I
The claim that the Jews are a "Chosen People" has always irritated the
Gentiles. "From olden times," wrote Philostratus in the third century,
"the Jews have been opposed not only to Rome but to the rest of
humanity." Even Julian the Apostate, who designed to rebuild their
Temple, raged at the doctrine of their election. Sinai, said the
Rabbis with a characteristic pun, has evoked _Sinah_ (hatred).
In our own day, the distinguished ethical teacher, Dr. Stanton Coit,
complains, like Houston Chamberlain, that our Bible has checked and
blighted all other national inspiration: in his book "The Soul of
America," he even calls upon me to repudiate unequivocally "the claim
to spiritual supremacy over all the peoples of the world."
The recent revelation of racial arrogance in Germany has provided our
enemies with a new weapon. "Germanism is Judaism," says a writer in
the American _Bookman_. The proposition contains just that dash of
truth which is more dangerous than falsehood undiluted; and the saying
ascribed to Von Tirpitz in 1915 that the Kaiser spent all his time
praying and studying Hebrew may serve to give it colour. "As he talks
to-day at Potsdam and Berlin," says Verhaeren, in his book "Belgium's
Agony," "the Kings of Israel and their prophets talked six thousand
years ago at Jerusalem." The chronology is characteristic of
anti-Semitic looseness: six thousand years ago the world by Hebrew
reckoning had not been created, and at any rate the then Kings of
Jerusalem were not Jewish. But it is undeniable that Germanism, like
Judaism, has evolved a doctrine of special election. Spiritual in the
teaching of Fichte and Treitschke, the doctrine became gross and
narrow in the _Deutsche Religion_ of Friedrich Lange. "The German
people is the elect of God and its enemies are the enemies of the
Lord." And this German God, like the popular idea of Jehovah, is a
"Man of War" who demands "eye for eye, tooth for tooth," and cries
with savage sublimity:--
I will render vengeance to Mine adversaries,
And will recompense them that hate Me,
I will make Mine arrows drunk with blood,
And my sword shall devour flesh.
Judaism has even its Song of Hate, accompanied on the timbrel by
Miriam. The treatment of the Amalekites and other Palestine tribes is
a byword. "We utterly destroyed every city," Deuteronomy declares;
"the men and the women and the little ones; we left none remaining;
only the cattle we took for a prey unto ourselves with the spoil of
the cities." David, who is promised of God that his seed shall be
enthroned for ever, slew surrendered Moabites in cold blood, and Judas
Maccabæus, the other warrior hero of the race, when the neutral city
of Ephron refused his army passage, took the city, slew every male in
it, and passed across its burning ruins and bleeding bodies. The
prophet Isaiah pictures the wealth of nations--the phrase is his, not
Adam Smith's--streaming to Zion by argosy and caravan. "For that
nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish.... Aliens
shall build up thy walls, and their kings shall minister unto thee.
Thou shalt suck the milk of nations." "The Lord said unto me," says
the second Psalm, "Thou art My son, this day have I begotten thee. Ask
of Me and I will give the nations for thine inheritance.... Thou shalt
break them with a rod of iron."
Nor are such ideas discarded by the synagogue of to-day. Every
Saturday night the orthodox Jew repeats the prayer for material
prosperity and the promise of ultimate glory: "Thou shalt lend unto
many nations but thou shalt not borrow; and thou shalt rule over many
nations but they shall not rule over thee." "Our Father, our King," he
prays at the New Year, "avenge before our eyes the blood of Thy
servants that has been spilt." And at the Passover Seder Service he
still repeats the Psalmist's appeal to God to pour out His wrath on
the heathen who have consumed Jacob and laid waste his dwelling.
"Pursue them in anger and destroy them from under the heavens of the
Lord!"