College,
London, Hurwitz was, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the
head of the “Highgate Academy.” He died in 1844, surviving Coleridge
by ten years; the latter died at Highgate in 1834. Thus the poet and
the Hebraist were neighbors as well as friends. Coleridge translated
into poor English verse Hurwitz’s feeble Hebrew elegy on the death of
Princess Charlotte. He also contracted to prepare for the publisher,
Murray, a volume of “Rabbinical Tales”; in this work Hurwitz was to
collaborate with him. The fee was settled; it was to be two hundred
guineas; but the arrangement came to nothing. Coleridge was rich in
plans which he failed to accomplish. As an instance, let me cite what
he says about an epic on the “Destruction of Jerusalem.” “That,” he
declares, “is the only subject now remaining for an epic poem.” Mark
what follows: “I schemed it at twenty-five, but, alas! _venturum
expectat_.” Perhaps another remark of his explains why he never
attempted the task. The subject of the destruction of Jerusalem,
with great capabilities, has one great defect. “No genius or skill
could possibly preserve the interest for the hero being merged in the
interest for the event”--a profound sentiment.
Perhaps in no direction was Coleridge more in advance of his age than
in his treatment of the ethics of the Pharisees. The Pharisees were,
he contends truly, not a sect; they were, he puts it less aptly,
the _Evangelicals_ of their day. By that he means those who made
religion the main concern of life; therein he is right, but the term
is somewhat unhappily chosen. Yet not from one point of view. I have
already cited Coleridge’s opinion as to the Jewish sources of the
“Lord’s Prayer.” He takes up a similar position with regard to the
ethics of the Gospels in general. Here is a very remarkable concession:
“The Being and Providence of the Living God, holy, gracious, merciful,
the creator and preserver of all things, and a father of the righteous;
the Moral Law in its utmost height, breadth, and purity; a state of
retribution after death, the Resurrection of the Dead, and a Day of
Judgment--all these were known and received by the Jewish people, as
established articles of national faith, at or before the proclaiming
of Christ by the Baptist.” This is taken, not from the collection of
“Table Talk” so named, but from the “Aids to Reflection” (Aphorism
vii). Coleridge justifies his claim in behalf of the Jews by citing
Leviticus 19. 2 and Micah 6. 8, finding the acme of morality in the
command to be holy and in the prophet’s answer to the question, “What
doth the Lord require of thee?” Just so did Huxley choose Micah’s
saying: “To do justly, to love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God,”
as the last word of religion. To give the words of Huxley which cannot
be repeated too often: “If any so-called religion takes away from
this great saying of Micah, I think it wantonly mutilates, while if it
adds thereto, I think it obscures, the perfect idea of religion.” No
two minds were more unlike than Huxley’s and Coleridge’s--the one the
scientist, the other the metaphysician; the one the agnostic, the other
the mystic. Yet they agreed in perceiving in the prophetic teaching a
unique expression of basic moral truth.
BLANCO WHITE’S SONNET
Fear is natural by night. Man in the day-time is beset by foes; but
while he can use his eyes, he has a sense of security. Something he can
effect towards self-protection. But in the dark he feels helpless.
Hence it is natural that the Hebrew poets of the Midrash (on Psalm 92)
have used as a theme Adam’s first experience of the dark. There was no
darkness on the first Friday after Creation. The primeval light, which
illumined the world from end to end, was not quenched, though Adam had
already sinned before night-fall of the day on which he was born. But
the Sabbath came with the Friday’s close, and the celestial rays shone
on through the hours that should have been obscure. When, however, the
Sabbath had passed, the heavenly light passed with it, and Adam, to his
consternation, was unable to see. Would not the wily serpent choose
this as a favorable moment for insidious onslaught? Then the light that
failed in nature was kindled in man’s intellect. Adam, by the friction
of two stones, cleverly made artificial light, and so could see again.
So runs one form of the Jewish legend. Another (I am summarizing both
from Prof. Louis Ginzberg’s _Legends of the Jews_, vol. i, pp. 86-89)
expresses the thought differently. The primeval light does not figure
in this version, but it is the normal sun that sinks before Adam’s gaze
on the Saturday night. Adam was filled with compunction. “Woe is me!”,
he exclaimed, “I have sinned, and because of me is the world darkened;
because of me it will again return to a condition of chaos.” So he
passed the long vigil of the dark in tears, and Eve wept with him. But
with the day he dried his eyes. For he saw the sun rise once more, and
realized that the alternations of day and night were part of the divine
order of nature.
In both these fancies Adam is much disturbed by his first experience
of the dark, a guilty conscience made a coward of him. But not all
Hebrew homilists rested in this attitude of fear. The author of the
eighth Psalm is above all the poet of the night in its more uplifting
aspects. He sees not the terror, but the illumination of the dark. The
poet contemplates the heavens at night; he does not mention the sun,
but “the moon and the stars” which God has ordained. “Unquestionably,
the star-lit sky, especially in the transparent clearness of an Eastern
atmosphere, is more suggestive of the vastness and variety and mystery
of the universe.” So writes Dr. Kirkpatrick on Psalm 8. 3, and he
refers to an eloquent passage in Whewell’s _Astronomy_, Book III,
Chapter 3. Certainly those who have beheld the heavens on an Oriental
night can conceive nothing more glorious than the spectacle, nor recall
aught more wonderful than the Psalmist’s description of it.
It was left to the theologian Blanco White to combine the two thoughts
of fear and illumination, expressed in the Midrash quoted above and in
Psalm 8, into an exquisite Sonnet. The author’s name is queer enough.
But though Joseph Blanco White (1775-1841) was born in Seville, he
was an Irishman by descent. When the family settled in Spain, they
translated the patronymic White into Blanco. On his coming to England,
the theologian simply retained both forms of the name. As the writer in
the _Dictionary of National Biography_ recalls, Blanco White applied
to himself the lines which occur in _Richard II_, Act i, scene 3.
Norfolk, doomed to exile in a foreign land, thus laments his fate:
The language I have learn’d these forty years,
My native English, now I must forgo;
And now my tongue’s use is to me no more
Than an unstringèd viol or a harp.
Strange that this passage, of which only a small part has been here
quoted, has never been turned into Hebrew, with a change in one single
word of the second line, by a Zionist. Yet more strange that Blanco
White, who thus deplored the fact that his paternal English was not his
native speech, has given us one of the greatest poems in the English
language!
Mysterious Night! when our first parent knew
Thee, from report divine, and heard thy name,
Did he not tremble for this lovely Frame,
This glorious canopy of Light and Blue?
Yet ’neath a curtain of translucent dew,
Bathed in the rays of the great setting Flame,
Hesperus with the Host of Heaven came,
And lo! Creation widened in Man’s view.
Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed
Within thy beams, O sun! or who could find,
Whilst fly, and leaf, and insect stood revealed,
That to such countless Orbs thou mad’st us blind?
Why do we then shun Death with anxious strife?
If Light can thus deceive, wherefore not Life?
It is indeed an exquisite thought. First we have Adam’s fears as night
falls. Then we have the reply, the antidote. The sun really conceals.
Day shows us indeed insect and plant, but not the vast system of worlds
which fill the heavens. It is night that brings to view the amazing
extent of the stars, and unfolds the universe which the day had hidden.
So death may reveal much that life conceals.
Coleridge pronounced this “the finest and most grandly conceived Sonnet
in our language.” The praise is not exaggerated. Yet it was written by
one whose native tongue was Spanish, and who, though his career was
extraordinary enough, never wrote another line in prose or verse that
has lived. Single-speech Hamilton is joined in the realm of immortality
by Single-Sonnet White. Written about a century ago, it lives and
will go on living. As the writer from whom I drew the allusion to
Shakespeare remarks: “Probably Blanco White will continue to be known
by this Sonnet, when his other works, in spite of the real interest of
his views, have been forgotten.”
Great as the Sonnet is, it fails, however, to express the full
significance of the eighth Psalm. The mazes and the wonders of the
starry heaven above, unfolded as the sun sets by night, raise the
question “What is man?” that he should be of account when compared to
these stupendous forces of nature. Yet, crowned with glory and honor,
man is master of these forces. “The splendour of God set above the
heavens is reflected in His image, man, whom He has crowned as His
representative to rule over the earth” (Briggs). Contrasted though the
glories be, the glory of man as creature is related to the glory of God
as Creator.
DISRAELI’S “ALROY”
Benjamin Disraeli was one of the most truthful authors of the
nineteenth century. To confuse his bombast with pose is to
misunderstand him. When, therefore, he said of _Alroy_ that it
expressed his “ideal ambition,” there is no reason to doubt his
sincerity. Mr. Monypenny, whose judgment cannot be trusted in general,
was right when he fully accepted Disraeli’s statement on this point.
Mr. Lucien Wolf had previously shown (in the splendid preface to his
centenary edition of _Vivian Grey_) that “from start to finish, Lord
Beaconsfield’s novels are so many echoes and glimpses of the Greater
Romance of his own life.” Would that Mr. Wolf would give us an equally
fine edition of _Alroy_.
For _Alroy_ is a novel that deserves to live, and probably will live.
From the first it has been better liked by the public than by the
professional critics. Soon after the book first appeared in 1833,
Disraeli wrote to his sister that he heard good reports as to the
popularity of _Alroy_, and with characteristic “conceit,” some may
term it, though to others it appears more like “insight,” he added:
“I hear no complaints of its style, _except from the critics_.” Mr.
Monypenny has repeated the same critical objections to the style. But
such objections have no real basis. _Alroy_ often falls into rhythms
and even into rhymes. Why is this a defect in a prose work? Dickens
frequently followed the same method, and in sundry impressive passages
his sentences scan faultlessly. Are prose and verse so absolutely
divided from one another? If Molière’s bourgeois gentleman found that
he had been speaking prose all his life without knowing it, so do we
sometimes speak verse without being conscious of the fact. Do we not
all “drop into poetry” on occasion, in our ordinary speech in moments
of elevation? Moreover, the Oriental writers had created a form in
which prose and verse merge; and Disraeli, treating an Eastern theme,
might easily have justified his choice of this very form, beloved first
of the medieval Arabs, and then adopted by Hebrew contemporaries.
Then, as to the character of Alroy himself, Disraeli’s latest
biographer says: “The real David Alroy appears to have been little
better than a vulgar impostor, but Disraeli has idealised him into a
figure worthy to be compared with Judas Maccabæus.” Mr. Monypenny
borrowed this judgment (without acknowledgment) from the Rev. Michael
Adler’s able article in the _Jewish Encyclopedia_. I cannot myself
assent to this verdict, though I appreciate the grounds on which it
was reached. The whole thing turns on the application of the term
“Pseudo-Messiah” to such characters. Why call them _false_? There would
be sufficient reason for applying the epithet if we had the clearest
evidence that they were conscious rogues, exploiting their people’s
faith, and using their hope as a ladder towards personal ambition.
We do not know enough of Alroy to assert this of him. Was Disraeli
himself an impostor because he thought of himself as another redeemer
of Israel? There is little doubt that Alroy is drawn from Disraeli
himself, just as the Miriam of the story is modelled on the author’s
own sister. It is bad psychology to dub men of the Alroy type as
impostors. Mr. Zangwill, in his _Dreamers of the Ghetto_--to my mind
his most wonderful book--refuses to explain Sabbatai Zevi in this easy
fashion. Graetz naturally so explained him, but it was precisely in
such matters that Graetz was an unsafe guide. Are we to judge Messianic
claims on the same principles as men judge political upheavals?
Treason never prospers, and for this reason:
That when it prospers no one calls it treason.
Is an enthusiastic believer in himself, as the instrument of a great
emancipation, “pseudo” because he fails? Such explanations explain
nothing.
Whatever be the truth as to the original Alroy--and I repeat that
the historical sources give us inadequate information as to his
inner personality--there is no room for doubting the character of
Disraeli’s fictitious hero. Alroy is a thoroughly sincere portraiture.
Mr. Monypenny thought that the story “never really grips us.” It
depends on who the “us” are. A good many readers find George Eliot’s
_Daniel Deronda_ uninteresting. Yet _Daniel Deronda_ in Hebrew had a
considerable success. Despite its queer mixture of ill-digested lore
and of genuine material derived from what Disraeli termed the “erratic”
Talmud, _Alroy_ has a good deal of Jewish spirit in it. In the many
references to the poetical elements of Jewish life, the sentiment rings
true. This fact works backward. Whence did the novelist derive this
feeling for the beautiful in Judaism except from his father? Isaac
Disraeli presents himself to us as a rather unsympathetic student of
Judaism. In his books he shows knowledge, but no feeling for the
synagogue. It almost seems as though we do not see the real man in his
books, and yet, after all, it may be doubted whether Benjamin inherited
his Jewish idealism from his father. The latter did not at all approve
of his son’s Eastern journey. But Benjamin was consumed with the
desire to visit Jerusalem, and he realized this passionate longing in
1830-1. In later life he said that he had begun _Alroy_ before he left
England. In the preface to _Alroy_ he writes: “Being at Jerusalem in
the year 1831, and visiting the traditionary tombs of the Kings of
Israel, my thoughts recurred to a personage whose marvellous career
had, even in boyhood, attracted my attention, as one fraught with the
richest materials of poetic fiction. And I then commenced these pages
that should commemorate the name of ‘Alroy.’” I do not think that this
statement contradicts his later assertion. When he says: “I _then_
commenced,” he may well be referring to his “boyhood.”
Disraeli thoroughly enjoyed his stay in the Holy Land. He refused to
admit that Athens was more impressive than Jerusalem. “I will not place
this spectacle,” he exclaims of the site of the ancient temple, “below
the city of Minerva.” Perhaps the most arresting detail in _Alroy_ is
the thirty-fifth note--the notes to the book, after the manner of Sir
Walter Scott, are full of curious learning. He discusses the origin
of coffee, the habits of the marten-cat, the art and furniture of the
Orient, the sunset songs of Eastern maidens, the “Daughter of the
Voice,” the Persian hurling of the jerreeds (javelins) into the air,
the practice of the bastinado, the “golden wine” of Mount Lebanon, the
alleged playing of chess before the date of the Trojan War, screens
and fans made of the feathers of the roc, and the “tremulous aigrettes
of brilliants” worn by persons of the highest rank. In all these
directions Disraeli’s learning and fancy run riot, and the result,
sometimes as grotesque as a nightmare, is often successful in producing
the required effect. But this thirty-fifth entry strikes a more
personal note. Let us read it in his own words, remembering, however,
that the Mosque of Omar was certainly in existence in Alroy’s day: “The
finest view of Jerusalem is from the Mount of Olives. It is little
altered since the period when David Alroy is supposed to have gazed
upon it; but it is enriched by the splendid Mosque of Omar, built by
the Moslem conquerors on the supposed site of the Temple, and which,
with its gardens, and arcades, and courts, and fountains, may fairly be
described as the most imposing of Moslem fanes. _I endeavored to enter
it at the hazard of my life._ I was detected and surrounded by a crowd
of turbaned fanatics, and escaped with difficulty; but I saw enough to
feel that minute inspection would not belie the general character I
formed from it from the Mount of Olives. I caught a glorious glimpse of
splendid courts, and light airy gates of Saracenic triumph, flights of
noble steps, long arcades, and interior gardens, where silver fountains
spouted their tall streams amid the taller cypresses.”
Here we, too, have a “glorious glimpse” into one-half of the real
Disraeli--here and in _Tancred_; for the other half we must study his
political novels. _Vivian Grey_, so Disraeli himself said, expressed
his “practical,” as _Alroy_ expressed his “ideal,” ambition. And one
final word. I have said nothing of the plot of _Alroy_. I assume it to
be familiar to my readers. If it be not, they can easily make good the
omission. I have no fear that this story of a twelfth century--shall
I call him “hero” or “impostor”?--will fail to grip. For it is more
than a story, it is--to use that over-worked phrase--also a “human
document.”
ROBERT GRANT’S “SACRED POEMS”
When Gibbon wrote the famous fiftieth chapter of the _Decline and
Fall_, he was suspected of being a Mohammedan, because he dealt
leniently with the Arab religion. Edwin Arnold was half believed to be
a Buddhist, because his _Light of Asia_ idealized the saint of India.
But Robert Grant was never called a Jew, despite the fact that he was
the champion of Jewish rights in Parliament. Grant was too genuine a
Christian for anyone to doubt his orthodoxy. The same man who brought
in the 1830 Bill to remove Jewish political disabilities was the author
of some of the most popular hymns of the Church.
Yet, as though to show the Hebrew spirit of this non-Hebraic friend
of the Hebrews, the best of his poems were written on Hebrew themes.
Sir Robert Grant died in India in 1838; he had gone out as governor of
Bombay. In the following year, his brother, Lord Glenelg, published
Grant’s _Sacred Poems_. It was a small book, containing in all only a
dozen items. But it had a great vogue, and some of the poems found a
place “in almost every collection of devotional verse,” as the children
of the author proudly claim in the preface to the 1868 edition. Grant
would have been especially gratified, one may feel certain, had he been
able to anticipate that his translation of parts of Psalm 104 would be
adopted in such Jewish compilations as the Services for Children drawn
up for use in the New West End Synagogue, London.
A charming poem did Grant write on the text: “Whom have I in heaven but
Thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire in comparison of Thee”
(Psalm 73. 25). Earth is beautiful with its “woods that wave,” its
“hills that tower,” and “Ocean rolling in his power”; human friendship
is a “gem transcending price,” while love is a “flower from Paradise,”
Yet, amidst this scene so fair,
Should I cease Thy smile to share,
What were all its joys to me?
Whom have I on earth but Thee?
And so with heaven, where “beyond our sight,” there “rolls a world of
purer light,” with its unclouded bliss, its union of severed hearts,
where “immortal music rings” from “unnumbered seraph strings.”
O! that world is passing fair;
Yet if Thou wert absent there,
What were all its joys to me?
Whom have I in heaven but Thee?
The poem might have closed there, perhaps a stronger writer would have
suppressed the thin stanza. But while it detracts from the virility of
the verses, it adds measurably to their tenderness.
Lord of earth and heaven! my breast
Seeks in Thee its only rest;
I was lost, Thy accents mild
Homeward lur’d Thy wandering child;
I was blind; Thy healing ray
Charm’d the long eclipse away;
Source of every joy I know,
Solace of my every woe,
O if once Thy smile divine
Ceas’d upon my soul to shine,
What were earth or heaven to me?
What have I in each but Thee?
Almost as good in idea, though not so perfect in form, is Grant’s set
of verses on Psalm 94. 12: “Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest.”
Enchanted with all that was dazzling and fair,
I followed the rainbow--I caught at the toy;
And still in displeasure Thy goodness was there,
Disappointing the hope, and defeating the joy.
The divine goodness is seen in man’s disappointments, when the
fulfilment of hope would have been loss, not gain.
On the whole, however, Grant is less successful when writing to a text
than when paraphrasing a context. His renderings of certain Psalms
are among the best attempts of the kind. This praise applies to his
version of Psalm 49; less unreservedly to his adaptation of Psalm
2. In rendering Psalm 71, Grant gave sentiment too loose a rein.
Addison had translated the opening verses of Psalm 19, beginning “The
spacious firmament on high.” Grant composed what he called “a sequel
or counterpart” to Addison’s hymn, corresponding to the latter portion
of Psalm 19 as Addison’s fragment corresponds to the earlier portion.
Grant’s supplement ends thus:
Almighty Lord! the sun shall fail,
The moon forget her nightly tale,
And deepest silence hush on high
The radiant chorus of the sky;
But, fixed for everlasting years,
Unmoved amid the wreck of spheres,
Thy word shall shine in cloudless day,
When heaven and earth have passed away.
This is fine, but Grant here hardly bears comparison with Addison: it
is the fate of sequels to prove inferior to their forerunners. There is
nothing in Grant’s version to equal Addison’s close, where the sun,
moon, and stars are
Forever singing as they shine,
“The hand that made us is divine.”
On the other hand, Grant falls very little below Milton in his
imitation of part of Psalm 84. I must find room to quote it in full.
How deep the joy, Almighty Lord,
Thy altars to the heart afford!
With envying eyes I see
The swallow fly to nestle there,
And find within the house of prayer
A bliss denied to me!
Compelled by day to roam for food
Where scorching suns or tempests rude
Their angry influence fling,
O, gladly in that sheltered nest
She smooths, at eve, her ruffled breast,
And folds her weary wing.
Thrice happy wand’rer! fain would I,
Like thee, from ruder climates fly,
That seat of rest to share;
Opprest with tumult, sick with wrongs,
How oft my fainting spirit longs
To lay its sorrows there!
Oh! ever on that holy ground
The cov’ring cherub Peace is found,
With brooding wings serene;
And Charity’s seraphic glow,
And gleams of glory that foreshow
A higher, brighter scene.
For even that refuge but bestows
A transient tho’ a sweet repose,
For one short hour allowed;--
Then upwards we shall take our flight
To hail a spring without a blight,
A heaven without a cloud!
Had Grant ever studied rabbinic commentaries? For this is the very use
made of the eighty-fourth Psalm in the Midrash. The earthly pilgrimage
leads to the heavenly Zion.
I have used for this poem space which some readers may have expected me
to reserve for the best of all of Grant’s renderings, that of portions
of Psalm 104. In this Grant not only does not fall below the greatest
of his predecessors--Henry Vaughan--but he transcends even that
master’s work. It is true that Vaughan renders the whole of this long
Psalm literally, whereas Grant merely paraphrases a few verses. But
none the less, Grant’s “O Worship the King” is a superb reproduction of
the Psalmist’s spirit. As not uncommonly happens with Grant, he falls
off towards the end, and his sixth verse is nowadays justly deleted
when the rendering is used liturgically. Nothing, however, could be
more exquisite than these stanzas:
The earth with its store
Of wonders untold,
Almighty! Thy power
Hath founded of old:
Hath ’stablished it fast
By a changeless decree,
And round it hath cast,
Like a mantle, the sea.
Thy bountiful care
What tongue can recite?
It breathes in the air,
It shines in the light;
It streams from the hills,
It descends to the plains,
And sweetly distils
In the dew and the rain.
One wonders at his versatility. He could draft a bill for parliament
deftly, and then indite such verses as those quoted. There is, indeed,
something akin to the Hebrew genius in the English. For David, too,
could govern, and in the intervals of ruling meditate the Psalms which
make so eternal an appeal. On Robert Grant, the advocate of Jewish
rights, there had, indeed, fallen a portion of the Davidic spirit.
GUTZKOW’S “URIEL ACOSTA”
Twice within my recollection there were hopes of the production
of _Uriel Acosta_ on the English stage. Soon after Sir Hall Caine
published the _Scapegoat_--that noblest of recent tales with a “Jewish”
plot--Sir Herbert Tree was present with the novelist at a Maccabean
banquet. On that occasion Sir Herbert, adopting a suggestion of my own,
announced that he had proposed to Mr. Zangwill the office of preparing
_Uriel Acosta_ for His Majesty’s Theatre. Nothing has come of it. Some
years before, that competent actor, Mr. A. Bandmann, was lessee of the
Lyceum for a time. He had often played the part of Uriel in Germany
with success, and he had an English version made. It was not performed,
but the plan was so far fruitful that Mr. H. Spicer’s adaptation was
published.
It is a workmanlike but undistinguished rendering. It introduces
mistakes for which Gutzkow is guiltless (such as the barbarism
_Sanhedrim_), and it omits points which make up Gutzkow’s merit.
Curious, for instance, is it that the English version should obscure
the line which so lingers in the mind of the reader of the original,
the line in fact most often quoted of everything that Gutzkow wrote.
I refer, of course, to the old Rabbi’s constant comment on Uriel’s
heresies. These, urged the Rabbi, are as old as old; it has all
happened before (“Alles ist schon einmal dagewesen”). It is a striking
variant on Solomon’s epigram, “there is nothing new under the sun”
(Ecclesiastes I. 9), and it drones through the recantation scene with
fine dramatic effect. Far superior to this English version is the
Hebrew rendering published by Salomo Rubin in 1856.
The actual facts about Uriel Acosta are soon told. His was an
arresting personality, but his importance has been much overrated.
Acosta would have been deservedly forgotten but for the similarity
between his career and that of another Amsterdam Jew of the same
period--Baruch Spinoza. Both came into conflict with the synagogue,
both were excommunicated. But there the resemblance ends. In Gutzkow’s
play, Uriel proclaims himself sufficient unto himself (“Mir selber
bin ich eine ganze Welt”). This is just what Spinoza was, just what
Uriel was not. Gutzkow represents Uriel as a youth at the time of
his suicide. But he was certainly over fifty, and more probably was
nearer sixty. He shot himself in 1647; and as it appears that he was
born in Oporto in 1590, he must have been fifty-seven at the moment of
his tragic end. Uriel (or Gabriel as he was then named) was the scion
of a Marano family, and in 1617 contrived to escape to Holland, where
he resumed Judaism. But he was no more contented with his ancestral
religion than he had been with the creed to which he had compulsorily
conformed. He advocated a purely deistic philosophy, was excommunicated
by the synagogue, recanted, again defied the authorities, was again
excommunicated, and finally underwent the degradation of a public
penance, after which he put an end to his troubled life. Uriel’s
misfortune was that, though, like Spinoza, he was unable to go with the
mass in its beliefs, yet unlike Spinoza, he was unable to stand alone.
Gutzkow was attracted to the subject by his own devotion to freedom.
In the stormy movements which culminated in the outbreaks of 1848,
Gutzkow was directly implicated. He was born in 1811, and, when barely
twenty, suffered imprisonment as a leader of the “Young Germany”
party. Besides, Gutzkow had many close Jewish friends, among them
Berthold Auerbach, who, perhaps, introduced Uriel Acosta to his
notice. When Gutzkow wrote his play on the subject, Europe was on the
eve of revolution. It is significant, in face of the anti-Semitism
which really originated on the failure of the Liberals, that Gutzkow
selected, in 1847, a Jewish _mis-en-scène_, in order to depict the
struggle between the old order and the new. And it is impossible to
refuse admiration to the insight and skill which enable the author,
while obviously sympathizing with the new, to treat the old with
justice and even with tenderness. The characters are all types.
Menasseh, father of Judith, is the fair-dealing merchant, accepting the
current religion of his people without enthusiasm for or against its
demands. Judith, the heroine, more or less betrothed to Jochai, the
villain of the piece, is vaguely susceptible to the newer ideas of her
tutor and lover Uriel. Jochai is a rather conventionally drawn rascal.
But the strength of the play is the contrast, on the one hand, between
Uriel and the Rabbis, and, on the other, between the various schools
of Rabbis among themselves. Da Silva has the tolerance of uncertainty
as to his own position, Akiba has the broad generosity which comes
from confidence in his old-world loyalty. The scenes between Uriel
and Silva, and between the former and Akiba would make a success on
any stage. “May you never repent of this repentance,” cries Da Silva
to Akiba when there is talk of Uriel’s recantation. There is strong
emotional interest in this recantation. Shall Uriel recant for Judith’s
sake? Hardly. But he cannot resist the appeal of his blind mother. “I
tremble before thy sightless eyes; shut thine eyes, mother! Yea, I will
do it.”
The close is tragic. Both Judith and Uriel perish at their own hands.
But the tragedy did not end there. Mention has been made of Da Silva.
If Uriel is the counterpart of the talmudic arch-heretic, Elisha ben
Abuyah, then is Da Silva the reincarnation of Elisha’s contemporary
Meir. Who has not wept over the heart friendship but mind estrangement
of these two men? Da Silva stands in the same relation to Uriel. He
hates the heresy, but loves the heretic. Uriel himself uses words which
sum up the situation. “Love or Truth? What if the heart be wiser than
the mind?” Spinoza (who was really fifteen years of age when Uriel
died) flits across the scene as a little boy, strewing flowers and
wondering why people wonder at his childish thoughts. Uriel bids him
“Keep thy soul’s secret and so find peace.” This is perhaps the most
tragic incident in the play, though the dramatist contrives to relieve
the tension by the simple beauty of the Spinoza interlude.
Still, however, the whole of the tragedy has not yet been told. For
Hermann Jellinek has not yet been named. Indeed, _three_ remarkable
Jellinek brothers now come on the scene. In 1847 two little works
appeared on Gutzkow’s _Uriel_. The one (_Elischa ben Abuya_) was
written by Adolf Jellinek, then the youthful preacher of Leipzig,
afterwards the famous pulpit orator of Vienna. The other was _Uriel
Acosta’s Leben und Lehre_, and its author was Hermann Jellinek (younger
than Adolf by a couple of years). The booklet was inscribed to a
third brother, Moritz. Now Hermann Jellinek was roused to a heated
indignation by Gutzkow’s “fictions” about Uriel. Uriel was no lovelorn
boy, but a middle-aged philosopher; he died not for loss of Judith, but
as a martyr to truth. Hermann Jellinek in so many words sees his own
prototype in Acosta; less than a year later he at all events shared
his hero’s tragic end; but under more dignified circumstances. What
the historical Uriel Acosta lacked, Hermann Jellinek possessed in over
measure--the quality of determination. Hermann was a revolutionary,
and took part in the Viennese rising of 1848, being twenty-six at the
time. He does not seem to have actually resisted the troops, but he was
court-martialled, and sentenced to death. His friends made every effort
to save him, but he was relentless. Nothing could move him to present
a conciliatory front to the authorities. In this at least he could be
no Uriel! Recant? No! “Shoot me,” he cried, “but ideas cannot be shot.”
They shot him, and his ideas may be found in two or three volumes, of
which dusty copies occur in a few libraries. I have some of them on my
table as I write. It is not easy to say which is the greater tragedy,
Acosta’s or Jellinek’s; but for the moment at least let Jellinek have
his way. For an hour we have resurrected, if not his ideas, at all
events his name.
GRACE AGUILAR’S “SPIRIT OF JUDAISM”
Known to the many for her novels, Grace Aguilar is known to the few
for her _Spirit of Judaism_. The book passed through a real adventure,
quite as exciting as the fictional fortunes of any of her romantic
heroes. Somewhat before 1840, Miss Aguilar wrote to Isaac Leeser,
of Philadelphia. She had, in 1839, read the Rabbi’s first published
sermons--his Bible was yet to come. She asked him “to undertake the
editorial supervision of her manuscript work on the _Spirit_ of our
religion.” Leeser courteously responded to the request. “I shall
readily be believed,” he wrote in 1842, “that I felt truly happy that
such a demand had been made upon me; and I accordingly offered my
services to do as I was desired.” Miss Aguilar completed the book,
but chance decreed that it was not to reach its goal. She sent it
out to America “through a private channel,” and it never came to
Leeser’s hands. Such a mishap did not thwart so ardent and industrious
a girl--she was not much over twenty at the time. She accordingly
proceeded to re-write it “from her original sketches,” made in 1837. On
the second occasion fortune was more kind, though the book encountered
some further delays before it appeared, in 1842, in America.
A second edition--much inferior from the point of view of “get-up”--was
published in 1849, again in Philadelphia. The second issue was No. xiii
of the _Jewish Miscellany_ of the original Jewish Publication Society.
The book was never printed in England. My own introduction to it was
curiously made. Being deeply interested in the new plans for teaching
Hebrew, I wrote (in 1903), a preface to a book on the Yellin method.
I showed the proof of my essay to the late Rev. S. Singer, whereupon
he remarked: “Grace Aguilar said much the same thing more than half
a century ago.” And so, indeed, she did. She saw that Hebrew must be
taught naturally, that the language must be made to “engage a child’s
fancy,” by first of all introducing to it familiar Hebrew words from
the child’s every-day life. Glad was I to find this anticipation of
modern opinion, and I cited it fully.
[Illustration: GRACE AGUILAR]
From that time I have, for other reasons, grown very fond of the
book--of which I possess the 1849 reprint. It is so delightfully
fresh and young, so confident and enthusiastic. Moreover, there
is something entertaining in Leeser’s conception of his editorial
function. Not that he could well help himself. He was almost compelled
to apply a wet blanket to her fire. She had expressly invited him to
confine himself to removing obscurities and appending the necessary
notes. “The chief point of difference between Miss Aguilar and myself,”
says Leeser, “are her seeming aversion to the _tradition_, and her
idea that the mere teaching of formal religion opens the door to the
admission of Christianity.” On the second point, Leeser’s answer is
effective. If, through unintelligent teaching, ceremonial religion
degenerates into a burden, then the outcome is more likely to be
disregard for the old than regard for a new faith. “Indifference is
a far greater enemy to us than conversion,” said Leeser in 1842, and
assuredly we can use identical words now. It is not so clear, however,
that Leeser was equally successful in meeting Miss Aguilar on the
problem of tradition. She was very emphatic in her desire to base
Judaism on the Bible, but she was only verbally, not spiritually, a
Karaite. She often uses the very language of tradition, and in one
place says: “The religion of no Hebrew is perfect, unless the form be
hallowed by the spirit, the spirit quickened by the form. The heart
must be wholly given to the Lord, yet still the instituted form must be
obeyed.” Miss Aguilar probably objected to the minutiae of pietism--in
the ritual sense--when she spoke of tradition; she had no philosophical
conception of it. Leeser could hardly be expected to set her right; he
was as little of a mystic as she was.
No doubt, however, she was to this extent an anti-traditionalist that
she thought the Bible in itself an all-sufficient basis for Judaism.
Her book is cast in the form of a commentary on the Shema--in fact,
it is called “Shema Israel, the Spirit of Judaism.” She begins by
expounding the unity of God; she shows that it is the real difference
between Synagogue and Church; and then ends her chapter with a
passionate plea for friendly intercourse between Jew and Christian on
the basis of frank and unashamed profession of Judaism by the former.
She was absolutely right. It is not merely the only honest, it is also
the only stable basis for such intercourse.
To Grace Aguilar, Moses was “the mouth of God” (that is her own
phrase). There is nothing between a theory of verbal inspiration and
the belief that Moses “invented” and “presumed on the ignorance and
superstition of the rescued nation.” With a feminine love of italics
she contends that “we _must_ believe God framed _every law_ mentioned
in the Mosaic books or _none_.” How crude this sounds! On the one hand,
it cuts off all thought of inspiration before Moses, on the other, all
thought of it after the close of the scriptural canon. It would have
seemed to her almost blasphemous to regard Hillel as animated with the
same spirit of God that moved Haggai. She dismisses the “Oral Law” in
an aside. “The Bible is the foundation of religion.” Miss Aguilar goes
on to complain that English Bibles were not found in Jewish homes.
But the explanation is easy. In those days it was impossible to find
an acceptable English Bible for Jewish use. The Authorized Version
was marred not only by Christological renderings, but also by the
Christological insertions of the headings to the chapters. Before the
publication of the Revised Version it had become possible to obtain an
Anglican edition without the headings. But I doubt whether that was
the case so early as 1842. Moreover, Jews have always been slow to
acknowledge that the _Hebrew_ Bible was insufficient. There was much
that is creditable in this reluctance to face facts; though there was
also much that was dangerous.
It is impossible to do justice in a brief article to the intense love
of Judaism shown in Miss Aguilar’s book. She pleads for the religion
with persuasive eloquence; it must appeal to the heart and the reason;
it must permeate the home; it must regulate life. She would have family
prayers daily. To this topic she returns over and over again. “The
youthful members of a little domestic congregation would look back with
warm emotion, in after years, to that period when, with their brothers
and sisters, they thronged around their parents to listen to the word
of God, and made known their common wants together.” But the thought
that dominates her whole book is the perfect truth and sufficiency of
Judaism. It only needs to be known to be preferred to every possible
alternative. No Jew can ever become lukewarm if he understands his
religion. But he must understand its spirit. “We know that they who
depart from the faith of their fathers are ever those reared in the
severest obedience to mere forms.” Whereupon Leeser in his note
comments: “This is certainly a sweeping clause though there is a great
deal of truth in it.” He adds that the fault “does not lie in the
_forms_, but in the absence of _spiritual_ education.” That is clearly
the reason why Miss Aguilar called her book “The Spirit of Judaism.”
She was no foe to forms as such. She strongly defends the dietary laws,
in the very chapter whence the last quotation was taken. _Obedience_
is the term writ large on every page; but so is _belief_. When Judaism
is believed in and obeyed, then will redemption be nigh, release from
captivity at hand, and the advent of the Messiah approaching. But how
movingly she says it in her own fiery words!
ISAAC LEESER’S BIBLE
The twenty years around the middle of the nineteenth century witnessed
the preparation of several Jewish translations of the Bible. Moses
Mendelssohn had shown the way in the previous century; he did not,
however, produce a _complete_ German Bible. This was done with success
by a body of scholars led by Zunz (Berlin, 1838). Ludwig Philippson,
in the very next year, began an enterprise the accomplishment of which
occupied him till 1856. His edition was not only annotated; it was also
adorned with illustrations. In 1875 the Philippson Bible came out anew
with the Doré pictures.
[Illustration: ISAAC LEESER
(From a Painting by Solomon Nunez de Carvalho)]
As for English versions by Jews, David Levi edited the Pentateuch
in 1787. But, to pass over certain publications of separate books,
no complete Bible appeared in England from a Jewish hand until the
issue of Benisch’s version (1851-56). This was a melancholy affair.
Real and original scholarship is shown in every page. He claimed for
his rendering “fidelity, uniformity and independence.” But he had no
sense for English style. He unnecessarily and grotesquely altered
the familiar words of the Authorized Version. Hence, one is bound to
speak of this monument of learning and earnestness as “melancholy”;
it might so easily have been acceptable. His corrections of the
Authorized were often necessary. Thus, in the Ten Commandments he
rightly put “Thou shalt not murder” for the current “Thou shalt not
kill.” The Revised Version made the same correction. So, too, he was
right when, for historical reasons, he made a change in Leviticus 23.
15. In the Authorized Version this runs: “And ye shall count unto
you from the morrow after the Sabbath.” But by the Jewish tradition
the Feast of Weeks is not counted from a Saturday but from the first
day of Passover--on whatever day that happens to fall. Hence Benisch
substituted: “And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after _the
day of rest_.” Naturally, too, he corrected certain dogmatic prejudices
of the Anglican Version.
Curiously enough, Isaac Leeser leaves “Thou shalt not kill”
uncorrected. But he was vigilant with “the morrow after the Sabbath,”
for which he substitutes “the morrow after the holy day.” On the other
hand, he retained the word “Sabbath” (where the Hebrew has _Shabbaton_)
applied to the first and eighth days of Tabernacle, _e. g._,
Leviticus 23. 39. This, however, he altered in his later editions to
_a rest_; Benisch has _strict rest_. The Revised Version has a similar
correction: _solemn rest_.
It is not my purpose to compare Leeser’s Version with others. From the
hour when his “Law of God” appeared in Philadelphia, in 1845, Leeser’s
Pentateuch won the affectionate regard of American Jews. The Pentateuch
was issued in octavo, in Hebrew and English; the whole of the Bible
came out in quarto, in English alone, towards the end of 1853. From
that time it has been often reprinted in varying forms, simply and
in editions _de luxe_. But it is not the printers who made the book
popular, though I must remark that, despite the small public support
the enterprise secured, the 1845 Leeser Pentateuch is a beautiful
specimen of the printer’s art. What made the book was the people’s
growing love for Leeser. Can higher praise be given, can a finer fate
be wished, than that a man’s book shall live in his brethren’s hearts
because of him?
This is not the time to criticise Leeser’s work. Like Benisch, he had
no feeling for English style. He could, in the twenty-third Psalm,
alter the wonderful melody of “He maketh me to lie down in green
pastures,” into “In pastures of tender grass he causeth me to lie
down.” He could take the haunting rhythm of Job’s “There the wicked
cease from troubling, there the weary are at rest,” and give us “and
where the exhausted weary are at rest,” which is no nearer the literal
Hebrew (“the wearied in strength”), and is incomparably farther from
its beauty. Or again, the felicitous opening lines of the nineteenth
Psalm, “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth
his handiwork,” become in Leeser “The heavens relate the glory of
God; and the expanse telleth of the works of his hands.” It is this
more than anything else that made it impossible for English Jews to
use Leeser’s Bible. Revision of Leeser on scholarly grounds was also
necessary, no doubt. Thus, in his rendering of Esther 6. 8, where Haman
suggests the details of the pageant in behalf of the man whom the king
delighteth (why did Leeser substitute _desireth_?) to honor, Leeser
has: “Let them bring a royal apparel which the king hath worn, and a
horse on which the king hath ridden, and let there be placed a royal
crown on his head.” But, as Ibn Ezra had in part already pointed out
(as Leeser notes), and as we know to be almost certainly the case, the
crown was for the _horse’s_ head. In the Revised Version the passage
runs: “Let royal apparel be brought which the king useth to wear, and
the horse that the king rideth upon, and on the head of which a royal
crown is set.”
Naturally, in what precedes I have turned to familiar passages. My
comments only touch the fringe of the problem of Bible revision. In
one important particular, Leeser anticipated the Revised Version: he
arranged the English in paragraphs and not in verses. Since Leeser’s
day, however, not only have we learned more as to the precise meaning
of words, but we have won a closer insight into the idiomatic use
of the Hebrew tenses. The American revision, now issued under the
auspices of the American Jewish Publication Society, has given us at
once a scholarly translation, and one which remains true to the English
excellences of the version made in the reign of King James.
Leeser’s Bible, therefore, is more or less doomed, It cannot but
pass out of general use. But it can never pass out of our esteem and
affection. Leeser, though he indignantly repudiated sectarian bias, did
not translate the Bible as an exercise in scholarship. He belonged
to those who believed in the Bible. Quite naively he tells us in
his Preface (dated September 20, 1853) that he is “an Israelite in
faith, in the full sense of the word; he believes in the Scriptures
as they have been handed down to us; in the truth and authenticity of
prophecies and their ultimate literal fulfilment.” Nor did he think
that the age of miracles was past. He admitted that there were sources
of information which he had not consulted when preparing his Bible.
But he had done his best, and felt that he was therefore working with
a hand stronger than his own. “I thought, in all due humility, that I
might safely go to the task, confidently relying upon that superior
aid which is never withheld from the inquirer after truth.” What a
combination of sophistication and simplicity we have here! In the
mid-nineteenth century such a union of rationalism and faith was rare;
it is growing rarer every day. We shall soon be thinking of putting
Isaac Leeser’s memory in a museum of Jewish antiquities as a specimen
of a lost type.
LANDOR’S “ALFIERI AND SALOMON”
There is only one Jew in Landor’s long series of _Imaginary
Conversations_, and he was, most probably, an invention of the
author’s. “Salomon the Florentine Jew,” who discourses in Landor’s
pages with Count Vittorio Alfieri, never existed; at all events he is
not identifiable. There is no mention of such a person in Alfieri’s
autobiography; so Landor’s editor--Mr. C. G. Crump--is careful to point
out. Still, Landor (1775-1864) spent several years in Florence, and it
is possible that he heard of some Jewish worthy whom he used for the
purpose of his dialogue.
Landor treats his solitary Jewish character with courtesy. “You are
the only man in Florence with whom I would willingly exchange a
salutation,” says Alfieri at the opening of the conversation. Salomon
expresses himself as highly flattered. The actual dialogue is not one
of Landor’s best, unless it be for its recognition of the sterling
quality of the English middle-class. “It is among those who stand
between the peerage and the people that there exists a greater mass
of virtue and of wisdom than in the rest of Europe.” The historical
Alfieri found himself out of sympathy both with kings and with the
French Revolution which destroyed kingship. It was a happy touch of
Landor’s, therefore, to put into Alfieri’s mouth the praise of the
class which stood between royalty and the masses.
But _Alfieri and Salomon_ is hardly a successful work of art. It has
neither the romantic beauty of Landor’s _Aesop and Rhodope_, nor the
dramatic interest of his _Hannibal and Marcellus_. Naturally, however,
it has some good epigrams. “A poet can never be an atheist,” says
Landor’s Alfieri. He calls on God to confound the fools who always
eulogize the least praiseworthy of princes because, he complains, “the
rascals have ruined my physiognomy; I wear an habitual sneer upon my
face.” How many a genius has been made similarly disagreeable because
he could not suffer fools gladly! Very true again is Alfieri’s paradox
that the gravest people are the wittiest. “Few men have been graver
than Pascal, few have been wittier.” Had Landor’s Florentine Salomon
been a real Jew, he could have capped Alfieri’s citation of Pascal
by referring to many a Jewish instance, among them Abraham Ibn Ezra.
On the contrary, Salomon disputes the truth of Alfieri’s statement.
Landor is fond of national generalizations. “Not a single man of genius
hath ever appeared in the whole extent of Austria,” he makes Salomon
say; while Alfieri asserts that “the Spaniards have no palate, the
Italians no scent, the French no ear.” Fortunately it did not occur
to Landor to sum up the Jews in an epigram. He retained, however, the
eighteenth century tolerance, and might have been lenient. The only
thing he thoroughly detested was priest-craft, fanaticism. His Salomon
confesses that “theology is without attraction” for him, and the saying
came from Landor’s heart.
There is not much of the Jew in Salomon. He might have been any
cultured contemporary of Alfieri. At one point, however, he refuses to
hazard a word as to certain clerics, while Alfieri freely judges and
condemns them. “The people who would laugh with you, would stone me,”
says Salomon. Was this really true of the end of the eighteenth century
in Italy? I doubt it. Landor is no true guide to the opinions of his
age. To continue. Landor’s Salomon speaks of Florence as his native
city; he knows it and its extraordinary story in every detail; he
discusses its men of genius, though he admits: “My ignorance of Greek
forbids me to compare our Dante with Homer.” Salomon is through and
through Italian. Perhaps Landor meant to depict him as a Jew by putting
into his mouth a good anecdote:
A sailor found upon the shore a piece of amber; he carried it home,
and, as he was fond of fiddling, began to rub it across the strings of
his violin. It would not answer. He then broke some pieces off, boiled
them in blacking, and found to his surprise and disquiet that it gave
no fresh lustre to the shoe-leather. ‘What are you about?’ cried a
messmate. ‘Smell it, man; it is amber.’ ‘The devil take it,’ cried the
finder, ‘I fancied it was resin’; and he threw it into the sea. We
despise what we cannot use.
There is one touch in _Alfieri and Salomon_ which makes it look as
though the latter were a real personage. Salomon urges Alfieri to
ignore his detractors and inferiors, and to be assured that, though his
contemporaries might belittle him, posterity would be more appreciative.
_Salomon_: All the present race of them, all the creatures in the
world which excite your indignation, will lie in the grave, while
young and old are clapping their hands or beating their bosoms at your
_Bruto Primo_....
_Alfieri_: I believe, sir, you were the first in commending my
tragedies.
_Salomon_: He who first praises a good book becomingly is next in
merit to the author.
That sentence, “you were the first in commending my tragedies,” has a
genuine ring, it is life-like. Had Landor any real ground for believing
that a certain Florentine Jew named Salomon or Solomon was the first
to recognize Alfieri’s genius for tragedy? It is an interesting fact,
if it be a fact. Even so, it has its curious side. Alfieri (1749-1803)
was a prolific writer of plays, but the best of his tragedies--and
his tragedies as a whole were superior to his comedies--was not his
_Brutus_. It is queer that the Jew should forget which was the best. It
was certainly Alfieri’s _Saul_, published in October, 1784. It won more
success than any other of his dramas. His “severe and unadorned manner”
was peculiarly adapted to the rugged simplicity of the characters which
are presented in _Saul_. The drama deals with the last day of the king,
the scene being laid in the Israelite camp on mount Gilboa. There are
only six characters: Saul, Gionata (Jonathan), David, Micol, Abner,
Achimelech, with stage armies of “soldati israeliti” and “soldati
filistei.” Apart from the subtle contrasts between David the warrior
and David the minstrel, the finest thing in the play is the management
of Saul’s insanity. Indeed, it has been truly said of Alfieri: “In
the representation of that species of mental alienation, where the
judgment has perished but traces of character still remain, he is
peculiarly happy.”
Another poet who was in Florence with Landor also chose the subject
of Saul for one of his most dramatic efforts. I refer to Robert
Browning, who had intellectually much in common with Landor, though
his temperament and philosophy of life were quite other. Landor
ignored Alfieri’s _Saul_, Browning imitated it. Earlier, in 1820,
Joseph Ephrathi, no doubt instigated by Alfieri’s success, produced
a Hebrew drama with Saul as hero. Gutzkow later on wrote a tragedy
on the subject. Another who treated of the topic was Byron. He had
no likeness to Landor, but was not dissimilar to Alfieri; both were
aristocrats, both pretended to cynicism, both were versatile authors,
both squanderers of a great opportunity. It is strange that it was left
to Alfieri to detect the dramatic possibilities in the tragedy of Saul.
Handel’s exploitation of the theme was, naturally, musical rather than
dramatic. In the new freedom of the English stage we shall, no doubt,
soon have plays and to spare on the subject. Landor, as we have seen,
makes no use whatever of biblical personages for his dialogues. But
English poetry has not done ill with Saul’s memory. Sir Philip Sydney,
or one of his age, gave us as beautiful a rendering as we need wish of
David’s elegy over Saul and Jonathan. What could be more lovely than
Pleasant they were in life, and fair,
Nor yet did death their love divide.
or than
Ah! Jonathan, my brother! lorn
And friendless I must look to be!--
That heart whose woe thou oft hast borne
Is sore and stricken now for thee!
Young bridegroom’s love on bridal morn,
Oh! it was light to thine for me;
Thy timeless lot I now must plain,
Even on thine own high places slain!
How lowly now the mighty are,
How still the weapons of the war!
We have got rather far from Landor. Yet I cannot but think that the
best thought suggested by his _Alfieri and Salomon_ is just Alfieri’s
_Saul_, to which the parties to the “imaginary conversation” make no
allusion.
PART V
PART V
BROWNING’S “BEN KARSHOOK”
Two great literary forces, poets both yet both greater in what they
said than in how they said it, expressed their most intimate beliefs
on life and destiny under the guise of a Jewish personation. Nathan
the Wise, the hero of Lessing’s drama, was Lessing, just as Rabbi Ben
Ezra, the supposititious soliloquist of Browning’s poem, was Browning.
Lessing, it is certain, had a living model in Moses Mendelssohn. Nathan
was drawn from his friend. Had Browning any such model? Yes and no.
Many a writer since Furnivall has identified the hero of Browning’s
poem with Abraham Ibn Ezra. It is probable that the poet had him
vaguely in mind. When, however, it is sought--as several have done--to
work out the identity in detail, the effort fails. The poet clearly
meant to prevent any such error. For in _Holy-Cross Day_, he introduces
a Rabbi Ben Ezra as singing a “Song of Death” quite different in tone
from the poem in which Rabbi Ben Ezra unfolds his scheme of life.
Browning obviously meant us to infer that Ben Ezra was no one in
particular.
Browning’s Hebrew knowledge was probably good; like his wife he was
apparently able to read the Bible in the original. He also had dipped
into curious, out of the way books on Jewish lore. The Rev. Michael
Adler cleverly detected that he owed some of the astonishing Hebrew
words in his _Jocoseria_ to a little read edition of the Itinerary
of Benjamin of Tudela. Very bad Hebrew it is, but its author was not
Browning but Baratier (see _Jewish Chronicle_, April 25, 1890). On the
other hand, Dr. Joseph Jacobs records in the _Jewish Quarterly Review_
for April, 1890, an incident which shows that the poet was “shaky” in
his use of Hebrew names. One of Browning’s most important “Jewish”
poems was his _Johanan Hakkadosh_, Johanan the Holy. Dr. Jacobs tells
us that the author was about to call this worthy “Hakkadosh Johanan.”
But “through a common friend I pointed out the error to the poet, and
the adjective was put in its proper position.” Another misconception of
epithets will be noted below.
Similarly with the poem entitled _Ben Karshook’s Wisdom_. Who was
“Ben Karshook”? I doubt whether the writer could have told. In the
Tauchnitz copy of 1872, as well as in the English edition of 1889,
as Mrs. Sutherland Orr points out, the name is spelt “Karshish.” Ben
Karshook, seems a mere jumble of Ben Hyrkanos. But either way, there
was no Rabbi of the name. Elsewhere, Browning employs the name Karshish
to designate an Arabian physician. It was one of Browning’s foibles, to
quote Dr. Jacobs again, to give an impression of recondite learning.
Ben Karshook would seem to have been the poet’s first attempt at a
Jewish, as distinct from a biblical subject. _Holy-Cross Day_ was the
first to be published; it appeared in 1855. _Rabbi Ben Ezra_ came in
1864, _Filippo Baldinucci_ in 1876, _Johanan Hakkadosh_ (with other
Jewish poems) in 1883. This list is not a complete summary, but (if
one adds _Abt Vogler_) it includes the most important. _Ben Karshook’s
Wisdom_ was not published until a year later than _Holy-Cross Day_,
for it was printed in the _Keepsake_ for 1856. But it was written
on April 27, 1854 (according to the statement of Berdoe). Browning
himself omitted the poem, apparently by accident, from one of his own
volumes, where it is included in the table of contents but not in the
book. He never reprinted it. The result has been that it has often been
reproduced by others for that very reason; and now, though it has been
given a place in the Oxford Browning, let it be printed again!
I.
“Would a man ’scape the rod?”
Rabbi Ben Karshook saith,
“See that he turn to God
The Day before his death.”
“Ay, could a man inquire
When it shall come?” I say
The Rabbi’s eye shoots fire--
“Then let him turn to-day.”
II.
Quoth a young Sadducee:
“Reader of many rolls,
Is it so certain we
Have, as they tell us, souls?”
“Son, there is no reply!”
The Rabbi bit his beard:
“Certain, a soul have _I_--
_We_ may have none,” he sneered.
Thus Karshook, the Hiram’s-Hammer,
The Right-hand Temple-column,
Taught babes in grace their grammar,
And struck the simple, solemn.
The first part is an apt version of the saying of Rabbi Eliezer, son
of Hyrkanos: “Repent one day before thy death” (Pirke Abot 2. 15).
Whereon the Talmud (Shabbat 153a) records that Eliezer’s disciples
asked Browning’s very question, and received precisely the same
answer. The second group of stanzas introduces us to a young Sadducee
who has doubts as to the existence of the soul. The poet obviously
got his information from Mark, but was a trifle confused as to what
he read there. The Sadducees (Mark 12. 18) denied the resurrection,
and some have supposed their denial to have extended to the belief in
immortality. (See Dr. Kohler’s remarks in the _Jewish Encyclopedia_,
vol. x, p. 631, top of second column.) To Browning this may have seemed
equivalent to questioning the existence of the soul. Assuredly, granted
that there be a soul at all, it must be immortal.
What is the point of calling Karshook “Hiram’s Hammer?” Browning is
probably drawing on Josephus. Hiram, who helped in building the temple,
also interchanged difficult problems with Solomon. (_Antiquities_,
viii, 5. 3). Hence, Browning uses the name in relation to these
puzzles, so wisely answered in the poem. It was also Hiram--not
identical with the king of Tyre--who constructed the two temple
columns Jachin and Boaz. Or, as Dr. Halper has cleverly suggested, the
poet may have had in his mind a confused reminiscence of the Rabbinic
praise of Johanan ben Zaccai, who (in Berakot 28 b.) is described as
_Right-hand Temple-column, Strong Hammer_. Browning possibly mixed
up the Hebrew _hazak_ (strong) with _hiram_, and so transformed the
epithet into “Hiram’s Hammer.” If these and similar reminiscences were
passing through Browning’s mind, they might well result in the verse
which terminates with the brilliant phrase “struck the simple, solemn.”
It needs rare wisdom to make a fool think--or even better, make him
silent.
Dr. Jacobs well summed up our indebtedness to Browning when he said
that “it is not in the minutiae of Hebrew scholarship that we are to
look for Browning’s sympathy with the Jewish spirit,” so markedly shown
in his writings. Mr. Stopford Brooke (_The Poetry of Robert Browning_,
1902, pp. 33-4) puts the case strongly but truly when he declares that
“no English poet, save perhaps Shakespeare, whose exquisite sympathy
could not leave even Shylock unpitied, had spoken of the Jew with
compassion, knowledge and admiration, till Browning wrote of him. The
Jew lay deep in Browning.” The writer of those sentences no doubt
would not call Richard Cumberland a poet; his plays were friendly
enough to the Jew. But Browning’s understanding was more profound than
Cumberland’s. It is a mistake to say, as a recent critic has said, that
“Browning would have us see that the purest religion is of any creed or
none.” That was perhaps Lessing’s view. Browning seems to go further.
He saw in Judaism certain elements of absolute truth; therefore he
presented those elements through Jewish characters.
K. E. FRANZOS’ “JEWS OF BARNOW”
George MacDonald was a novelist of distinction. When an English
translation of _Ein Kampf ums Recht_ appeared (under the title _For
the Right_), MacDonald wrote an introduction. “Not having been asked
to do so, I write this preface from admiration of the book.” It was a
significant fact, he continued, that the generation had produced a man
capable of such an ideal as the book represented. It was a work which
substituted for the “half wisdom” of the cry “art for art’s sake” the
whole wisdom of the cry “art for truth’s sake.” And MacDonald concluded
as he began: “I have seldom, if ever, read a work of fiction that
moved me with so much admiration.” Mr. Gladstone, too, was among the
enthusiastic eulogists of the novel.
Its author was Karl Emil Franzos, to whom we owe, besides that
masterpiece of his genius, _For the Right_ (1887), also the less
mature work of his earlier years, _The Jews of Barnow_ (1877). He
will always be remembered for a saying of his which appeared in his
first-published book, a narrative of travel-sketches, _Aus Halb-Asien_
(1876): _Jedes Land hat die Juden die es verdient_ (“Every country has
the Jew that it deserves”). Macaulay said much the same thing, but less
epigrammatically, nearly half a century earlier. It is not a completely
satisfactory generalization, but it is an effective counter to the
cruel theory that every Jew gets the country he deserves. “It is not
the fault of the Polish Jews that they are less civilized than their
brethren in the faith in England, Germany, and France.” Writing this
sentence forty years ago, Franzos used the word “civilized” in a narrow
sense. All that it really amounted to was that the conventions of
Barnow were not those of Berlin. Franzos makes quite a grim problem out
of the Barnow Jewess’s revolt against the _Scheitel_, without seeing
that in point of fact the revolt was only one, and an early, phase of
the new feminist movement which was to spread all over the world.
What were Franzos’ qualifications for becoming the historian of a
Podolian ghetto? He lived out his boyhood there; and he never lost the
Jewish sympathies generated by his early experiences. Years afterwards,
when he was at the summit of his renown, the most famous Jewish
littérateur of his age, he associated himself heartily at Berlin with
the work being done for Israel in Russia. The Barnow of his tales was
the Czortkow of his youth. Whether he, therefore, presented a true
picture is not so certain. He himself was convinced that, though he
strove to give poetic value to the scenes, he none the less depicted
the scenes accurately. “I have never permitted my love of the beautiful
to lead me into the sin of falsifying the facts and conditions of life,
and am confident that I have described this strange and outlandish mode
of existence precisely as it appeared to me.” Franzos’ claim that he
drew a sincere picture cannot be disputed, but a sincere picture is not
necessarily an accurate one. Things may not “appear” to one truly. How
stands it with Franzos?
The Barnow of the tale is a gloomy little town, and the houses of its
ghetto small and dirty. Yet it boasts the great white mansion of its
millionaire; it has its real spring days when the air is deliciously
soft and warm. And it knows how to keep the Sabbath, how to welcome the
bride with an emotion which stirs its spirit to the very depths. But
all the passion is expended on the adoration of the Divinity. “The same
race whose genius gave birth to the Song of Songs--the eternal hymn of
love--and to whom the world owes the story of Ruth, the most beautiful
idyl of womanhood ever known--has now, after a thousand years of the
night of oppression and wandering, learned to look on marriage as a
mere matter of business, by which to secure some pecuniary advantage,
and as a means of preventing the chosen of the Lord from dying off the
face of the earth.” The author grows more and more indignant as he
writes: “These men know not what they do--they have no suspicion of the
sin of which they are guilty in thus acting.”
This, for Franzos, was the tragedy of Barnow. It is the theme of
several of his tales. Sometimes it is the boy, sometimes the girl, who
rides a-tilt against the paternal choice of a mate. The father selects
for his son or daughter the most pious and wealthy partner available.
They will not know each other, but what of that? They will have plenty
of time to make acquaintance after marriage. One Barnow father thus
defends the system: “We don’t look upon the chicken as wiser than
the hen. And, thank God, we know nothing of love and all that kind
of nonsense. We consider that two things are alone requisite when
arranging a marriage, and these are health and wealth. The bride and
bridegroom in this case possess both.” Franzos obviously regards this
justification as one of the “outlandish” features of Barnow’s manners.
But were he alive to-day, he would recognize that Moses Freudenthal,
the Barnow father who thus argues, was anticipating the latest formula
of Eugenics! The novelist, however, remorselessly sees only the tragedy
and not the amenities of the system. From the side of the man, in the
story _Nameless Graves_, Franzos put it thus: “As a general rule, the
long-haired Jewish youth never even thinks of any girl until his father
tells him that he has chosen a wife for him. He sometimes sees his
bride for the first time at betrothal, but in a great many cases he
does not see her until his marriage-day; and then, whether she pleases
him or not, he makes up his mind to get used to her, and generally
succeeds.” But the Barnow young men turn and look at Lea as she walks
down the street--“a thing hitherto unknown.” Even in the _Klaus_, when
“quiet, dreamy, and very dirty Talmudists bent over their heavy folios,
her name was sometimes mentioned, followed by many a deep sigh.” A
revolution in male manners, undoubtedly.
On the other side, things are even worse in Barnow. If the men actually
think of choosing for themselves, the women go and do likewise.
And with fatal results. Half educated, feasting on surreptitious
and precocious courses of the works of Paul de Kock, fascinated by
Christian lovers, the girls of Barnow go through agitating experiences,
sometimes heading for the rocks, always wrecking the harmony of the
home. Esther and Chane differ only in externals; the one openly defies
Mrs. Grundy, the other, in appearance only, obeys her. But both are
led by passion to kick over the traces; both are treated by Franzos
as victims of the loveless marriage system. Esterka Regina makes
renunciation, but her last act was to write to the lover--a Jew this
time--whom she had renounced, practically to confess to him that her
marriage had been a failure. She had chosen the course mapped out by
her parents, not from motives of obedience, but because her ignorant
bringing-up had unfitted her for the position she would have had to
occupy had she followed the dictates of her heart.
I have hinted above my doubts whether Franzos drew for us a correct
picture of Barnow conditions. Amid all the realistic touches, here and
there one comes across evidence of defective vision. He painted Barnow
as he saw it, but he did not see it as it was. His father was district
physician, a real friend of his fellow-Jews, but not living their
life. The son saw Galician Jewish life from an aloof point of view. It
is significant that in one of his tales he confuses the Friday eve with
the Saturday night prayers. It is a slip with no serious consequences,
but it does reveal the limitations of Franzos’ knowledge. None of his
tragic heroines strikes so convincing a note as does, for instance,
Bernstein’s graciously pathetic Voegele. Bernstein ceased to be a Jew,
while Franzos remained faithful. Spiritual fidelity, however, does not
necessarily carry with it realistic artistry.
HERZBERG’S “FAMILY PAPERS”
Wilhelm Herzberg was a victim to the world’s sensitiveness. And a
queer sensitiveness it is! You may abuse a man as much as you like,
and as unfairly as you like, while he is alive. But you must not speak
harsh, even if they be true, things of him when he is recently dead.
_De mortuis nil nisi bonum!_ After a decent interval, criticism may
resume operations. But for the hour you may only say soft things of the
departed.
Far be from me to deny that there is an amiable and humane side to
this convention. For my part, I prefer to moderate my judgments while
the man is still alive. I do not admire over much those who bespatter
another with abuse in his lifetime, and with flattery in the moment of
his death. But the world thinks differently. Herzberg sinned against
this convention; he wrote severely, even bitterly, and also unjustly,
of an Anglo-Jewish worthy soon after the interment of the latter.
And so he lost his friends, and was ostracized here for the rest
of his own life. He resigned his post as Director of the Jerusalem
Orphanage--though probably for other reasons. He died in Brussels in
1898.
The incident alluded to in these preceding lines was typical of the
man’s nature. He was not easy to get on with. He was not so much
quarrelsome as aggressive. Witty, keen-minded, he was above all a
man of impulsive emotions. He never defended a cause; he always
attacked its opponents. If his fortress were besieged, he answered
with a sortie; he could not fight behind the walls. And this is
true of the wonderful book which, under the pen-name of “Gustav
Meinhardt,” he first published in Hamburg in 1868, calling it _Jüdische
Familienpapiere_. It is the most brilliant vindication of Judaism
published in the nineteenth century. But it is an attack on rival
systems more than a mere apology for his own religion. The author
throughout is plaintiff rather than defendant.
The book consists of a series of letters written from Germany to
England. The author of the letters is a youth, Samuel; the recipient
of them is an Englishman of means, Samuel’s adoptive father. A Jew by
birth, Samuel has been brought up in England as a Christian by the
kind-hearted aristocrat, who found the child destitute after the death
of his real father, a poor hawker. And now he is sent home to his
Jewish relatives on a mission--he is to convert them to his new faith.
The letters describe Samuel’s arrival in the abode of his uncle,
Rabbi Nathan, and with exquisite charm unfold the gradual reversion of
Samuel to his ancestral allegiance. This part of the book is certainly
constructive enough. Samuel is overwhelmed with his discoveries. He is
fascinated by Rabbi Nathan, and also by his cousin, Rachel. I think it
would be difficult to find in literature a more beautiful description
of Jewish home-life than Herzberg presents. No wonder that in the end
the would-be converter becomes the converted.
The great part of the argument, however, is occupied less with showing
the success of Judaism, than the failure of Christianity. Herzberg
speaks out; there is no hesitation, no reserve. He never loses his
courteous manner, but this formal suavity does not mitigate the
truculence of the statements he makes, the severity of the arguments
he uses. He is one-sided in that he sets the Church’s failure against
the Synagogue’s success, and does not attempt to balance against
each other the successes of each and the failures of each. But he is
confessedly an advocate and not a judge. It is this that makes his
book so valuable. It is an outspoken criticism of modern culture by
a well-equipped mind. For to Herzberg, naturally and rightly enough,
the Church is typical of Western civilization. Attacking the former,
he is assailing the latter, denying the validity of Western--or
rather--Germanic, ideals, and disputing their permanent worth.
Before pointing out in a sentence the significance of this attitude
for the present condition of Jewish thought, one or two other things
must be said about the book. There were three German editions in
the author’s lifetime, the third appearing in Zurich in 1893. Why
was the third issue made in Switzerland and not in Hamburg? In the
circular announcing it, Cæsar Schmidt made a remarkable statement.
The author had been urged by his friend to soften some parts of it.
He refused. Anti-Semitism made the book, in its unaltered shape, the
more necessary; but it also made it desirable to issue it in “free
Switzerland.” The author would have bettered the book in one sense,
had he yielded to his friend’s counsel. Its historical surveys are not
unassailable, and its logic is not always perfect. Yet to have modified
its polemical tone would have been to destroy its efficacy. Moreover,
Herzberg’s friends can have known little of him if they imagined that
he would alter even a comma to please them! I met him several times
before 1893, and I could have told them that they were wasting their
time in giving him advice. He always went his own way; and he would
have been the last to complain because that way was a rugged one.
The author had this satisfaction: his work was enthusiastically admired
by a notable circle of readers. Graetz had a high opinion of it. David
Kaufmann, a lad of sixteen at the time of its first appearance, was its
ardent eulogist; to him the third edition is inscribed. “You will find
your erstwhile darling unchanged; for to change it would be to mangle
it”--so writes Herzberg to Kaufmann. One would not talk of changing it
now, for one does not mutilate classics.
Kaufmann, young as he was in 1868, was already a student of the Breslau
Seminary. Let another student of the same institution tell us of the
impression the _Family Papers_ made there. Dr. F. de Sola Mendes
writes that “he was yet studying at the Breslau Theological Seminary
when the book was first brought under his notice by a fellow-student,
one of its most enthusiastic admirers. A large number of copies
were at once procured and read with avidity by our comrades. It is
impossible to describe the applause the book called forth; never had
we read so glowing and so powerful a vindication of pure Judaism.
We were rejoiced that the country which produced an Eisenmenger,
a Wagenseil, Schudt, Pfefferkorn _et hoc genus omne_, should have
yielded in our day, too, so triumphant a Defender of the Faith. Our
venerable Director, Dr. Frankel, was as enthusiastic as any of his
young disciples in its praise.” The writer of the lines just quoted
determined to render the book into English. “The work of translation
was commenced and carried on in leisure intervals for the next few
years. In January, 1874, in conjunction with Mr. A. Herzberg, then of
London, brother of the author, a prospectus was issued in England,
proposing the publication of the work by subscription. The project was
heartily indorsed by the Chief Rabbi and Dr. H. Adler, the latter of
whom kindly made valuable suggestions as to omissions and alterations
proper in a version to come before average English readers.” One
wonders what the author would have said to such “omissions and
alterations.” But the matter was not taken up by the Anglo-Jewish
public, and Dr. Mendes eventually issued his excellent translation in
New York (1875), under the auspices of that American Jewish Publication
Society which preceded the present organization bearing the same name.
There must clearly be much significance in a work which has from time
to time aroused so much feeling. As a boy, I read it with mingled
delight and consternation. Even then, unconsciously, I must have had a
premonition of its inner meaning. I promised above to sum up its import
in a sentence, and I can do it. _Herzberg stands in line with Ahad
ha-‘Am._ The former does not give a Zionist turn to his exposition, nor
does he speak of a _Hebrew_ culture. But he is practically at the same
standpoint. Civilization for the Jew must be expressed in Jewish terms.
That is the real moral of Herzberg’s work. Now, as of old, I face such
an ideal with delight, but also with consternation. It gives us back
much we were in danger of losing, but it tends to take away from us
much that we had gained.
LONGFELLOW’S “JUDAS MACCABÆUS”
Whenever Handel’s melody falls on one’s ears, it is impossible to miss
the musical beauty of the chorus:
See the conquering hero comes,
Sound the trumpets, beat the drums.
But the words make one shudder. They are so turgid, so inappropriate.
Judas Maccabæus, of all men, to strut forth to such a welcome--he, who
belonged to the first of those who declared:
Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us
But unto Thy name give glory!
Tennyson speaks of “perfect music set unto noble words.” Handel’s music
may be as perfect as art is capable of, but his librettist betrayed
him by supplying words far from noble. They would better have suited
Antiochus than Judas. In fact, Handel originally wrote the melody for
Joshua who would have approved them as little as the Maccabee.
We still have to wait for a really great drama written round Judas
Maccabæus as hero. The most has therefore been made of Longfellow’s
attempt, which was turned into Yiddish by Belinson (1882) and into
Hebrew by Massel (1900). Judas is not an easy character to draw. He
was truculent enough, yet there must have been a fascinating sweetness
in him. The key-note is struck in a phrase supplied by the First
Book of the Maccabees. He and his brethren “fought with gladness the
battle of Israel.” The _joyousness_ of duty is a touch which marks
off the Maccabees from the Puritans, and which, developed in Israel’s
after-history, helped to form the Jewish character. Longfellow, who
wrote his _Judas Maccabæus_ in 1872, when he had passed the zenith of
his powers, misses the point altogether.
Yet he realizes other aspects of his hero’s disposition. He partly,
though not completely, shares Handel’s mistake of turning Judas into a
braggart. But he atones by presenting very fully the _sentimentality_
of the Maccabee. To dub a warrior sentimental may seem contradictory,
but the finest soldiers have been just the most sentimental. In Judas,
sentimentality shows itself chiefly in his seizing upon associations
aroused by local scenery. Wherever he happens to be--so the historians
of his age inform us--he recalls past incidents which occurred there.
Here, again, we have in Judas a quality which afterwards became a
deep-seated characteristic of the Jew, his romanticism. Longfellow was
himself a romantic as well as a Puritan, and perfectly presents this
side of Judas’s disposition. Thus at Beth-horon Judas recalls how, on
the same battlefield, Joshua,
The great captain of the hosts of God,
A slave brought up in the brick-fields of Egypt,
O’ercame the Amorites. There was no day
Like that, before or after it, nor shall be.
The sun stood still, the hammers of the hail
Beat on their harness; and the captains set
Their weary feet upon the necks of kings,
As I will upon thine, Antiochus,
Thou man of blood!--Behold, the rising sun
Strikes on the golden letters of my banner,
_Be Elohim Yehovah!_ Who is like
To thee, O Lord among the gods?--Alas!
I am not Joshua, I cannot say,
“Sun, stand thou still on Gibeon, and thou Moon
In Ajalon!” Nor am I one who wastes
The fateful time in useless lamentation:
But one who bears his life upon his hand
To lose it or to save it, as may best
Serve the designs of Him who giveth life.
The “nor shall be” which closes the fourth line of this quotation is
a false note. The Maccabee did expect to repeat Joshua’s glory; that
expectation of recurrent providences was the basis of Israel’s belief
in Providence. Again, even though in his day Hebrew had given way to
Aramaic as the national speech (let some of our Hebrew zealots remember
that Judas Maccabæus did _not_ talk in Hebrew!), none the less Judas
would hardly have been guilty of the error to begin a Hebrew sentence
in the middle. Yet Longfellow repeats this curious slip later on,
making Judas rush to battle, shouting _Be Elohim Yehovah!_ as though
“Among the gods, O Lord” (for that is what the Hebrew words mean)
could possibly be a war-cry. No doubt he knew that in one theory the
name Maccabee is explained as the initials of the Hebrew text “Who is
like unto Thee among the mighty (or the gods), O Lord.” But it was a
queer confusion that made him employ the second half of the verse as
a signal, and to substitute _elohim_ for the _elim_ of the Song of
Moses (Exod. 15. 11). I say nothing of his putting into Judas’ mouth
the monstrosity _Yehovah_--a misspelling (more common in the form
_Jehovah_) which was invented about the year 1520 by the reformers.
As is well known, the misspelling arose by reading the _vowels_ of
_adonai_ (Lord), as the Name was quite early read, with the consonants
of the Name as written in the Hebrew text.
In another aspect Longfellow is perhaps unfairly kind to Judas. Henry
V, as Shakespeare drew him, was something of a braggadocio. But the
dramatist might almost have been thinking of Judas when he makes his
Henry exclaim before Agincourt: “I pray thee, wish not one man more.”
Judas, too, knew that much of the glory of victory depended upon the
success of the few over the many, “the fewer men the greater share of
honour.” Judas, unlike Henry, would have meant the more signal would be
the revelation of God’s power, if the human means by which the battle
was won were weaker. On the other hand, the Books of the Maccabees do
not, so far as one’s memory goes, indicate that Judas, any more than
Henry, was chivalrous in the narrower sense. The Jewish exemplar of the
chivalrous warrior is David not Judas. Longfellow, however, presents
Judas as the chivalrous knight. One hesitates what to think of the
third scene in Act III of Longfellow’s play. In “mysterious guise,”
Nicanor enters the Jewish camp, a herald “unheralded,” gliding “like a
serpent silently” into the very presence of Judas. Nicanor discovers
himself.
_Judas_: Thou art indeed Nicanor. I salute thee.
What brings thee hither to this hostile camp
Thus unattended?
_Nicanor_: Confidence in thee.
Thou hast the noble virtues of thy race,
Without the failings that attend those virtues.
Thou can’st be strong, and yet not tyrannous,
Can’st righteous be and not intolerant.
Let there be peace between us.
_Judas_: What is peace?
Is it to bow in silence to our victors?
Is it to see our cities sacked and pillaged?
Our people slain, or sold as slaves, or fleeing
At night-time by the blaze of burning towns;
Jerusalem laid waste; the Holy Temple
Polluted with strange gods? Are these things peace?
This is cleverly conceived. Nicanor’s degrading compliments as well
as his false offer of peace are rejected with due scorn. Longfellow
probably got the idea for this scene from the story told of Mattathias,
to whom the Syrian envoys made overtures, which the dour father of the
Maccabee knew how to treat. But what one doubts is whether Nicanor
would have trusted himself to the Maccabean camp. The scene ends:
_Judas_: Go to thy tents.
_Nicanor_: Shall it be war or peace?
_Judas_: War, war, and only war. Go to thy tents
That shall be scattered, as by you were scattered
The torn and trampled pages of the Law,
Blown through the windy streets.
_Nicanor_: Farewell brave foe!
_Judas_: Ho, there, my captains! Have safe conduct given
Unto Nicanor’s herald through the camp,
And come yourselves to me.--Farewell, Nicanor!
One wonders whether such an end to such a scene were possible? Still,
if David would have acted thus generously, why not Judas? We must allow
for the insight of genius. Longfellow may have understood the story
more truly than his critic. If to the valor, the recklessness of self,
the romanticism, the all-pervading joyousness of Judas, we may add the
trait of generosity, then is he indeed among the noblest models of
chivalry which history can show.
ARTOM’S SERMONS
When, in February, 1873, Haham Artom was pressed to publish a selection
of his Sermons, he consented, but with reluctance. For, said he, “I am
fully aware of the difficulty of speaking and writing in a language
which is not my own ... a language which, some years ago, was unknown
to me.” Artom never lost his Italian accent, and the slight survival
of his native idiom added grace to his English orations. He was an
attractive figure in the pulpit; and as effective as attractive.
He died in 1879. Having frequently heard him preach, having, indeed,
been present when many of these very addresses were first given, I
have again, after more than forty years, turned to the printed volume.
Is any of the fire left? Has all the charm evaporated? His commanding
presence, his beautiful voice, his dramatic gestures, his extempore
delivery of carefully prepared impromptus--were these mannerisms
answerable for the whole of Artom’s power, or was there something
forceful and persuasive in the matter? In a word, do the speeches
survive the speaker?
Let us remember, first and last, that Artom was an artist. He not
only wrote verses, but he composed music; some of his melodies are
still sung in the Sephardic synagogues. He was also an artist in
prose. This gift sometimes led him astray. The faults of the speaker
certainly remain in the speeches. The passages which sounded grotesque
in the hearing, strike one in the reading as more grotesque still.
For instance, in his sermon (November 7, 1874) against Cremation, he
describes in lurid detail the scene at the burning of the body, and
then he proceeds: “A sad and repeated crackling is soon heard, the
combustion is going on rapidly. But to my ears that crackling seems to
be the complaint of the dead person for being treated with such cruelty
and disrespect.”
This is sentimentalism at its falsest. Obviously, such faults of the
orator endure. Have his merits the same lasting quality? The question
may be confidently answered in the affirmative.
He showed true artistry in structure. A preacher must be a builder.
He has to construct a work of art. Not merely in the sense of form,
but also and chiefly in substance. Judaism is the home beautiful;
it fascinates the eye, but it also provides rooms for living. Artom
entertained, and he also fed his guests. Out of his sermons you could
easily piece together a fine edifice of Judaism. Many of its greatest
truths are there, presented very solidly, and for all his decorative
art very simply. Artom was not a thinker, he was a believer. Yet,
though he never felt a doubt, he always realized that there were people
who differed from him. He was thus frequently controversial; he had in
mind some other opinions which he was determined to combat. This method
impelled him to present religion in relation to the realities of his
day. No preacher can be effective, unless he does so; no preacher’s
words endure for other times, unless they are first vital for his own.
In another respect, Artom’s method justified itself. I refer to his
use of rabbinic quotations. He seldom quoted anything else. Here we
have, in part, a mere trick, a mechanical device, artificial rather
than artistic. Every sermon is headed by two texts, the one scriptural,
the other rabbinic. In those olden Jewish homilies called, from their
opening formula, _Yelammedenu_ a similar plan was followed, but
the rabbinic passage was legal, involving some problem of Halakah
or practical laws. Artom’s citations are always homiletical, and
rarely add to the effect of the biblical text. Mechanical, too, is
the division of each address into a Prologue, followed by three
parts, ending with an Epilogue culminating in a prayer. The whole
congregation almost invariably rose at the close of the Haham’s
sermons, to join in these prayers, spoken with genuine but never
unctious fervor. Such severe divisions of the sermon were long _de
rigueur_ on the continent. Nowadays, in the reaction against these
fetters, sermons tend to lose _form_ altogether. But where Artom
showed himself a master was in his use of Midrash in the body of his
addresses. He had nothing like the theological profundity of Jellinek,
who employed Midrash to enforce fundamental ideas with subtlety. Nor
had he Jellinek’s power of “holding the Midrash in chemical solution.”
As Mr. Singer--a greater preacher far than Artom--said in his Memoir
of Jellinek, midrashic quotations in a sermon are as a rule “stuck
clumsily into the discourse, and leave upon the palate the flavour of
undissolved spice or sugar in an ill-prepared Sabbath or Festival dish.
In Jellinek the assimilation is perfect. It is the bone of his bone
and flesh of his flesh. Whether the Midrash or the preacher’s theme
came first, which went the longer way to meet the other, is often as
uncertain to determine as the question, in the case of some of the
finest songs, whether the music suggested the words, or the words the
music.”
Artom did not reach the perfection of Jellinek, but he never sank to
the level of the botcher. What he aimed at he succeeded in attaining.
If his rabbinic quotations at the beginning of a discourse were
perfunctory, those which he made in the body of the discourse were
invariably to the point; they always interpreted. He did not merge
Midrash into his own personality as Jellinek did. But he employed it
as a certain type of painter does the accessories to a picture, to add
color, to relieve the severity of the main idea, to suggest outwardly
that which he is not quite able to express inwardly. Hence he usually
quoted obvious Midrashim, and used them in an obvious sense. He showed
his wisdom in this. If a painter puts in a camel to help me to perceive
that he is representing a desert, he must be very careful to make his
camel recognizable. It will not do to give me a symbolical “Ship of
the Desert,” it must be a camel, palpable and conventional. Within his
limitations, he shows himself the better artist the less he tries to
make his accessories bizarre or even original.
I trust that no one will suspect me of a desire to “damn with faint
praise.” On the contrary, starting with the unquestionable fact that
the living Artom was a great preacher, my intention was to indicate
what we have to keep in mind if we would admire his printed addresses
as they deserve. If we know what to expect from them we shall find it.
Take the following paragraph:
“Our sages said that ‘a precious jewel hung around the neck of
Abraham.’ It was not a talisman, an amulet, supposed by the
superstitious to keep away the consequence of envy, of evil eye; the
jewel was the knowledge of the Lord, of the one God, of the Omnipotent
Being, that knowledge which Abraham disseminated among men; it was the
spiritual jewel which ought to be treasured in the heart of every good
man, of every true Israelite. We have inherited that Jewel, we have it
still. Oh, let us wear it with pride, for it is the noblest decoration.”
There are a hundred such passages in Artom’s volume. They got home
when the orator pronounced them, and they get home still when calmly
read as literature. It is perhaps curious that a preacher who in his
day was admired for his brilliance, should endure less for the sparkle
than for the substance of what he said. That is, however, the common
fate of orators. Happy they, if their utterances have worth after the
personality behind them has passed away.
SALKINSON’S “OTHELLO”
One of the first writers to combat, on the continent of Europe,
Voltaire’s depreciation of Shakespeare was Lessing. But his eulogy
was dated 1759. A year earlier (1758) Moses Mendelssohn, in his essay
on the Sublime, had anticipated Lessing’s judgment. But his influence
did not lead the new-Hebrew school to translate Shakespeare. It was
not till near the middle of the nineteenth century that we find
Hebrew translations even of such famous soliloquies as Hamlet’s “To
be or not to be.” In 1842 Fabius Mieses and in 1856 N. P. Krassensohn
rendered the passage. Both, however, were dependent on Mendelssohn,
translating his German rendering. Others, at the same period, turned
a few passages, including one of Richard II’s monologues, from German
versions into Hebrew.
“To-day we exact our revenge from the English! They took our Bible and
made it their own. We, in return, have captured their Shakespeare.
Is it not a sweet revenge?” With these words Smolenskin opened his
introduction to Salkinson’s Hebrew translation of _Othello_.
It is not easy to explain how it happened that we had to wait till
1874 for the first Hebrew adaptation of a Shakespearean drama. In
fact, with the exception of Salkinson’s _Romeo and Juliet_ (1878), S.
L. Gordon’s _King Lear_ (1899), and Isaac Barb’s _Macbeth_ (1883), I
know of no Hebrew version of plays by the author of _Hamlet_, which
latter drama so far as I have observed, has not even been printed in
Yiddish. (Dr. Halper, however, informs me that _Hamlet_ was translated
into Hebrew by H. J. Bornstein, and that his version appeared in the
pages of Ha-Zefirah somewhere about 1900). _Julius Cæsar_ appeared
in Yiddish in 1886. _King Lear_ has also been printed in the same
language, and the _Merchant of Venice_ received the same honor, at the
hand of Basil Dahl, in New York, in 1899. I use the words “_printed_
in Yiddish” advisedly, because there are extant in manuscript acting
versions of other plays used by Yiddish companies. Of course, select
passages from Shakespeare have often been rendered into Hebrew, as, for
instance, in that curious publication _Young’s Israelitish Gleaner and
Biblical Repository_, Edinburgh, 1855 (pp. 24, 16). The lack of Hebrew
translations may be explained by two considerations. The _Merchant
of Venice_, despite its sympathetic treatment of some aspects of
Shylock’s character, dealt so deadly a blow at the Jews, that there
could be no enthusiasm with regard to the other works. But more
operative was another fact. The available Hebraists for the most part
were ignorant of English. The _Macbeth_ mentioned above was translated
not from the original, but from Schiller’s German.
There is a further consideration (for after all Schlegel’s fine German
version was at hand for those who knew no English). Drama in Hebrew,
whether original or translated, has always been spasmodic. Drama needs
an audience. Until the Hebrew revival become wider spread, there can
never be a sufficiently popular demand for the presentation of Hebrew
plays to encourage or cultivate the composition of them. It will no
doubt be otherwise in the new Palestine. Indeed we already read of
plans, instituted by M. James Rothschild, to organize a Hebrew Drama in
Judæa.
Isaac Edward (Eliezer) Salkinson, however, knew English well. He
was also gifted with a fine command of Hebrew, which he wrote not
only fluently, but in real poetic style. He was born in Wilna, being
perhaps the son of Solomon Salkind, himself a writer of meritorious
Hebrew verse (_Jewish Encyclopedia_, vol. x, p. 651). Unfortunately,
a knowledge of Hebrew does not of itself suffice to keep a Jew within
the pale of the Synagogue. “As a youth, Salkinson set out for America
with the intention of entering a rabbinical seminary there; but while
in London he was met by agents of the London Missionary Society, and
was persuaded to forsake Judaism.” The Synagogue lost in him one of the
most accomplished Hebraists of modern times.
But though he was lost, his work--or some of it--remains to us, and we
ought not to let it go. Nahum Slousch makes an admirable remark on the
subject in his _Renascence of Hebrew Literature_ (p. 245). Salkinson’s
first great translation was not of Shakespeare, but of Milton. In
1871 appeared a delightful Hebrew version of _Paradise Lost_. It was
a masterly rendering, attaining almost to absolute perfection. Take
Salkinson’s title. He called it _Vayegaresh et ha-adam_ (“So He drove
out the man,” from Genesis 3. 24). How much apter it is for _Paradise
Lost_ than Meir Letteris _Ben Abuyah_ for Goethe’s _Faust_. Salkinson’s
version is genuine Milton. “It was a sign of the times,” says Slousch
of Salkinson’s rendering of an epic so Christian in character, “that
this work of art was enjoyed and appreciated by the educated Hebrew
public in due accordance with its literary merits.” It was, in brief,
an indication that Jewish readers of Hebrew were discriminating between
form and substance. Many who are as old as I am can recall a similar
change in feeling with regard to pictures. To go through a great Art
Gallery was a tax on one’s forbearance. Madonnas at every turn offended
the Jewish consciousness. Now, however, a large number find it quite
easy to admire an artist’s talent irrespective of the subject. Yet
Josef Israels never painted a Madonna, though he was strongly urged to
do so by eminent admirers of his genius.
In the case of Shakespeare’s _Othello_ no such problem as this arises.
In finding a Hebrew title for it, Salkinson did not seek for any
paraphrase. He just searched for a Hebrew name which would sound
like “Othello,” and he found it in the biblical “Ithiel,” which may
signify “God is with me.” “Ithiel” would thus mean much the same as
“Immanuel” (“God is with us”). It cannot be asserted that “Ithiel”
fails to correspond in sense with “Othello,” for the simple reason that
no one seems to know what “Othello” means; Ruskin suggested the sense
_careful_. On the other hand, “Iago” is probably a variant of “Jacob”;
Salkinson calls him Doeg: there is some similarity in character, as in
a name, between the false Doeg and the wily Iago. The other names call
for little comment. Desdemona becomes Asenath, not a happy choice, for
while Desdemona apparently means the “unfortunate,” Asenath is probably
the Egyptian for the “Favorite of Neith.” Cassio is Cesed--a mere
assonance. On the other hand, the Clown is _Lez_ (the scoffer); this
is a reproduction of meaning, not of sound. After all, not the names,
but the play is the thing. Salkinson certainly gives us the play.
His Hebrew is the real Shakespeare. Often have I found in difficult
passages of the English that the Hebrew is a useful help to the
understanding of the original. Sometimes a hasty reader of Salkinson
may think that the translator erred, as in his rendering of Othello’s
last pathetic speech:
Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice: then must you speak
Of one that loved not wisely but too well;
Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought,
Perplex’d in the extreme; of one whose hand,
Like the base _Indian_, threw a pearl away
Richer than all his tribe.
Salkinson turns these last two lines into:
Like the despicable _Jew_, who threw a pearl away
Richer than all the wealth of Israel.
It is no mistake. There is good authority for reading _Judean_ in the
English text in place of _Indian_. The most plausible suggestion is
Theobald’s, that Shakespeare was referring to Herod and Mariamne. The
whole of this speech is a triumph of literalness combined with beauty
of phraseology. If Salkinson had only written this one page he would be
famous among modern Hebraists.
_Othello_ was done into Hebrew at the suggestion of Perez Smolenskin,
himself, of course, a noted pioneer of the new-Hebrew school.
Smolenskin was delighted with Salkinson’s performance. “See,” he cried,
“how Shakespeare lends himself to Hebrew. While so many are translating
into Hebrew works utterly foreign to the Hebraic spirit, here we have
one who has chosen a poem which lies near to that spirit.” There is
much truth in this contention. English does very readily lend itself
to translation into Hebrew, just as is the case when the relation is
reversed. No version of the Hebrew Bible, not even Luther’s, has ever
approached the English in its fidelity to the soul of the original.
But Smolenskin goes on to use another argument, which is somewhat
amusing. He draws a picture of the Jewry of his day, and then exclaims:
Lo! here are the very conditions presented to us in _Othello_. And he
bids his contemporaries to draw a moral from the play, to regulate
their conduct by it. I should hardly justify an appreciation of
_Othello_ on moral grounds. It is a great psychological drama, and it
also touches the pinnacle of romanticism. But a moral? Smolenskin seems
to have found in it a warning to men to treat women better. Certainly
one would prefer that our Othellos should be a little milder towards
their Desdemonas in real life.
All this is off the point. Salkinson’s merit lay just in his power
to take a work of art, pass it through the crucible of translation,
and then bring out the result as a work of art still. Translators are
not always traitors. I have said nothing about Salkinson’s _Romeo and
Juliet_, because his _Othello_ came first. But in the former he reveals
the same qualities. I do not know whom I would place above Salkinson in
the list of the best translators into Hebrew.
“LIFE THOUGHTS” OF MICHAEL HENRY
Michael Henry died in 1875. In the following year a volume of his
_Life Thoughts_ was issued. There are twenty-one chapters, all of them
reprinted from the series of “Sabbath Readings,” issued by the Jewish
Association for the Diffusion of Religious Knowledge. The Association,
which, I take pride to remember, was founded by my father, was
afterwards transformed into the Jewish Religious Education Board. The
Association took a broader view of its function than does the Board; at
all events, the discontinuance of the tracts called Sabbath Readings
was a deplorable but not irremediable error.
The _Life Thoughts_ of Michael Henry corresponded to his life. Their
cheery optimism was part of the man’s self. Their philosophy is
not profound, their learning is not conspicuous. But they make for
happiness. Michael Henry was happy when he made others happy, and he
succeeded in his genial ambition. He was only forty-five when his
career ended, but he had crowded in that short space many a momentous
service, especially to the boys and girls whom he loved as though an
elder brother to all of them. It was the Jewish boys and girls who
in 1876 presented the first “Michael Henry” to the Royal National
Life-boat Institution. The boat was twice replaced by other “Michael
Henrys,” and the three boats named after “the scholars’ friend” have
saved 136 lives. From time to time appeals are certain to be made for
funds to enable further “Michael Henrys” to be launched.
If to bring joy into a life is to save it, then the man Michael Henry
saved more lives than all the boats named, or to be named, after him.
I have already spoken of his geniality. A word must be added as to
his piety. Religion to him was the spring of conduct. Here, again,
his optimism reigned supreme. Judaism was the road to good, on earth
and in heaven. In his _Gossip with Boys_ he exclaims: “You may be
very good Jews and yet very happy ones. Virtue and enjoyment are not
incompatible. It is not unmanly to be good. Your right arm will fling
a cricket-ball none the less deftly because your left arm has worn
the _tephillin_ an hour before you went into the play-ground. Your
heart will beat none the less bravely, because it throbs against the
four-cornered band of the _tsitsith_.” These sentences crystallize
Michael Henry’s appeal to the young for manliness and confidence.
Virtue is happiness, duty is manliness--these axioms sum up his creed.
“The smile of hope” he perceives in the “Psalms of David.” He hears
music, he smells perfume in “Home worship.” He tells the “Barmitzvah”
that “by imitation of good, great and true men, the work shall be
done and triumph crown the toil.” The law and the life which “Moses”
proclaimed and led are “both glorious and gracious gifts of heaven to
earth.” “Happy we,” he cries in his _Elijah_, “if when we pass away we
leave behind us, like Elijah, a twofold portion of the spirit which
those whom we love have every reason to desire of us!” From “Josiah”
young and old may learn that “the most manly king of Judah was also
the most religious”; so, too, the character of “Nehemiah” was a
“combination of manliness and holiness.” “Moses Mendelssohn” enables
us to learn to be “good and happy,” and, adds Michael Henry, “it is
refreshing to turn from the troubled stories of kings, warriors, and
statesmen, to the record of this calm, pure life, in which, as in
the religion he followed, peace, love and wisdom are harmoniously
combined.” In his _Message of Love_ (Leviticus 19. 18), he quotes with
a croon of delight the poet’s thought _Seid umschlungen, Millionen_
(“Millions! be locked in one embrace”).
In his paper on “Peace” he enumerates the practical means by which
that end may be advanced, and he continues: “Thus we can promote peace
_outwardly_ in the world, and by that effort promote peace _inwardly_
in our hearts; we can spread around us a peace of earth like a
sun-picture of the spiritual peace we ask from Heaven for ourselves.”
Then, in his paper on “Heaven upon Earth,” he argues that Judaism does
not tell us “to strive against the very nature of our being.” There
is a not very thickly veiled controversialism in the sentences that
follow: “We need not turn the left cheek when stricken on the right,
nor impoverish ourselves to enrich the poor, nor let the guilty go
free because we are not righteous enough to punish, nor leave the
holy charms of family delights to follow the standard of fanatical
self-denial. But what we have to do is this: True to the teachings of
our faith, we have to take our nature as it is; with all its aims,
its passions, its impulses; and, beating the evil from it as the
thresher strikes the chaff from the grain, or the smelter frees the
dross from the gold, we must shape and trim the pure material into its
best form, and work it to its best purpose, drawing from it all that
it has of good; giving to all its strength an upward tendency.” But
Michael Henry is not at his best when he is arguing. We enjoy him in
his unreasoning but fascinating optimism, as when, in _The Everlasting
Light_, after describing the troubles and clouds of life and destiny,
he comfortably assures us: “Have faith, and it all seems easy.” We see
the real Michael Henry in the three stories or rather parables with
which the volume ends, “How we Spoilt our Holiday,” the “Schoolboy and
the Angel,” and the “Everlasting Rose.” These three chapters at least
would bear reprinting. They express Michael Henry in his most charming
aspects of sincerity, clean-heartedness, and unconquerable belief in
the ideal.
But there is one chapter missing from the _Life Thoughts_ of Michael
Henry. It is a strange omission. No man ever excelled the subject of
this article in his power to harmonize his religion with his life.
Michael Henry as pietist, as lover of children, as editor of the
_Jewish Chronicle_ (from 1868), as agent for patents--under all these
aspects the man was one and the same. His _Life Thoughts_ are a
torso, unless we draw on his writings as a mechanician. To restrict
the selection to his contribution to the “Sabbath Readings” was to
misunderstand him. And what a notable chapter could have been added
from the source indicated. I have read his _Defence of the Present
Patent Law_ (1866). It is an able plea, but though it deals with a
severely commercial topic in a business-like spirit, the whole pamphlet
is lit up by the writer’s spiritual personality. Another fact revealed
is this: It shows Michael Henry to have been possessed of a ready wit,
a keen sense of humor. This note is missing from the volume of _Life
Thoughts_.
Even more characteristic is the _Inventor’s Almanac_, the annual
issue of which was begun in 1858. To comprehend Michael Henry it is
absolutely necessary to turn over these sheets, a fine set of which
(as continued also by Mr. Ernest de Pass) may be seen in the British
Museum. Each _Almanac_ consists of a single page, on which are
crowded masses of technical information--statistical, practical, and
historical. The artistic design is clever. Now, the reason why I am
referring to these almanacs is this: From 1862 onwards, the sheets are
adorned by quotations as well as pictures. In 1864 Michael Henry quotes
from Disraeli: “You have disenthroned force, and placed on her high
seat intelligence.” Then the compiler must have been struck by the fact
that Disraeli’s remark had a scriptural analogue. In 1865, and in every
subsequent year, the _Almanac_ is surmounted by the maxim: “Wisdom
is better than strength” (Ecclesiastes). The reference is to chapter
9 verse 16. In 1866 he quotes Gladstone: “There is no honourable,
no useful place, upon this busy, teeming earth, for the idle man.”
In another issue he uses a passage from that once popular versifier
Mackay; union had often been tried by man for purposes of war, why not
try it for purposes of peace, so that “construction, industry, and
mutual aid,” may “lead from darkness into light.” Naturally enough he
revels in Tennyson:
Men our brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new,
That which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall do.
He used that couplet in 1872. Of course, he presents in due course the
same poet’s
Let Knowledge grow from more to more,
But more of reverence in us dwell!
Quite obvious all this, no doubt. Michael Henry was, one must admit,
given to the cult of the obvious. Therein lies not blame but praise.
Many of us just fail because we do not see what lies simply before
us. Tennyson was the incarnation of obviousness, hence he helped his
generation to see. Michael Henry had no very keen or far vision. But
he saw straight, he saw true. He was not an ocean goer, he hugged the
shore within a dozen miles or so. Very like a life-boat, after all!
Clearly a “Michael Henry” in good working order will always be the best
monument to his memory! And he belongs to the type which ought to be
remembered.
THE POEMS OF EMMA LAZARUS
Affixed to the colossal monument, which dominates and ennobles the
entrance to New York harbor, is, as all the world knows, a poem by Emma
Lazarus (1849-1887). It commemorates her and her genius. Liberty, “a
mighty woman with a torch,” stands there as the “Mother of Exiles,”
crying with silent lips to the older world:
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost, to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
This sonnet expresses both sides of the writer’s idealism: her devotion
to America and her love for the Jews. She wrote much as a Hellenist,
but her genuine outbursts were stimulated by two crises: the American
War of North and South in the sixties, and the Russian Persecutions in
the eighties. In a sense it is unfortunate that the May Laws came so
late. Emma Lazarus had but few years to live after the promulgation of
the legislation which sent forth, from their country, those myriads
of Russian Jews, whose presence has so profoundly altered Jewish
conditions in various lands. Her Jewish poems are full indeed of fire,
but it is the fire of an immature passion. When she died, she had only
begun to find herself as the singer of Israel’s cause.
Even so, however, her songs will not die. For she realized that
Israel is “the slave of the Idea.” She did not fully grasp what the
Idea was, however. Israel’s migrations--including those from Russia
to Texas--were all, she felt, towards a destined end, and that
end--Freedom:
Freedom to love the law that Moses brought,
To sing the songs of David, and to think
The thoughts Gabirol to Spinoza taught,
Freedom to dig the common earth, to drink
The universal air--for this they sought
Refuge o’er wave and continent, to link
Egypt with Texas in their mystic chain,
And truth’s perpetual lamp forbid to wane.
Freedom is part of Israel’s Idea; it is not the whole of it.
[Illustration: EMMA LAZARUS]
In her new-found enthusiasm for the Hebrew language she translated
much from the medieval poets. But she will always come to one’s mind
as the bard of Hanukkah. There she comes nearest to the Idea of
which Israel is the missioner. Cheyne, in one of his finest works (_The
Origin and Religious Contents of the Psalter_, pp. 18, 104), quotes two
stanzas from her _Feast of Lights_ as an apt commentary on Psalms 79
and 118, contrasting the desolation of Zion and the re-dedication:
They who had camped within the mountain-pass,
Couched on the rock, and tented ’neath the sky,
Who saw from Mizpah’s heights the tangled grass
Choke the wide Temple-courts, the altar lie
Disfigured and polluted--who had flung
Their faces on the stones, and mourned aloud
And rent their garments, wailing with one tongue,
Crushed as a wind-swept bed of reeds is bowed,
Even they by one voice fired, one heart of flame,
Though broken reeds, had risen, and were men,
They rushed upon the spoiler and o’ercame,
Each arm for freedom had the strength of ten.
Now is their mourning into dancing turned,
Their sackcloth doffed for garments of delight,
Week-long the festive torches shall be burned,
Music and revelry wed day with night.
One could quote much else from Emma Lazarus; her pagan poems written
under classic and romantic influences; her renderings of Heine; her
historical tragedy, the _Dance of Death_, dedicated to George Eliot;
her prose epistles, in one of which occurs her famous use of a Hebrew
grammatical form. In the Hebrew verb there is an _intensive_ voice,
and so the Jews are the _intensive_ form of any nationality whose
language and customs they adopt. Or again, one might cite her _New
Ezekiel_, her _Bar Kochba_, her _Talmud Legends_, her _Rashi in
Prague_, or, better still, her lines from Nahum’s Spring Song:
Now the dreary winter’s over,
Fled with him are grief and pain;
When the trees their bloom recover,
Then the soul is born again!
But her hand is always firmest when her theme is the Maccabæan heroism.
This subject gave her the opportunity which her nationalistic mood
needed. We have read part of one of her poems on the subject, let us
read another in full, though it is perhaps the most familiar of her
compositions. Its title is “The Banner of the Jew.” While it repeats
the thought and almost the phrases of the _Feast of Lights_, it has
more of the lyric lightness of touch. It runs thus:
Wake, Israel, wake! Recall to-day
The glorious Maccabean rage,
The sire heroic, hoary-gray,
His five-fold lion-lineage:
The Wise, the Elect, the Help-of-God,
The Burst-of-Spring, the Avenging Rod.
From Mizpeh’s mountain-ridge they saw
Jerusalem’s empty streets, her shrine
Laid waste where Greeks profaned the Law,
With idol and with pagan sign.
Mourners in tattered black were there,
With ashes sprinkled on their hair.
Then, from the stony peak there rang
A blast to ope the graves: down poured
The Maccabean clan, who sang
Their battle-anthem to the Lord.
Five heroes lead, and following, see
Ten thousand rush to victory!
Oh for Jerusalem’s trumpet now,
To blow a blast of shattering power,
To wake the sleepers high and low,
And rouse them to the urgent hour!
No hand for vengeance--but to save,
A thousand naked swords should wave.
O deem not dead that martial fire,
Say not the mystic flame is spent!
With Moses’ law and David’s lyre,
Your ancient strength remains unbent.
Let but an Ezra rise anew,
To lift the _Banner of the Jew_!
A rag, a mock at first--erelong
When men have bled and women wept,
To guard its precious folds from wrong,
Even they who shrunk, even they who slept,
Shall leap to bless it, and to save.
Strike! for the brave revere the brave!
This is bold and moving, but the reader cannot fail to observe that
the metre and the passion are derived from Byron’s _Isles of Greece_.
The Hebrew’s protest _against_ Greece must, forsooth, owe its form and
sentiment to the Saxon’s plea _for_ Greece! The Jewish muse is still in
leading strings. The true, full song of Israel’s hope is yet to come.
None the less, the genius of Emma Lazarus struck truly the key-note to
that song. We hear its echo still.
CONDER’S “TENT WORK IN PALESTINE”
He used the Bible too much to please some of the continentals. Compare,
for instance, Gautier with Conder. The Frenchman employed the Bible to
illustrate the country, the Englishman the country to illustrate the
Bible. Which procedure is preferable? The answer is another question.
Why does every inch of Palestine interest the modern explorer? No
Parthenon is to be seen within its boundaries, no Sphinx. Neither
is the Attic beautiful there to charm, nor the Egyptian colossal to
provide a thrill. When Thomson (in 1859) called his work “The Land and
the Book,” he put the seal on the English way of regarding the relation
between the geography and the history of the Holy Land. Englishmen have
been among the keenest geographers of Palestine because they respond
best to its history.
Hence Conder’s defect, as some have termed it, is, in truth, his
merit. Apart, however, from the pietism of his motives, he deserved
well of all who love Palestine. He gave some of his best years to
its survey, and that operation did much to revivify the country. His
services must always have a value because he, more than any other
modern, put an end to a sort of thing formerly common. I mean the sort
of thing which a pious old dame is said once to have remarked: “I
knew these places were in the Bible, but I did not know they were in
Palestine.” Jews in particular owe a good deal to him. I doubt whether
I, for one, would ever have visited Medyeh--probably Modin, the home
of the Maccabæans--but for Conder. I think I could quote by heart his
description how the ancient road from Jerusalem to Lydda emerged from
the rocky Beth-horon defiles and “ran along a mountain spur towards
the plain”; how, a mile or so to the north of this main road, the
village of Modin was built upon the southern slopes of the valley; how
the gentle hills of the lowlands (Shephelah) could be seen from the
Modin Knoll, stretching westwards. “At their feet, amid dark groves
of olive, lay the white town of Lydda, and behind it the broad plain
of Sharon extended to a breadth of ten miles. Furthest of all, the
yellow-gleaming sand-dunes bounded the rich arable land, and the waters
of the Great Sea (the Mediterranean) shone brightly under the afternoon
sun.”
This description comes from one of Conder’s other books, his _Judas
Maccabæus_. But his earlier _Tent Work in Palestine_ (1878) is full
of passages just as vivid. It is even more interesting because it
shows us the explorer groping for the results, at which he has not yet
arrived. Aptly enough, the title-page presents, from a sketch by the
author, a theodolite-party at work, for the survey of Western Palestine
was conducted on serious trigonometrical methods. That the narrative
is so picturesque must not blind us to the truth that the operations
were severely scientific. We are now, however, concerned with the
pictorial effects. Read, as a parallel to the Modin description,
Conder’s account of his first visit to Samaria. Taking the north road
from Jerusalem, he passes the ranges about Neby Samuel (probably the
ancient Mizpah), and sees the hills of Benjamin, “black against a sky
of most delicate blush-rose tint, and the contrast was perhaps the
finest in a land where fine effects are common at sunset.” Then he
descends into the rough gorge of the Robbers’ Fountain. “The road is
not improved by the habit of clearing the stones off the surrounding
gardens into the public path.” In the east, roads are often thus
made the common dumping-ground for rubbish, and I remember how the
walk round the outside of the Jerusalem walls was much spoilt by the
heaps of vegetable and other refuse which had been flung over the
ramparts. (General Allenby’s campaign has already changed all that
for the better.) Proceeding, “the short twilight gave place to almost
total darkness as we began to climb the watershed which separates
the plain from the valley coming down from Shiloh, and the moon had
risen when the great shoulder of Gerizim became dimly visible some ten
miles away, with a silvery wreath of cloud on its summit.” The right
time to appreciate Palestinian scenes is usually just after sunset.
And so, on this night march, Conder describes how, “creeping beneath
the shadow of Gerizim, we gained the narrow valley of Shechem, and
followed a stony lane between walnut trees under a steep hillside. The
barking of dogs was now heard, and the lights in camp came into view.
My poor terrier was tired and sleepy, and was set upon at once by
Drake’s larger bull-terriers, Jack and Jill, rather a rude reception
after a thirty-mile journey.” Mr. C. F. Tyrwhitt Drake--who died soon
afterwards--had gone on in advance and had placed the camp close to the
beautiful fountain of Ras el-Ain.
Such extended journeys could not be accomplished without paying
the price. Thus, after the survey of Samaria, Carmel, and Sharon,
operations had to be suspended for a time, simply because the party
had reached the limit of endurance. “The fatigue of the campaign had
been very great. My eyes were quite pink all over, with the effects
of the glare of white chalk, my clothes were in rags, my boots had
no soles. The men were no better off, and the horses also were all
much exhausted, suffering from soreback, due to the grass diet.” But
the spirit was stronger than the flesh. “The rest soon restored our
energies, and autumn found us once more impatient to be in the fields.”
Thence Conder was off to Damascus, Baalbek and Hermon, away from
Palestine itself. The ascent of the 9,000 feet of mount Hermon was
begun at 10.30 a. m., and at 2 o’clock the summit was reached. But we
must pass over the glowing description of the panorama that unfolded
itself to the gaze of the explorers. After three months in the north,
tents were struck, and the party marched out of their pleasant
mountain-camp, bound for Jerusalem and the hills of Judah. Of the many
pen-pictures which Conder draws, we will stay only to regard one--the
description of Bethar, where Bar Cochba made his great effort at
recovering Jewish independence (about the year 135 of the present era).
Conder locates the fortress at the modern village Bittîr (at which
there is now a railway station). It is about thirty-five miles from the
sea, and about five from Jerusalem. “On every side, except the south,
it is surrounded by deep and rugged gorges, and it is supplied with
fresh water from a spring above the village. On the north the position
would have been impregnable, as steep cliffs rise from the bottom
of the ravine, upon which the houses are perched. The name (Bittîr)
exactly represents the Hebrew (Bethar), and the distances agree with
those noticed by Eusebius and the Talmud. Nor must the curious title be
forgotten, which is applied to a shapeless mass of ruin on the hill,
immediately west of Bittîr, for the name Khurbet el Yehûd--Ruin of the
Jews--may be well thought to hand down traditionally among the natives
of the neighbourhood the memory of the great catastrophe of Bethar.”
Whether this place is the true site of Bar Cochba’s Bethar may be
seriously questioned, but no other view can claim to be more certain.
“The site of Bethar must still be considered doubtful,” says that good
authority, S. Krauss, who himself is inclined to the theory which
places the fortress much further north, near Sepphoris.
We should like to linger over the rest of Conder’s journey, but the
few lines that remain must be devoted to his final remarks. Conder,
it must ever be remembered, was one of the first to dispute the then
current belief that the Holy Land had lost its old character for
fertility, and that changes in climate had induced an irreparable
barrenness. He maintained in particular that the supposed dearth of
water had been much exaggerated by recent tourists. “With respect to
the annual rainfall, it is only necessary to note that, with the old
cisterns cleaned and mended, and the beautiful tanks and aqueducts
repaired, the ordinary fall would be quite sufficient for the wants
of the inhabitants and for irrigation.” (Here, too, recent events
have effected an agreeable transformation.) And, in general “the
change in productiveness which has really occurred in Palestine, is
due to decay of cultivation, to decrease of population, and to bad
government. It is Man and not Nature, who has ruined the good land
in which was ‘no lack,’ and it is, therefore, within the power of
human industry to restore the old country to its old condition of
agricultural prosperity.” Construct roads, raise irrigation works,
promote afforestation--those were the measures Conder suggested, after
the three strenuous years of his survey (1872 to 1875). Such optimistic
opinions are now quite common; and, we may hope, are tending towards
realization, if only men’s hopes are not set too high. But let us not
forget that among the first moderns to formulate such opinions, on the
basis of _exact knowledge_, was the author of _Tent Work in Palestine_.
KALISCH’S “PATH AND GOAL”
Of Marcus Kalisch’s learned commentaries on the Bible it has been truly
said that they are a thorough summary of all that had been written on
the subject up to the date when those commentaries were published. He
not only knew everything, but he had assimilated it. Nor was it only
his learning that placed him among the first among the Jewish scholars
of the second part of the nineteenth century. He was original as well;
that he “anticipated Wellhausen,” more than one has declared of him, as
they have declared of others before Kalisch.
Learning and originality make a fairly strong instrument for drawing
out the truth. But another strand is needed to compose the threefold
cord that shall not easily be broken. This, too, Kalisch had at his
command. It is the strand of sentiment. In his more orthodox days when
he produced his _Exodus_ (1855), and in his more rationalistic period
when he gave to the world his _Balaam_ and his _Jonah_ (1887-8)--at
all stages of his activity he was never the mere philologist. Like
Sheridan’s character, he was a man of sentiment; but unlike Joseph
Surface, his sentiment was genuine. He was, to put the same truth in
other words, an expounder of ideas as well as a critic of words.
It should have surprised no one to meet Kalisch in any situation where
the qualities above defined could be exercised. Yet some of those who
only thought of him as the Hebrew grammarian must have opened their
eyes when the fact was brought to their notice that within a couple
of years of printing his _Genesis_ (1858) he issued a small volume on
Oliver Goldsmith. In 1860 he spoke the substance of this volume as
“two lectures delivered to a village audience.” The theme was treated
by him with considerable learning, but with an even more considerable
good feeling. I remember particularly two or three sentences in this
book. “Forgive his faults, but do not forget them” is one--I quote from
memory and may not be verbally exact. Forgiveness not only differs from
forgetfulness, but, humanely considered, the two things are scarcely
consistent. You really can only forgive when you remember--all that the
man was whom you are judging. Another sentence that I recall is this:
“You will find Goldsmith’s life again in his writings, and his writings
in his life.” This is a notable conception, not original to Kalisch.
But the turn he gives to it seems to me quite fresh. Goldsmith, he
asserts, was a great writer and--despite the faults aforementioned--a
good man. “You see his goodness in his writings and his greatness in
his life”--a brilliant epigram, but also a neat description of the
ideal man of letters.
But how came it that Marcus Kalisch, a German and a Jew, was addressing
village audiences in England at all? Born in Pomerania in 1828, he
had come to England fresh from the Universities of Berlin and Halle.
Like so many others of various nationalities and creeds, he had
played a generous part in the 1848 affair, and felt unsafe after its
suppression. Nathan Marcus Adler had settled in London in 1845. The
refugee found an asylum with the new chief rabbi: Kalisch served the
latter as secretary for five years. His former employer must have felt
fairly uncomfortable when Kalisch’s _Leviticus_ appeared (1867-72), for
this was a pretty thorough departure from the old-fashioned standpoint.
Kalisch, of course, was not without honor in his own community. He
had a real, though not an undiscriminating, admirer in the late A. L.
Green. We still, however, seem rather far off from solving the riddle:
how came Kalisch to be talking to English village audiences on Oliver
Goldsmith or on any other subject? The answer is given with the names
of the villages. They were Aston Clinton and Mentmore in the county of
Buckinghamshire--places long associated with the country homes of the
Rothschilds. In 1853 Kalisch was appointed tutor to the sons of Baron
Lionel de Rothschild. From that date until Kalisch’s death, in 1885,
there was no break in the cordial relations between the Rothschilds and
the scholar. They provided the leisure, and he provided the capacity
to make worthy use of it. Countless are the honorable incidents in the
Rothschild record, but there is none on which a Jewish writer more
loves to dwell than on the association of the family with the author of
_Path and Goal_.
The scene of that work is Cordova Lodge, the house of Gabriel de
Mondoza, situated in one of the northern suburbs of London. It was
“an unpretending structure of moderate dimensions, but adorned
with consummate taste and judgment.” The further description of
the house rather reminds one of Disraeli’s creations. And this
Lodge, “a veritable rus in urbe,” with its Greek busts and “modest
conservatories”--there is not lacking even “a diminutive farm”--was,
we are told, so located and ordered as to afford “an atmosphere of
calm cheerfulness, inviting the mind at once to concentration and
intercommunion.” The owner, in whose abode Kalisch represents his
characters as gathered, was descended from a distinguished family of
Spanish Jews, who had come from Holland to England during Cromwell’s
protectorate. His mother was a German, “of an essentially artistic
nature.” From his father he derived his love for the Bible, from his
mother his admiration for the Classics; and doubtful as to which to
prefer, “he clung the more firmly to both, and laboured to weld the
conceptions of the Scriptures and of Hellenism into one homogeneous
design.”
His house was the habitual meeting-place for many native and
foreign guests, and during the International Exhibition a specially
representative group are found at Cordova Lodge, conducting a
“discussion of the elements of civilisation and the conditions of
happiness.” This discussion is the substance of the volume entitled
_Path and Goal_. Such symposia go back to Plato, but it was W. H.
Mallock who, with his _New Republic_, re-popularized the genre in
England. This appeared in 1877; Kalisch’s _Path and Goal_ followed it
in 1880. The disputants in the latter work include Christians of all
degrees of high and low Churchiness; a naturalist and a Hellenist; a
Reform and an Orthodox Rabbi; a Parsee and a Mohammedan; a Brahman
and a Buddhist. Perhaps the most remarkable feature of this gathering
is Kalisch’s recognition of the importance of the Eastern religions.
Sometimes, indeed, those who try to prefigure the future of the world’s
religion take account of Islam. But very few remember the beliefs
and institutions of India. The learning with which Kalisch discusses
the Indian systems would be amazing were one not prepared for it by
previous knowledge of his encyclopedic acquirements.
We will not follow out into any detail the course of the conversations
at Cordova Lodge. It is cleverly constructed, being based on a
discussion of Ecclesiastes. The whole of that biblical book appears
in the second chapter of _Path and Goal_, and it is the text for what
follows. What is the object of the interchange of these opinions? “We
do not search for that which appertains to _one_ time or to _one_
nation, but those truths which flow from the constitution and wants of
human nature, and are on that account universal and unchanging.” No
definite result is reached, except, perhaps, the final justification
of Mondoza’s suggested “eucrasy”--the “harmony of character which is
the perfection of culture.” Here, then, we have the very antithesis
to the view expressed in Herzberg’s _Jewish Family Papers_. Kalisch
believed in the possible harmonization of various elements into a
perfect culture. But he does not describe as Jewish the resultant
harmony. He would not have cared at all about the name; he was chiefly
concerned with the thing. And in the light of this--for I think we may
not unjustly attribute the host’s sentiments to the host’s author--he
regarded the “political community as only an elementary stage”;
nationality was at best preparatory for the “universal union” of men;
while “the feeling of nationality is a onesidedness to be merged in a
genuine and ardent cosmopolitanism.” Cosmopolitanism is the political
correlative to a belief in culture. In the end there is a very general
agreement among the visitors at Cordova Lodge. “Is this a dream?” cries
Mondoza. “It heralds,” said Rabbi Gideon, with a trembling voice, “the
approach of the time predicted by our prophets, when ‘the Lord shall
be One and His name One’; and when ‘He shall bless the nations saying,
Blessed be Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and
Israel Mine inheritance.’” (Isaiah 19. 25.) So, after all, Kalisch’s
“Goal” is not widely distant from the Goal that may rightly be termed
Jewish.
FRANZ DELITZSCH’S “IRIS”
Light and color are the themes of the poet. But they and the flowers
attract the theologian also. Franz Delitzsch produced his _Studies in
Color and Talks on Flowers_ in 1888 (an English version appearing in
the following year). The book gives the lie to the supposition that
the technical scholar is so engaged in dissecting things of beauty,
that he is blind to the beauty of things. Delitzsch--the student and
interpreter of the Bible--assures us that he could not remember the
time when he did not muse on the language of colors; while, as for
flowers, they ever had heavenly things to tell him; in their perfume
he felt “the nearness and breath of the Creator.” Hence he called his
book _Iris_. “The prismatic colours of the rainbow, the brilliant
sword-lily, that wonderful part of the eye which gives it its colour,
and the messenger of heaven who beams with joy, youth, beauty, and
love, are all called _Iris_.” A pretty notion, this, so to name a book
which is occupied largely with the lore of Bible and Talmud.
But the question arises: Did the olden Hebrews and their rabbinic
descendants appreciate colors? Here we are face to face with a basic
error to which some investigators have succumbed. They rely too much
on _words_. The Hebrew names for colors are vague and few. Does it,
however, follow that the ancient people were unable to enjoy the blue
of the sky because they had no word for sky-blue? Men do not _name_
everything they _know_. There is, for instance, no specific Hebrew
for _volcano_, yet there are a score of passages in which volcanic
phenomena are forcibly described in the Old Testament. Delitzsch did
not belong to the superficial theorists just cited. He points out
that, though biblical language has no adjective for blue, it compares
the sky to sapphire in the Sinaitic theophany (Exodus 24. 10), as
well as in Ezekiel’s vision of the divine throne. “Sapphire-blue is
the blue of heaven; the colour of the atmosphere as illumined by the
sun, through which shine the dark depths of space, the colour of the
finite pervaded by the infinite, the colour taken by that which is most
heavenly as it comes down to the earthly, the colour of the covenant
between God and man.” So, too, the Midrash says of the blue fringe worn
by Israelites on the corners of their garments--a blue of the purple
hyacinth hue--that it was reminiscent of the heavens and the Throne of
Glory. And blue, continues Delitzsch, passes almost universally as the
color of fidelity. He proves this by reference to German and Sanskrit.
The Indians would say of a steadfast man that he was “as unchangeable
as the indigo flower,” which is as durable as it is lovely. “But in
biblical symbolism there is associated with blue the idea of the
blue sky, and with the blue sky the idea of the Godhead coming forth
from its mysterious dwelling in the unseen world, and graciously
condescending to the creature.” Delitzsch, scientific commentator
though he was, had something of the _darshan_ in him, and that accounts
in part for his charm. The spirit of Midrash rests where it will: it is
a happy truth that it sometimes finds itself a home in the hearts of
others besides the sons of Israel.
Delitzsch, then, may be likened to the _darshan_: he is equally at
home as allegorist. He can use the method of an Abbahu; he can also
follow the manner of a Philo. Take, for example, his treatment of the
four colors which are found in the priestly vestments--purple-red,
purple-blue, scarlet, and white. White, he says, is the sacred color.
Light is white and God is white. Dressed in the white of holiness, the
priests blessed Israel in the words: “May the Lord make His face shine
in light upon thee.” Delitzsch interprets light in the sense of love.
This is not quite adequate. He often quotes German university customs
in illustration of his views; it is a pity that he forgot the motto
of the University of Oxford, _Dominus illuminatio mea_ (“the Lord is
my light”), from the first verse of the twenty-seventh Psalm. “God
is the author of knowledge as well as the source of love,” comments
Mr. C. G. Montefiore. White would stand for mind-service as well as
heart-service: illumination, no doubt, is emotional, but it must also
be intellectual to be sane and complete. Scarlet, on the other hand,
continues Delitzsch in his allegory of the priestly colors, is the
contrast to white. Isaiah speaks of sin “red as scarlet”--scarlet is
the color of fire, hence of sin and the anger it evokes. “Scarlet with
white in the dress of the high priest, therefore, means that he is
the servant of that God who is holy not only in His love, but also in
His anger.” A fine phrase that, showing deep insight into the Hebrew
conception of God. Delitzsch, obviously, is not to be lumped together
with those who would make of God all love; there is a holy anger, too,
which belongs (inseparably with the love) to the divine nature. With
regard to the two purples in the priestly robes, they typify majesty,
for the dye was costly and its effects magnificent. Purple-red points
to “God’s majesty as the exalted One, and purple-blue to God’s majesty
in His condescension. For,” continues Delitzsch, “even taken in itself,
the impression produced by purple-red is severe and earnest: whereas
purple-blue has a soft tranquillizing effect. And whereas purple-red
suggests the God of judgment who, when He frowns in anger, changes the
heavens into blackness and the moon into blood, purple-blue suggests
the God of peace, who overarches the earth with the blue of heaven,
like a tent of peace.” How very fanciful, but how very Philonean, and
therefore how very Jewish all this is!
There is much more as good as this in _Iris_. For instance, one would
hardly have looked for poetry in the laws of _bedikah_--the minute
scrutiny of the carcasses of animals as regards symptoms of disease.
But just as in Samson’s riddle out of the body of the lion there came
forth sweetness, so in _Iris_ the author extracts aesthetics from the
_bedikah_ rules, and sees in them evidence of the close observation of
colors by the rabbinic legalists. “The colour of the lung especially is
subjected to the most careful examination. It is reckoned healthy if it
is black like the Eastern eye paint--that is, tending to blueish--or
green like leek, or red, or liver-coloured, but it is declared to be
unsuitable for eating if the colour is as black as ink, yellowish-green
like hops, yellow like the yolk of an egg, yellow like saffron,
yellow-red like raw flesh.” And after the recital, Delitzsch exclaims:
“Is not this a rich variegated sampler of colours?”
Since the date when Delitzsch wrote there has come about an important
change in the opinion of anthropologists. Little more than a quarter
of a century has passed, but all anthropological theorists no longer
accept (though some still do) one theory on which Delitzsch builds,
namely, that primitive peoples were color-blind. Several eminent
authorities deny that savages lack the power to discriminate colors.
The fact simply is that with advance in culture there enters greater
precision in _nomenclature_; color-language becomes not so much more
definite, as of wider range. But why? Surely not because of more
accurate observation of natural tints. Culture associates itself
with town life, and urbans are far more color-blind than rustics. At
least, statistics are said to prove this, though Dr. Maurice Fishberg
questions one of the inferences. The discussion has importance owing to
the statement often made that Jews are more subject to color-blindness
than Gentiles, the suggestion being that, as Jews live predominatingly
in towns, they see less _green_ than do those who dwell in the country.
Dr. Fishberg, on the other hand, maintains that, while the poor and
ill-nourished are always susceptible to color-blindness, Jews of the
well-nourished classes are quite as good distinguishers of shades of
color as the rest of the population of the same social status.
There remains something else to add. Culture carries with it luxury,
and luxury leads to the manufacture of silks and cloths of every
variety of shade. It is the mediæval improvement in the _art of dyeing_
that has produced the increase of definition and range in the color
vocabulary. And the art of dyeing owed much to Jews. To repeat a
well-known fact, wherever he went on his Itinerary in the mid-twelfth
century, Benjamin of Tudela always found Jewish dyers. Here, however,
we must break off, for we seem getting a longish way from _Iris_. But
not really. The book itself makes no attempt to be systematic, and
discursiveness is, accordingly, not inappropriate in a _causerie_ on
Franz Delitzsch’s masterpiece.
“THE PRONAOS” OF I. M. WISE
Of Isaac Mayer Wise it is customary to speak as an organizer and
nothing more. True, the most significant performance of his long life
(1819-1900) was the foundation of institutions for American Reform
Judaism. More than any other leader of his age he realized two ideas
which are usually regarded as contradictory, but which Wise saw can
and must be harmonized. The two ideas are not of equal importance. The
basis of a sound Jewish life is the recognition of the congregation
as the unit. Wise perceived this, but he also saw that some sort of
grouping of the units is necessary to convert the congregations into
a community. This he effected by founding the Hebrew Union College
as representative of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations. The
Union devised by Wise differs essentially from the United Synagogue
of London. The latter depends on the principle of control, the former
on the principle of co-operation. This is not the place to discuss
the relative values of the two principles. Suffice it to indicate the
distinction.
Yet, though Wise owes to his organizing skill his fame as “the most
potent factor in the history of Judaism in America,” he was also
an author. His contributions to literature were many and varied. He
was, above all, an energetic journalist; but he was a novelist and a
dramatist as well. A careful study of his writings on religion will
convince any unprejudiced reader that Wise was also a theologian of no
mean order. In his lifetime it was customary to throw easy jibes at
him as an ignoramus. But the charge was false. Not long ago I read for
the first time Wise’s most ambitious books, as well as the _Selected
Writings_, edited in 1900 by Drs. Philipson and Grossman. Now Wise,
throughout his career, worked consciously with the “aim to reconcile
Judaism with the age and its needs.” Every Jewish leader, to whatever
school he belongs, does that. With Wise, however, the aim was most
consciously felt. Hence his writings were all directed to current
problems, to the fashions of the hour; and as a result his books seemed
ephemeral. But the strange thing is that, when the fashions have
passed, it is seen that the treatment of them has permanent worth. I
have been again and again struck by Wise’s learning and originality. He
was a pioneer, for instance, in his treatment of Christianity. He held
the fantastic theory that Paul was identical with Elisha ben Abuyah,
and in other points displays a somewhat perverse ingenuity. But he was
a pioneer in trying to separate the supernatural from the natural in
the records of the early church. “The God Jesus,” he said, “and the
supernatural Paul appear small in the focus of reason. The patriotic
and enthusiastic Jesus, and the brave, bold, wise Paul are grand types
of humanity.” The epithets applied by Wise are not all well chosen;
there is frequently an eccentricity in Wise’s characterizations. But
the main distinction which he draws is sound. Again, Wise was a pioneer
not so much in laying stress on the prophetic Judaism, because Geiger
did the same before him; but where Wise led was in his effort to
attach the prophetic ideals to the congregational life. He understood
that “social service” ought to be an integral element in every
synagogue’s activity. “Whatever a congregation does, it must never
neglect the first of all its duties--the Messianic duty of Israel. It
must contribute its full share to the elevation of human nature, the
redemption of mankind, the sovereignty of truth, and the supremacy of
reason, freedom, and virtue.”
[Illustration: ISAAC MAYER WISE]
Wise, however, refused to set the Prophets above the Law. The
“Revelation on Mount Sinai” was for him “valid eternally.” It is
because of this aspect of his work that I have chosen his _Pronaos_
as the peg on which to hang these thoughts. The book appeared in
Cincinnati in 1891, and its full title is “Pronaos to Holy Writ
establishing, on documentary evidence, the authorship, date, form, and
contents of each of its books, and the Authenticity of the Pentateuch.”
The book is among the earliest of the reasoned replies to the Higher
Criticism. Wise would have nothing to do with the modern treatment of
the Pentateuch. He had as little patience with Graetz as he had with
Wellhausen. The Pentateuch is through and through Mosaic. Moses wrote
Genesis and Deuteronomy with his own hands; the rest was set down soon
after his death from the records which he had left for the purpose.
And further: “There exists no solid ground on which to base any doubt
in the authenticity of any book of Holy Writ.” With that emphatic
assertion the book ends.
Wise, it must be confessed, seemed unaware of the constructive side of
criticism. To him criticism seemed entirely negative. Again, he was
unable to see that the value of the Bible may continue, even though
the older conception of authenticity be modified. But the interest
of his _Pronaos_ just lies in the vigor with which he maintains
that older conception. His defence is spirited, and in many ways
convincing. Criticism was undoubtedly wrong when it treated Judaism
as the creation of the prophets, and the Pentateuch as lower in worth
than Micah and Isaiah. I do not remember that any predecessor of Wise
so thoroughly employed the argument of _continuity_. There is, he said,
an “uninterrupted tradition,” the whole is “a logical organism,” every
part in its right place, fulfilling its due function. Now this is the
real justification of the Bible. There are variations in the points of
view of various inspired writers, but the whole tendency is one, there
is consistency of purpose. Wise deserves lasting gratitude for urging
this truth so powerfully. Well might he term his book a _Pronaos_, a
“door leading into the interior of the sanctuary.” For a detail, it is
significant to find that Wise anticipated the newer, though I think
erratic, direction of criticism in our day. He absolutely refused to
admit that the different names applied to God (Adonai and Elohim) point
to different authors or ages.
Differ though we may with Wise--some of us on account of his rejection
of criticism, others because of his elevation of “Mosaism” into a cult,
others again because of both of these things--it is not possible
to withhold from him the crown of scholarship. In particular, his
_Pronaos_ abounds in acute and fresh contributions to the biblical
problem. It is, moreover, a striking instance of the ironies of
controversy that the most orthodox book on the Pentateuch was written
by the leader of American reform! Cincinnati, under the influence
of Wise, was certainly much more conservative in biblical exegesis
than Breslau was under the influence of Graetz. If in the seventies
and eighties a student had desired to work in an environment which
acknowledged the older views of biblical inspiration, he would have
found himself more at home in the Hebrew Union College than in the
Frankel Seminary. In the course of this series of papers, several
anomalies have been discussed. But none of them is more remarkable than
the contrast between Wise and Graetz. There is another side to it, of
course. Graetz took a wider view of tradition than did Wise, who never
truly grasped the meaning of tradition. Yet the fact remains that in so
far as the question of a tradition concerns the Bible, Wise stood far
more firmly in the old paths than did many who pass for champions of
tradition.
A BAEDEKER LITANY
In the Baedeker Handbook for Palestine and Syria there is a well-known
description of the scene at the western wall of the temple. In A. and
C. Black’s Guide to Jerusalem, the Wailing Place is included among
“Minor Sights,” but Baedeker _stars_ it, thus giving it a testimonial
of importance. Not being an inn, the wall could spare this mark. I
remember reading a clever story called “The Lost Star.” A visitor to a
hotel was dissatisfied with his treatment, and his complaints to the
manager were impatiently received. When the guest departed, he simply
said: “I am Baedeker. You have lost your star.” The Wailing Place could
do without Baedeker’s patronage.
Now, it is not my purpose to discuss the history of praying at the
temple wall. Jerome, in the fourth century, speaks pathetically of
the Jews “buying their tears,” paying for the privilege of weeping
by the wall on the anniversary of the temple’s destruction. But what
will concern us now is Baedeker’s account of the liturgy used at the
prayers. The Rev. W.T. Gidney (as quoted in Black) asserts that there
is used “a kind of liturgy,” the concluding part of which is:
Lord, build; Lord build--
Build Thy house speedily.
In haste! in haste! even in our days.
Build Thy house speedily.
In haste! in haste! even in our days,
Build Thy house speedily.
I do not know whether any Jews actually sing this Passover hymn
(_Addir hu_) on other occasions during the year. Murray’s Palestine
Handbook asserts that “the lamentations are taken from the 79th Psalm,”
a statement which points to the same source as that relied on by
Baedeker. The latter gives two forms, of which the first runs thus:
_Leader_: For the palace that lies desolate:
_Response_: We sit in solitude and mourn.
_Leader_: For the palace that is destroyed:
_Response_: We sit, etc.
_Leader_: For the walls that are overthrown:
_Response_: We sit, etc.
_Leader_: For our majesty that is departed:
_Response_: We sit, etc.
_Leader_: For our great men who lie dead:
_Response_: We sit, etc.
_Leader_: For the precious stones that are burned:
_Response_: We sit, etc.
_Leader_: For the priests who have stumbled:
_Response_: We sit, etc.
_Leader_: For our kings who have despised Him:
_Response_: We sit, etc.
Whence did the compiler of Baedeker derive this? From the Karaites. If
one turns to the fourth volume of the Karaite liturgy, published in
Vienna in 1854, page 208, this litany is to be found. It is part of a
very long series of prayers (which include, on page 212, the passage
which, in Baedeker, follows the one cited above). Psalm 79, referred
to in Murray, appears in the same Karaite book on page 206. The
selections are a tiny fraction of the whole. The Karaite prayers are
always extremely long. Thus, their marriage service fills eleven large,
closely printed sides. The Jerusalem prayers are even more elaborate.
As the pilgrim starts from home for the Holy City, the congregation
turns out to give him a send off, reciting _sixteen_ Psalms as a
supplication for his protection, and other _fourteen_ Psalms in praise
of Jerusalem. He then proceeds on his way. When he arrives at the city,
as far off as the distance at which a man can recognize his fellow, he
rends his garments and mourns as for a lost first-born. He then recites
parts of the Lamentations, and enough Psalms and Selihot to occupy
another ten pages. Some of us complain of the length of our prayers;
when we look at the weary mass of the Karaite liturgy, we stand amazed
at our own moderation.
Having tracked Baedeker to his source, and restricting ourselves to the
pages from which he quotes, it is worth comparing his version with the
original. The omissions made are so serious as to spoil the beauty of
the whole, for beautiful it assuredly is of its kind. The fault arises
from Baedeker only reading down one of the two columns. Now the lines
are alphabetical, and must be read across, not down the page. There are
other faults; for instance _palace_ in the second line is a mistake for
_house_, but the compiler may have used a slightly different version.
In the one before me there is nothing to correspond to _For our great
men who lie dead_. The rest of the lines are the same as in the book I
am using. But note how the effect suffers by the loss of the half-lines
to which I have referred. Thus Baedeker gives _For the priests who have
stumbled_, but omits the complementary phrase _For our studies which
were interrupted_. Again, Baedeker quotes _For the precious stones
which are burned_, but fails to follow it up with _For loving ones that
were separated_, a fine line which ought to have been retained in any
abbreviation, however short.
The only other passage quoted in Baedeker, “another antiphon” or
responsive chant, is the following:
_Leader_: We pray Thee, have mercy on Zion!
_Response_: Gather the children of Jerusalem.
_Leader_: Haste, haste, Redeemer of Zion!
_Response_: Speak to the heart of Jerusalem.
_Leader_: May beauty and majesty surround Zion!
_Response_: Ah! turn Thyself mercifully to Jerusalem.
_Leader_: May the kingdom soon return to Zion!
_Response_: Comfort those who mourn over Jerusalem.
_Leader_: May peace and joy abide with Zion!
_Response_: And the branch (of Jesse) spring up in Jerusalem.
Comparing this with the Hebrew original, there is no such mistake as
in the previous case. The summarizer has correctly read the lines
across the page. There are certain slips, and more than a half of the
whole (which again runs in alphabetical sequence) is left out; but the
shortening is here no loss, as the best lines have been selected.
Besides these prayers, the Karaite book includes a large number of
hymns. Among them, inappropriately enough, is the piyyut on the
offering of Isaac. In the Sephardic service this properly belongs
to the New Year; it goes to a swinging melody at Bevis Marks. True,
the scene was Moriah, the temple hill. But the Karaite book gives no
direction that the shofar is to be sounded. None the less, it finishes
this piyyut with the prayer that God will hearken to the shofar sounds
and say unto Zion: “The time of salvation has come.” Obviously, this is
a fitting prelude to the blowing of the shofar on Rosh ha-Shanah. But
it has no right where this Karaite book has transplanted it, although
the bulk of the hymn suits well enough the liturgy of the Wailing
Place.
IMBER’S SONG
Throughout its whole range modern Hebrew literature can offer no poem
to rival in popularity Imber’s song. Naphtali Herz Imber was born in
1856, and wrote _Ha-Tikwah_ in his youth in one of his many moods.
His disposition was wayward; he had a full share of the artistic
self-consciousness. Some of his characteristics are accurately hit off
in Melchitsedek Pinchas of Mr. Zangwill’s _Children of the Ghetto_.
_Ha-Tikwah_ owes its fame to the directness of its sentiment. What
makes for weakness in it as a poem makes for strength in it as a song.
The most effective national hymns are not usually the most poetical.
“God save the King” is doggerel; “Rule Britannia” is bombast. But both
put patriotic thoughts in straightforward terms, both are happily
wedded to simple tunes within the range of average voices. _Ha-Tikwah_
satisfies both these tests. The melody is beautiful and easily sung
by large masses of people. The opening line of Imber’s refrain: “Our
hope has not perished yet” is certainly derived from the National Song,
“Poland has not perished yet,” to which the Polish legions marched. So
the melody of _Ha-Tikwah_ is said to be a Polish folk-tune, but it
closely resembles a favorite melody of the Sephardim. Various settings
of the tune differ in detail, and the same is true of the current
versions of Imber’s words. It is strange that the versions--all known
to me--retain unanimously the ungrammatical second stanza. It would, I
admit, be difficult to correct it without destroying the rhythm, and
poetical license has worse things to answer for. Indeed the grammatical
lapse, to which I refer, is regarded by some authorities as perfectly
normal and admissible in the new Hebrew.
The power of _Ha-Tikwah_, as has just been said, arises from its
directness. There is no subtlety in its thought, no changes through
its nine verses. Just as few ever sing through “God Save the King,”
so few sing all the verses of _Ha-Tikwah_. The stanzas tend to become
monotonous. They all say the same thing; and it is not surprising that
the number of verses is curtailed in some printed editions (thus in
Idelsohn five of the nine verses complete the song). The burden of all
the verses is identical. The hope of a return to the land of Israel
will never die, so long as this or that endures. Each verse adds a
this or a that to the count. While myriads of Jews go as pilgrims
to the sepulchres of the fathers, while a single eye is left to
drop its tear over the ruins of the temple, while the waters of the
Jordan swell between its banks and fall with a rush through the sea of
Kinnereth, while a drop of blood courses through a Jewish vein, while
Israel retains his national aspirations, still may he hope for their
fulfilment. Some of these appeals are genuinely pathetic, and the final
appeal is magnificent in its strength. Only with the end of the Jews
will come the end of the hope. This is the only way to write a popular
song. There must be no nuances, but just a confident assertion. Imber
supplies exactly that; nothing less, and nothing more.
[Illustration: NAPHTALI HERZ IMBER]
Nothing more, for the song is not in any sense a declaration of
the end. It deals only with the means, making them into an end.
Unquenchable, he cries, is the hope of a return; no one has expressed
this hope more vigorously and takingly. But what is to be the result
of the return? With what ideals are the patriots filled? _Ha-Tikwah_
is silent on these questions. Imber was not qualified to reply to
them. He had no depth of spiritual feeling, and though he was capable
of inspiriting, he was incapable of inspiring. Hence the absence of
all Messianic thought in _Ha-Tikwah_. Compare it, for instance, with
_Leka Dodi_; the Friday night hymn is like _Ha-Tikwah_, a song of the
return, but, unlike _Ha-Tikwah_, it is Messianic, and is also a song
of the rebuilding. When the history of the neo-Zionist movement comes
to be written, this fact will undoubtedly come into due prominence:
namely, that we have been passing through a phase in which the hope of
the return has been divorced from the hope of the rebuilding.
It is remarkable that some versions of the refrain remove the only
words which possibly can bear a Messianic construction. I have not
before me the original words of Imber himself, and I have a notion
that Mr. David Yellin is responsible in part for the chorus. Be that
as it may, in the last line Jerusalem is described as “the city
where David encamped.” The phrase comes from the opening line of the
twenty-ninth chapter of Isaiah. “Woe to Ariel, Ariel, city where David
encamped”--Ariel is either “Lion of God” or, as the Targum takes it,
“Altar-hearth.” The Rabbis combined both senses. Ariel was the altar,
yet they saw something lion-shaped in the sanctuary. In Isaiah the
passage is one of doom, Ariel is to be humiliated by the Assyrians.
Curiously enough, the ancient Greek translation gives also a hostile
turn to the words “city where David encamped,” rendering “against
which David encamped.” But this is erroneous. The meaning is: the city
in which David dwelt, selecting it as the royal capital. David, it is
true, did not build the temple, but he brought the ark thither, and
offered sacrifices on the occasion, and later on built an altar. Not
only, then, is Ariel justly to be termed the city where David encamped,
but the use of the phrase in _Ha-Tikwah_ supplies the missing Messianic
hope, for David is the type of this hope. In the version of _Ha-Tikwah_
printed by Idelsohn four verses are omitted, and some of those which
are retained are set in an inverted order. More culpably, the refrain
is weakened into “the city of Zion and Jerusalem,” thus removing the
Davidic touch. The change does not merely offend against reason; it
also sins against rhyme; thus adding another instance to many others of
the destructive tamperings with masterpieces which some editors seem
unable to avoid.
One other striking merit of _Ha-Tikwah_ must be observed. Unlike many
other poets of Zion, Imber does not denounce. He makes no attack
on those who do not share his feelings. He points to the continued
existence of the hope for the return, but he refrains from condemning,
except by the merest implication, those who have no consciousness of
the hope. There is true art here, which I am able to appreciate, far
removed as I am from Imber’s nationalism. For, on the one hand, art is
best when it pleases some without paining others. Imber pleases those
who agree with him without paining the rest. On the other hand, art
is strongest when it does not recognize that there are others to be
displeased. The confident note is the artistic note. The poet assumes
that what he feels is the only thing to feel. To talk of doubters is to
throw doubt on himself. A popular song cannot stoop to argument. It is
categorical. Thus Imber’s _Ha-Tikwah_ can be enjoyed by those who do
not accept its message. And its melody is sung at table, to Psalm 126,
by some who never sing the tune to Imber’s words. “When the Lord turned
again the captivity of Zion, we were like unto them that dream. Then
was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with exultation;
then said they among the nations: The Lord hath done great things for
them.” Psalm 126, when all is said and done, is the most exquisite Song
of the Return ever written. “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.”
We can all realize the pathos and the hope, even though we are not at
one as to the nature of the harvest that is to be reaped.
INDEX
Abarbanel, 53.
Aben Ezra, 176;
_see also_ Abraham Ibn Ezra.
Aboab, Isaac, 102, 107.
Abraham Ibn Ezra, 66, 261, 269;
_see also_ Aben Ezra.
Acosta, Uriel, 240-246.
Addison, Joseph, 153, 236, 237.
Addison, Lancelot, 153-159.
Adler, H., 288.
Adler, Michael, 228, 270.
Adler, Nathan M., 288, 335.
Æsop’s Fables, 18, 22, 35, 84.
Aguilar, Grace, 247-253.
Ahad ha-‘Am, 185, 289.
Ahikar, the story of, 17-23.
Al-Fasi, 63.
_Alfieri and Salomon_, by Landor, 260-266.
Al-Harizi, 79, 81.
Allenby, General, 328.
Allingham, William, 82.
Alnaqua, Israel, 102, 103.
Anti-Maimonists, 85.
Apion, Josephus against, 32-38.
_Arabian Nights_, 18.
Archagathos, 43, 44.
Aristeas, Letter of, 116, 117, 119, 120.
Aristobulus, Jewish Hellenist, 44.
Aristotle, 78, 79.
Arnold, Edwin, 233.
Arnold, Matthew, 32, 42, 207.
Artom’s Sermons, 297-302.
_Aruk_, the, by Nathan of Rome, 60-66.
Ass-worship, libel of, 34.
Auerbach, Berthold, 242.
Baedeker’s, Handbook for Palestine, 353-358.
Bandmann, A., 240.
Bar Abun, Solomon, 97-101.
Bar Hisdai’s _Prince and Dervish_, 84-90.
Baratier, 270.
Barb, Issac, 304.
Barbary Jews, Lancelot Addison on the, 153-159.
Barlaam and Josaphat, romance of, 88, 89.
Belinson, 291.
_Benevolent Jew_, the, by George Walker, 192-198.
_Ben Ezra, Rabbi_, by Robert Browning, 269-275.
_Ben Karshook_, by Browning, 269-275.
Benisch, A., 254, 255, 256.
Benjamin of Tudela, 270.
Bernstein, 282.
Berdoe, 271.
Black’s Guide to Jerusalem, 353.
Blanco White’s Sonnet, 220-225;
_see also_ White, Joseph Blanco.
Bodenschatz Pictures, the, 160-165.
Bonajuto, 116;
_see also_ De Rossi.
Book of Tobit, 17, 18, 22, 23.
Bornstein, H. J, 304.
Box, C. H., 136.
Braham, 208, 209.
Briggs, C. A., 225.
Brooke, Stopford, 274.
Browning, Robert, 265, 269-275.
Buddha, life of, 88.
Buffon, French naturalist, 32.
Burke, Edmund, 168.
Burne-Jones, 95, 96.
Buxtorf, J., 62.
Byron, 199, 324.
Byron’s _Hebrew Melodies_, 194, 207-213, 265.
Caecilius on the Sublime, 39-45.
Caine, Hall, 240.
Carigal, rabbi, 176.
Cassel, Paul, 110.
Cervantes, 109.
Cheyne, T. K., 321.
Chilmead, Edmund, 138, 139, 140, 141.
Chwolson, Daniel, 110.
Cicero, 33.
Cobbett, William, 200.
Cohen, F. L., 101, 208.
Cohn, 26.
Coleridge, S. T., 214-219, 224.
Coleridge’s _Table Talk_, 214-219.
Conder, 325-332.
Conybeare, F. C., 25, 26.
Cowley, A. E., 80.
Crawford Haggadah, the, 92, 96.
Creighton, bishop, 113.
Crump, C. G., 260.
Cromwell, Oliver, 138, 139, 147, 337.
Cumberland, Richard, 191, 193, 201, 275.
Da Costa, H. Men., 174.
Dahl, Basil, 304.
Dalman, G., 62.
Dante, 263.
De Rossi, Azariah, 116-121.
De Rossi’s _Light of the Eyes_, 116-121.
De Sola, 79, 80.
Degli Mansi, Italian Jewish family, 60, 118.
Deity, depicting of the, 92, 93, 152.
Delitzsch, Franz, 340-346.
Demosthenes, 33.
Deutsch, Emmanuel, 190.
Dickens, Charles, 227.
Didot, M., 151.
Disraeli, Benjamin, 226-232, 336.
Disraeli’s _Alroy_, 226-232.
Disraeli, Isaac, 229.
Dobson, Austin, 125.
Doré, biblical pictures of, 254.
Drake, C. F. Tyrwhitt, 328.
Dutuit, M., 151.
Efros, Israel, 102.
Eichler, German artist, 161.
Eisenmenger, 189, 288.
Eliezer, son of Hyrkanos, 273.
Eliot, George, 229, 321.
Elisha ben Abuyah, 244, 348.
_‘En Ya’akob_, 102-107.
Ephrathi, Joseph, 265.
Epictetus, 32.
Espinasse, Francis, 153.
Erasmus, 110, 113.
Essenes, the, 20.
Eusebius, 48, 330.
Ezekielos, Jewish Greek poet, 46-52.
_Faithful Shepherdess_, by Fletcher, 127.
_Family Papers_, by Wilhelm Herzberg, 283-289.
Fettmilch riot, 130.
Finzi, David, 118.
Fishberg, Maurice, 345, 346.
Fletcher’s _Faithful Shepherdess_, 127.
Frankel, Z., 288, 352.
Frankfurt, Moses, 103.
Franzos, Karl Emil, 276-282.
Friederich of Brandenburg, 160.
Furnivall, 269.
Gaffarel, J., 136.
Gaster, Moses, 172.
Gautier, 325.
Geiger, Abraham, 349.
Geiger, L., 72.
Gellius, Aulus, 33.
Gibbon. E., 233.
Gidney, W. T., 353.
Gifford, 48, 49, 50, 51.
Ginzberg, L., 54, 221.
Gladstone. W. E., 276, 317.
Glenelg, Lord, 233.
Goethe’s _Faust_, Hebrew translation of, 306.
Goldsmid, Isaac Lyon, 183.
Goldsmith, Oliver, 136, 334, 335.
Gordon S. L., 304.
Graetz, H., 44, 62, 71, 72, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 129, 184, 187,
188, 189, 228, 287, 350, 352.
Grant, Robert, 233-239.
Green, A. L., 335.
Grossman, Louis, 348.
Grotius, 214.
Guarini and Luzzatto, 122-128.
Güdemann, M., 65.
Günzburg;
_see_ Stassof and Günzburg.
Gutzkow’s _Uriel Acosta_, 240-246, 265.
Haes, Frank, 92, 93, 96.
Haggadah, of Sarajevo, 91-96.
Hahn, Joseph, 129-135.
Hahn’s Note Book, 129-135.
Hai Gaon, 53, 66.
Halper, B., 9, 18, 274, 304.
_Hamlet_, Hebrew translation of, 304.
Handel, 265, 290, 291.
_Ha-Tikwah_, by N. H. Imber, 359-364.
Havell, H. L., 40.
Heine, H., 81, 321.
Henry, Michael, 311-318.
Herder, Johann Gottfried von, 184-190.
Herder’s Anthology, 184-190.
Herodotus, 46, 51.
Herzberg, A., 288.
Herzberg, Wilhelm, 283-289, 339.
Hesiod, 51.
Hillel, tanna, 53, 251.
Hoffmann, G., 18.
Homer, 40, 41, 57, 263.
Hühner, L., 176.
Hurwitz, Hyman, 216, 217.
Hutten, Ulrich von, 109.
Huxley, 218, 219.
Ibn Ezra, Abraham, 66, 261, 269;
_see also_ Aben Ezra.
Ibn Gebriol _Royal Crown_, 77-83.
Ibn Gebriol, Solomon, 77-83, 97.
Ibn Habib, Jacob, 105, 106, 107.
Idelsohn, 360, 363.
Imber, Naphtali Herz, 359-364.
_Iris_, by Franz Delitzsch, 340-346.
Isaac Pinto’s Prayer-Book, 171-177.
_Isaac’s Lamp and Jacob’s Well_, 102-107.
Israels, Josef, 307.
Italia, Salom, engraver, 151, 152.
Jacob ben Nissim of Kairuwan, 54.
Jacobs, Joseph, 84, 88, 89, 90, 270, 271, 274.
James, William, 182.
Jastrow, Marcus, 62.
Jastrow, Morris, 176.
Jeffery, 213.
Jellinek, Adolf, 245, 300, 301.
Jellinek, Hermann, 245, 246.
Jellinek, Moritz, 245.
Jerome, 353.
_Jews of Barnow_, by K. E. Franzos, 276-282.
Johanan ben Zaccai, 274.
_Johanan Hakkadosh_, by Browning, 270, 271.
Johnson, Samuel, 136.
Johnson’s Rasselas, 87.
Josaphat;
_see_ Barlaam and Josaphat.
Josephus, 32-38, 44, 273.
Joubert, 110.
Judah ha-Levi, 28, 79.
Judah the Prince, 55, 57, 58, 59.
_Judas Maccabæus_, by Longfellow, 290-296.
Juvenal, 109.
Kalir, 79.
Kalisch, Marcus, 333-339.
Kalonymos ben Kalonymos, 109.
Karpeles, Gustav, 81, 82.
Kaufmann, David, 287.
Keats, John, 95.
Kimhi, David, 46, 86, 87.
_King Lear_, Hebrew translation of, 304.
Kinnaird, Douglas, 208, 211.
Kipling’s _Recessional_, 193.
Kirchner, 162.
Kirkpatrick, 222.
Kohler, K., 273.
Kohut, Alexander, 62, 64.
Kohut, G. A., 172, 174, 175.
Krassensohn, N. P., 303.
Krauss, S., 34, 330.
Kuiper, 47.
Lactantius, 49.
Lamb, Caroline, 210.
Landor, 260-266.
Lavater, 161.
Lazarus, Emma, 319-324.
Lee, Sidney, 170.
Leeser, Isaac, 182, 247, 249, 252, 254-259.
Leeser’s Bible, 254-259.
Leibnitz, 109.
Leon Modena’s _Rites_, 136-143.
Lessing, 166-170, 184, 188, 194, 269, 273, 303.
Lessing’s First Jewish Play, 166-170.
Letteris, Meir, 306.
_Letters from Obscure Men_, 108-115.
Levi, David, 254.
Levi, Lyon, 201.
Levy, S., 101.
_Life Thoughts_, by Michael Henry, 311-318.
Lilien, E. M., 95.
Longfellow, 290-296.
Longinus, 39-45.
Lucas, Mrs. Henry, 77, 80, 98, 99.
Luria, Isaac, 28, 158.
Luther’s version of the Bible, 309.
Luzzatto, Moses Hayyim, 122-128.
Lyon, Solomon, 211.
Lytton, Bulwer, 207, 213.
Macaulay, Thomas, 58, 159, 277.
MacDonald, George, 276.
Mackay, popular versifier, 317.
Maimonides, 24, 58, 84, 140.
Mallock, W. H., 337.
Mandelkern, S., 213.
Marlowe, Chris., 194.
Martyrologies of the Jews, 68.
Massel, Joseph, 291.
Meir, tanna, 244.
Meisel, W. A., 86.
Menasseh ben Israel, 147-151.
Mendelssohn, Moses, 166, 167, 178-183, 187, 188, 189.
Mendelssohn’s _Jerusalem_, 178-183, 254, 269, 303, 313.
Mendes, F. de Sola, 287.
_Menorat ha-Maor_, 102-107.
_Meor ‘Enayim_, 116-121.
Michaelis, 167.
Middleton’s _Descriptive Catalogue of the Etched Work of Rembrandt_,
149.
Mieses, Fabius, 303.
Milton, John, 36, 237, 306.
Modena, Leon, 136-143, 166.
Molière, 227.
Montefiore, C. G., 29, 343.
Montefiore, Sir Moses, 168.
Monypenny, 226, 227, 228, 229.
Moore, Thomas, 200, 213.
More, Sir Thomas, 113.
Moses, Longinus on, 40, 41.
Müller, Johann Conrad, 161.
Müller, Max, 66.
Müller and Schlossar, publishers of Haggadah, 91.
Murray, Fairfax, 151.
Murray, Gilbert, on “The Rise of the Greek Epic,” 57.
Murray, John, 207, 208.
Murray’s Palestine Handbook, 354, 355.
Musafia, Benjamin, 62.
Nathan of Rome’s Dictionary, 60-66.
Nathan, Isaac, 194, 207-213.
Neubauer, A., 55, 56, 69.
Niemeyer, 168.
Nieto, Isaac, 171, 172.
Nordlinger, Joseph;
_see_ Hahn, Joseph.
Nusbiegel, G., 161.
Ockley, 139.
Oesterley, 136.
Orr, Mrs. Sutherland, 271.
_Othello_, Hebrew translation of, 303-310.
_Paradise Lost_, Hebrew translation of, 306.
Pascal, 109, 113, 261.
Pass, Ernest de, 316.
_Pastor Fido_, by Guarini, 122-128.
_Path and Goal_, by Marcus Kalisch, 333-339.
Pfefferkorn, 110, 112, 113, 288.
Philippson, Ludwig, 254.
Philipson, David, 348.
Philo, 24-31, 35, 44, 120.
Phoenix of Ezekielos, the, 46-52.
Picart, Bernard, 162.
_Piedra Gloriosa_, 147, 151, 152.
Pinto, Isaac, 171-177.
Pinto, Joseph Jesurun, 174, 175.
Piyyut by Bar Abun, 97-101.
Plato, 337.
Pliny, 33.
Plutarch, 44.
Pompey, 43.
Pool, David, 171.
Possart, 170.
_Pronaos_, by I. M. Wise, 347-352.
Prothero, 211.
Rabelais, 109.
Rashi, 63, 65.
Raspe, Rudolf Eric, 194.
Reinach, Théodore, 41, 42, 43, 44.
_Rejected Addresses_, by Horace Smith, 199-204.
Rembrandt, 147-151.
Renan, E., 108.
Reuchlin, J., 111, 112, 115.
Roth, C. M., 161.
Rousseau, 184.
_Romeo and Juliet_, Hebrew translation of, 304, 310.
Rothschild, James, 305.
Rothschild, Lionel de, 336.
_Royal Crown_, by Ibn Gebriol, 77-83.
Rubin, Salomo, 241.
Ruskin, 307.
Sa’adya, 46.
Sabbatai Zevi, 228.
Sachs, Michael, 78, 79, 80.
_Sacred Poems_, by Robert Grant, 233-239.
Salaman, Mrs. R. N., 77, 97.
Salfeld, 69, 70.
Salkind, Solomon, 305.
Salkinson, I. E., 303-310.
Schiller, F., 305.
_Salomon_;
see _Alfieri and Salomon_.
Samuels, M, 183.
Sarajevo Haggadah, the, 91-96, 152.
Schelling, 214.
Schlegel’s translation of Shakespeare, 305.
Schlossar, _see_ Müller and Schlossar.
Schmidt, Cæsar, 286.
Schopenhauer, A., 82.
Schudt, anti-Semite, 114, 115, 288.
Schürer, E., 43, 44.
Schurzfleisch, 42.
Scott, Walter, 193, 194, 195, 196, 200, 204, 210.
Scott’s _Ivanhoe_, 193, 194, 196, 231.
Shakespeare, William, 89, 184, 214, 224, 274, 294.
Hebrew translations from, 303-310.
Sheridan, 333.
Sherira, Letter of, 53-59.
Sidney, Philip, 266.
Singer, Simeon, 32, 172, 173, 248, 300.
Slousch, Nahum, 306.
Smith, Horace, of the _Rejected Addresses_, 199-204.
Smith, James, of the _Rejected Addresses_, 199-204.
Smolenskin, Perez, 303, 309, 310.
Solomon, S. J., 95.
Solomons, I., 150, 151, 152.
_Sorrows of Tatnu, the_, 67-73.
Spicer, H., 240.
Spinoza, Baruch, 181, 241, 242, 244, 245.
_Spirit of Judaism_, by Grace Aguilar, 247-253.
Stassof and Günzburg, publishers of the Haggadah, 91.
Steele, Richard, 114, 115.
Steinschneider, M., 78, 88, 175.
Stern, 69.
Stevenson, 213.
Stiles, Ezra, 176, 177.
Stobbe, 69.
Stokes, Francis Griffin, 111, 114.
Sublime, Caecilius on the, 39-45.
Suidas, 42.
Sully, James, 184.
Surrenhusius’ Latin Mishnah, 162.
Swift, J., 112.
Swinburne, A. C., 207.
Symonds, John Addington, 123, 124.
Tacitus, 34.
_Tatnu, Sorrows of_, 67-73.
Tennyson, Alfred, 290, 317, 318.
_Tent Work in Palestine_, by Conder, 325-332.
Tertullian, 72.
Thackeray, H. St. J., 119.
Theobald, 309.
Theocritus, 128.
Therapeutae, 26, 28.
Thomson, 325.
Tiberius, emperor, 33.
Titus, 61, 117.
Treitschke, German historian, 71.
Tree, Herbert, 240.
Trench, 186.
_Uriel Acosta_, by Gutzkow, 240-246.
Vaughan, Henry, 238.
Vaughan, R., 162.
Vogelstein, 62.
Voltaire, 109, 175, 303.
Vossius, Isaac, 147, 149.
Wagenseil, 288.
Walker, George, 191-198.
Walker’s _Theodore Cyphon_, 191-198.
Wellhausen, Julius, 186, 333, 350.
Wendland, 26.
Wharton, Edith, 112.
Whewell’s _Astronomy_, 222.
White, Joseph Blanco, 220-225.
Williamson, 154.
Wise, Isaac Mayer, 347-352.
Wolf, Lucien, 226.
Wordsworth, William, 166.
Yellin, David, 362.
Yellin method, the, 248.
_Yosif Omez_, by Joseph Hahn, 129-135.
Zangwill, Israel, 80, 88, 228, 240, 359.
Zedner, J., 103.
Zunz, Leopold, 97, 98, 102, 116, 118, 119, 120, 254.
The Lord Baltimore Press
BALTIMORE, MD., U. S. A.
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation errors have been corrected.
Page 93: “to repoduce the whole of the text” changed to “to reproduce
the whole of the text”
Page 126: “moveover that the happy period” changed to “moreover that
the happy period”
Page 242: “had beeen” changed to “had been”
Page 314: “pomote peace” changed to “promote peace”
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "By-paths in Hebraic bookland" ***
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