A NARROW KIND OF PATRIOTISM
All nations like to think of themselves as superior to the rest of
mankind. The Greeks used to despise all foreigners as "barbarians." We
in America ridicule immigrants from other countries and call them
unpleasant names. The Jews also made the same mistake of despising
people of other races and nations. We find laws even in so just a
law-book as Deuteronomy which are unfair to foreigners. Jews were
forbidden to exact interest from fellow Jews, but they were permitted
to exact it from foreigners. The flesh of animals which died of
themselves could not be eaten by Jews, but they might sell it to
foreigners.
THE INCREASING HATRED TOWARDS FOREIGNERS AFTER THE EXILE
We have seen how the exiles in Babylonia kept the Sabbath and went to
the synagogue in order that they might continue to be Jews and might
not lose their Jewish religion, the worship of Jehovah. As time went
on they found it necessary to be more and more strict. As their girls
and boys grew up they fell in love with Babylonian young men and young
women. But if these young Jews had married Babylonians, the children
would have grown up as Babylonians in customs and religion. So all
intermarriages were forbidden.
=The fight against intermarriages in Judæa.=--When these exiles
returned from Babylonia to Jerusalem they were shocked to find that
the Jews there had not been strict in this matter. They had taken
wives and husbands from the Moabites, and Edomites, and other nations
around Judæa.
It is hard for us to see that this was wrong, for these people
probably became worshipers of Jehovah, like Ruth the Moabitess in the
beautiful story in the Bible, who said to her Jewish mother-in-law,
"Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God." The exiles from
Babylon, however, including so good and wise a man as Nehemiah, fought
with all their might against all intermarriages. Without doubt the
motive, which was to protect the Hebrews from idolatry, was good, but
the matter is certainly open to criticism, especially in the light of
our truer knowledge of God. We read that at one time, even under the
leadership of Ezra, one of the returned exiles, a large number of the
wives from other nations were cruelly divorced and sent away weeping
to their own people. All this helped to give the Jews a wrong and
unreasonable pride in their own race and a silly and unkind contempt
for other races.
=The hatred between the Jews and the Samaritans.=--About the time of
Nehemiah there was also started a bitter feud between the Jews and the
Samaritans. There had always been a good deal of jealousy between the
people of Judah in the South, and the Hebrews of the central and
northern parts of Canaan. Samaria was the capital of the northern
kingdom, which had split off from the kingdom of David and Solomon.
This old jealousy flamed up again after Nehemiah. The Samaritans had
intermarried with their heathen neighbors, perhaps more than the Jews
in Judæa. So the Jews claimed that the Samaritans had no right to call
themselves true Hebrews.
The Samaritans, on the other hand, claimed that they were true
children of Abraham, and they built a temple of their own on Mount
Gerizim as a rival to the temple of Jerusalem. This jealousy and hate
grew more and more bitter until, in the time of Jesus, the Jews looked
upon Samaritans with even more contempt than any Gentiles.
=The growing prejudice against the Jews among other peoples.=--Those
who call names generally hear themselves taunted and ridiculed in
turn. The very fact that the Jews would not work on the Sabbath marked
them as peculiar and helped to make them unpopular. Their laws about
foods, clean and unclean, were also different from those of other
nations. For example, they would not eat pork. Moreover, as time went
on many of the Jews in Babylon and in other foreign lands grew
prosperous. They were industrious and they had brains and a special
gift for trade. Before long they had money to lend, and they often
demanded unjust rates of interest. This too made them unpopular. So
the more proudly and contemptuously they held aloof from Babylonians,
Persians, Egyptians, and all other foreigners the more frequently they
heard themselves called "Jewish dogs" and other hard names.
THE COMING OF THE GREEKS
This racial pride on the part of the Jews was still more increased by
the coming of another unusually proud people, the Greeks. In the year
B.C. 333, Alexander the Great defeated the army of the king of Persia
and soon extended his rule over all western Asia, including Judæa.
Very soon Greeks were everywhere to be seen, in all the cities of
Palestine. In order to protect the country from the desert robbers
who, as we have seen, had been making their raids through all the
centuries, a chain of Greek cities was built to the east of the Jordan
and thousands of Greek settlers were brought there to live. The ruins
of many beautiful Greek temples and theaters may still be seen in that
country. Samaria was also rebuilt as a Greek city, the capital of the
province. So there were Greeks on all sides of Jerusalem and throngs
of Greek merchants and travelers were to be seen on the streets of
every Jewish city and village.
The Greeks in some ways had as much to be proud of as a people as the
Jews. Their sculptors had carved the most beautiful marbles in the
world. Their poets had composed the most beautiful poems. Their
philosophers were wiser than those of any other nation. Moreover, many
of these Greeks who came into Palestine and other countries of Asia
were filled with a truly missionary spirit. It is said that Alexander
the Great was inspired by the thought that he was helping to spread
the art and wisdom and culture of the Greeks throughout the world.
=The struggle between Judaism and Hellenism.=--This meant that the old
religion of Jehovah was in danger of being forgotten not only in
Babylonia and other lands but even in Judæa and Jerusalem. Many Jews
quite fell in love with the new art and learning of the Greeks. They
learned the Greek language, gave their children Greek names, such as
"Jason," for example, instead of "Joshua." A gymnasium was built in
Jerusalem where Jewish lads learned to exercise and play games after
the Greek style. Many of them tried to hide the fact that they were
Jews, and too often they ceased to worship Jehovah, the God of their
fathers, and offered sacrifices to Zeus and other Greek divinities.
=The beginnings of the Pharisees.=--Other Jews fought against all
these new ideas and fashions. They became more strict than ever in
their observance of the peculiar customs and regulations of the Jewish
law. It was at this time that the beginnings of the party of the
Pharisees came into existence, of which we read in the New Testament.
The word "Pharisee" means "one who is kept apart, or separate"; that
is, one who holds aloof from the heathen and from heathen customs.
They were the men who "when they come from the market place, eat not,
except they bathe themselves." They might have touched some heathen
person in the street which they thought made them ceremonially
unclean. In the earlier days the Pharisees were called "Hasideans," or
"the pious."
It was right, of course, that these men should struggle to keep their
religion alive. The great religious truths of the prophets were worth
more to the world than all the art and wisdom of the Greeks. But the
result of the struggle was an even greater scorn on the part of the
Hebrews for all men who were not Jews.
STUDY TOPICS
1. Read Esther 9. 5, 11-16. What kind of patriotism does this passage
express?
2. Compare the following laws in Deuteronomy: 10. 18-19 and 14. 21.
Can you explain the inconsistency?
3. What national characteristics do hatred and contempt of other
nations lead to?
4. What is the danger from continually hurling bad names at
foreigners, such as "Greasers," "Chinks," and so on?