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”