the spiritual side of religion, either in respect of consciousness of sin,
or of individual love and devotion. With an equal logic quite the opposite
might be argued. Professor Toy tells us himself that it is no “accident
that along with this more definite expression of ethical‐religious law we
find the first traces of a more spiritual conception of righteousness in
the ‘new heart’ of Jeremiah and Ezekiel” (p. 235), whilst in another
passage we read that “a turning point is marked by the Deuteronomist
Jeremiah and Ezekiel, who announce the principles of individual
responsibility and inwardness of obedience” (p. 184). Now, two things are
certain; first, that Ezekiel urges the necessity of the new heart as well
as of individual responsibility more keenly than any of his predecessors;
secondly, that in Ezekiel the legalistic tendency is more evident than in
Deuteronomy and Jeremiah. The logical conclusion would thus be that the
higher ideals of religion are not only not inconsistent with legalism, but
are the very outcome of it, and the so‐called Priestly Code, by the very
fact of its markedly legalistic tendency, should be considered as a step
in the right direction. The latter assertion sounds like a paradox, but it
will seem less so when the prevailing characteristic of this portion of
the Pentateuch, as given even by Kuenen, who is by no means a champion of
the Law, is borne in mind. “The centre of gravity,” according to the great
Dutch critic, “lies for the priestly author elsewhere than for the
prophet; it lies in man’s attitude, not towards his fellow‐men, but
towards God; not in his social, but in his personal life” (_Hibbert
Lectures_, p. 161). It is here that we seem to strike the keynote of the
_Weltanschauung_ of the Priestly Legislation. In it man is more than a
social being. He has also an individual life of his own, his joys and
sorrows, his historical claims, his traditions of the past, and his hopes
for the future—and all these have to be brought under the influence of
religion, and to become sanctified through their relation to God. Hence,
the work of the Priestly narrator and legislator opens with a cosmogony of
his own, in which we find the grand theological idea of man being created
in the Divine image; hence, too, his religious conception of the history
of the nation and the control claimed by him over all the details of human
life, which became with him so many opportunities for the worship of God.
To him, God is not a mere figurehead; He not only reigns, but governs.
Everywhere,—in the temple, in the judge’s seat, in the family, in the
farm, and in the market‐place,—His presence is felt in enforcing the laws
bearing His _imprimatur_, “I am the Lord thy God.” By thus diffusing
religion over the whole domain of human life—not confining it to the
social institutions which are represented only by a few personages, such
as the king, the princes, the priests, the judges or elders—they made it
the common good of the whole people, and the feeling of personal
responsibility for this good became much deeper than before. Thus it came
to pass that whilst, during the first temple, the apostasy of kings and
aristocracy involved the entire people, so that the words “And he (the
king) did evil in the sight of the Lord,” embrace the whole nation, during
the second temple it was no longer of much consequence which side the
political leaders took. Both during the Hellenistic persecutions, as well
as afterwards in the struggles of some Maccabean kings with the Pharisees,
the bulk of the people showed that they considered religion as their own
personal affair, not to be regulated by the conscience of either priest or
prince. It is true that this success may be largely ascribed to such
contemporary religious factors as the Synagogue with its minimum of form,
the Scribes with their activity as teachers, and the Psalmists with their
divine enthusiasm; but the very circumstance that these factors arose and
flourished under the influence of the Priestly Code would suffice to prove
that its tendency was not so sacerdotal as some writers would have us
believe. Jewish tradition indeed attributes the composition of the daily
public prayers, as well as of others for private worship, to the very men
whom modern biblical criticism holds responsible for the introduction of
the Priestly Code. Now this fact may perhaps be disputed, but there is
little doubt that the age in which these prayers were composed was one of
flourishing legalism. Nor is there any proof that the synagogues and their
ritual were in opposition to the temple. From the few documents belonging
to this period, it is clear that there was no opposition to the legalistic
spirit by which the Priestly Code was actuated. This would prove that
legalism meant something more than tithes and sacrifices for the benefit
of the priests.
Nor is it true that the legal tendency aimed at narrowing the mind of the
nation, turning all its thoughts into the one direction of the law. Apart
from the fact that the Torah contained other elements besides its
legalism, the prophets were not forgotten, but were read and interpreted
from a very early age. It was under the predominance of the Law that the
Wisdom literature was composed, which is by no means narrow or one‐sided,
but is even supposed by some critics to contain many foreign elements. In
the book of Job, the great problems of man’s existence are treated with a
depth and grandeur never equalled before or since. This book alone ought
partly to compensate the modern school for the disappearance of prophecy,
which is usually brought as a charge against the Law. Then, too, the
Psalms, placed by the same school in the post‐exilic period, are nothing
but another aspect of prophecy, with this difference, perhaps, that in the
Prophets God speaks to man, while in the Psalms it is man who establishes
the same communion by speaking to God. There is no reason why the critical
school, with its broad conception of inspiration, and with its insistence
that prophecy does _not_ mean prediction, should so strongly emphasise
this difference. If “it is no longer as in the days of Amos, when the Lord
Yahveh did nothing without revealing his counsel to his servants the
prophets,” there is in the days of the Psalmists nothing in man’s heart,
no element in his longings and meditations and aspirations, which was not
revealed to God. Nay, it would seem that at times the Psalmist hardly ever
desires the revelation of God’s secrets. Let future events be what they
may, he is content, for he is with God. After all his trials, he exclaims,
“And yet I am continually with thee; thou hast taken hold of my right
hand. According to thy purpose wilt thou lead me, and afterwards receive
me with glory. Whom have I (to care for) in heaven? and possessing thee, I
have pleasure in nothing upon earth. Though my flesh and my heart should
have wasted away, God would for ever be the rock of my heart and my
portion” (Ps. lxxiii. 23‐26). How an age producing a literature containing
passages like these—of which Wellhausen in his _Abriss_ (p. 95) justly
remarks, that we are not worthy even to repeat them—can be considered by
the modern school as wanting in intimate relation to God and inferior to
that of the prophets is indeed a puzzle.
Now a few words as to the actual life under the Law. Here, again, there is
a fresh puzzle. On the one side, we hear the opinions of so many learned
professors, proclaiming _ex cathedrâ_, that the Law was a most terrible
burden, and the life under it the most unbearable slavery, deadening body
and soul. On the other side we have the testimony of a literature
extending over about twenty‐five centuries, and including all sorts and
conditions of men, scholars, poets, mystics, lawyers, casuists, schoolmen,
tradesmen, workmen, women, simpletons, who all, from the author of the
119th Psalm to the last pre‐Mendelssohnian writer—with a small exception
which does not even deserve the name of a vanishing minority—give
unanimous evidence in favour of this Law, and of the bliss and happiness
of living and dying under it,—and this, the testimony of people who were
actually living under the Law, not merely theorising upon it, and who
experienced it in all its difficulties and inconveniences. The Sabbath
will give a fair example. The law of the Sabbath is one of those
institutions the strict observance of which was already the object of
attack in early New Testament times. Nevertheless, the doctrine proclaimed
in one of the Gospels—that the son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath—was
also current among the Rabbis. They, too, taught that the Sabbath had been
delivered into the hand of man (to break, if necessary), and not man
delivered over to the Sabbath.(204) And they even laid down the axiom that
a scholar who lived in a town, where among the Jewish population there
could be the least possibility of doubt as to whether the Sabbath might be
broken for the benefit of a dangerously sick person, was to be despised as
a man neglecting his duty; for, as Maimonides points out, the laws of the
Torah are not meant as an infliction upon mankind, “but as mercy, loving‐
kindness, and peace.”(205)
The attacks upon the Jewish Sabbath have not abated with the lapse of
time. The day is still described by almost every Christian writer on the
subject in the most gloomy colours, and long lists are given of minute and
easily transgressed observances connected with it, which, instead of a day
of rest, would make it to be a day of sorrow and anxiety, almost worse
than the Scotch Sunday as depicted by continental writers. But it so
happens that we have the prayer of R. Zadok, a younger contemporary of the
Apostles, which runs thus: “Through the love with which Thou, O Lord our
God, lovest Thy people Israel, and the mercy which Thou hast shown to the
children of Thy covenant, Thou hast given unto us in love this great and
holy Seventh Day.”(206) And another Rabbi, who probably flourished in the
first half of the second century, expresses himself (with allusion to
Exod. xxxi. 13: Verily my Sabbaths ye shall keep ... that ye may know that
I am the Lord that doth sanctify you)—“The Holy One, blessed be He, said
unto Moses, I have a good gift in my treasures, and Sabbath is its name,
which I wish to present to Israel. Go and bring to them the good
tidings.”(207) The form again of the Blessing over the Sanctification‐
cup(208)—a ceremony known long before the destruction of the Second
Temple—runs: “Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, who hast sanctified us by
Thy commandments, and hast taken pleasure in us, and in love and grace
hast given us Thy holy Sabbath as an inheritance.” All these Rabbis
evidently regarded the Sabbath as a gift from heaven, an expression of the
infinite mercy and grace of God which He manifested to His beloved
children.
And the gift was, as already said, a _good_ gift. Thus the Rabbis
paraphrase the words in the Scripture “See, for that the Lord hath given
you the Sabbath” (Exod. xvi. 29): God said unto Israel behold the gem I
gave you, My children I gave you the Sabbath for your good. Sanctify or
honour the Sabbath by choice meals, beautiful garments; delight your soul
with pleasure and I will reward you (for this very pleasure); as it is
said: “And if thou wilt call the Sabbath a delight and the holy of the
Lord honourable (that is honouring the Sabbath in this way) ... then shalt
thou delight thyself in the Lord” (Is. lviii. 13, 14).(209)
The delight of the Sabbath was keenly felt. Israel fell in love with the
Sabbath, and in the hyperbolic language of the Agadah the Sabbath is
personified as the “Bride of Israel,” whilst others called it “Queen
Sabbath,”(210) and they are actually jealous of a certain class of semi‐
proselytes who, as it seems, were willing to observe the Sabbath, but
declined to submit to the covenant of Abraham. The Gentile Sabbath‐
keepers—who, like all the nations of the world, envy Israel their
Sabbath—the Rabbis considered as shameless intruders deserving
punishment.(211) No, it was Israel’s own Queen or Bride Sabbath whose
appearance in all her heavenly glory they were impatiently awaiting. Thus
we are told of R. Judah b. Ilai that when the eve of the Sabbath came “he
made his ablutions, wrapped himself up in his white linen with fringed
borders looking like an angel of the Lord of Hosts,” thus prepared for the
solemn reception of Queen Sabbath. Another Rabbi used to put on his best
clothes, and arise and invite the Sabbath with the words: “Come in Bride,
come in.”(212) What the Bride brought was peace and bliss. Nay, man is
provided with a super soul for the Sabbath, enabling him to bear both the
spiritual and the material delights of the day with dignity and
solemnity.(213) The very light (or expression) of man’s face is different
on Sabbath, testifying to his inward peace and rest. And when man has
recited his prayers (on the eve of the Sabbath) and thus borne testimony
to God’s creation of the world and to the glory of the Sabbath, there
appear the two angels who accompany him, lay their hands on his head and
impart to him their blessing with the words: “And thine iniquity is taken
away and thy sin purged” (Is. vi. 7).(214) For nothing is allowed to
disturb the peace of the Sabbath; not even “the sorrows of sin,” though
the Sabbath had such a solemn effect on people that even the worldly man
would not utter an untruth on the Day of the Lord. Hence it was not only
forbidden to pray on Sabbath for one’s own (material) needs, but
everything in the liturgy of a mournful character (as for instance the
confession of sin, supplication for pardon) was carefully avoided. It was
with difficulty, as the Rabbis say, that they made an exception in the
case of condoling with people who had suffered loss through the death of
near relatives. There is no room for morbid sentiment on Sabbath, for the
blessing of the Lord maketh rich, and He addeth no sorrow with it (Prov.
x. 22).(215) The burden of the Sabbath prayers is for peace, rest,
sanctification, and joy (through salvation) and praise of God for this
ineffable bliss of the Sabbath.
Such was the Sabbath of the old Rabbis and the same spirit continued
through all ages. The Sabbath was and is still celebrated by the people
who did and do observe it, in hundreds of hymns, which would fill volumes,
as a day of rest and joy, of pleasure and delight, a day in which man
enjoys some foretaste of the pure bliss and happiness which are stored up
for the righteous in the world to come. Somebody, either the learned
professors, or the millions of the Jewish people, must be under an
illusion. Which it is I leave to the reader to decide.
It is also an illusion to speak of the burden which a scrupulous care to
observe six hundred and thirteen commandments must have laid upon the Jew.
Even a superficial analysis will discover that in the time of Christ many
of these commandments were already obsolete (as for instance those
relating to the tabernacle and to the conquest of Palestine), while others
concerned only certain classes, as the priests, the judges, the soldiers,
the Nazirites, or the representatives of the community, or even only one
or two individuals among the whole population, as the King and the High‐
Priest. Others, again, provided for contingencies which could occur only
to a few, as for instance the laws concerning divorce or levirate
marriages, whilst many—such as those concerning idolatry, and incest, and
the sacrifice of children to Moloch—could scarcely have been considered as
a practical prohibition by the pre‐Christian Jew; just as little as we can
speak of Englishmen as lying under the burden of a law preventing them
from burning widows or marrying their grandmothers, though such acts would
certainly be considered as crimes. Thus it will be found by a careful
enumeration that barely a hundred laws remain which really concerned the
life of the bulk of the people. If we remember that even these include
such laws as belief in the unity of God, the necessity of loving and
fearing Him, and of sanctifying His name, of loving one’s neighbour and
the stranger, of providing for the poor, exhorting the sinner, honouring
one’s parents and many more of a similar character, it will hardly be said
that the ceremonial side of the people’s religion was not well balanced by
a fair amount of spiritual and social elements. Besides, it would seem
that the line between the ceremonial and the spiritual is too often only
arbitrarily drawn. With many commandments it is rather a matter of opinion
whether they should be relegated to the one category or the other.
Thus, the wearing of Tephillin(216) or phylacteries has, on the one hand,
been continually condemned as a meaningless superstition, and a pretext
for formalism and hypocrisy. But, on the other hand, Maimonides, who can
in no way be suspected of superstition or mysticism, described their
importance in the following words: “Great is the holiness of the
Tephillin; for as long as they are on the arm and head of man he is humble
and God‐fearing, and feels no attraction for frivolity or idle things, nor
has he any evil thoughts, but will turn his heart to the words of truth
and righteousness.” The view which R. Johanan, a Palestinian teacher of
the third century, took of the fulfilment of the Law, will probably be
found more rational than that of many a rationalist of to‐day. Upon the
basis of the last verse in Hosea, “The ways of the Lord are right, and the
just shall walk in them, but the transgressors shall fall therein,” he
explains that while one man, for instance, eats his paschal lamb with the
purpose of doing the will of God who commanded it, and thereby does an act
of righteousness, another thinks only of satisfying his appetite by the
lamb, so that his eating it (by the very fact that he professes at the
same time to perform a religious rite) becomes a stumbling‐block for
him.(217) Thus all the laws by virtue of their divine authority—and in
this there was in the first century no difference of opinion between Jews
and Christians—have their spiritual side, and to neglect them implies, at
least from the individual’s own point of view, a moral offence.
The legalistic attitude may be summarily described as an attempt to live
in accordance with the will of God, caring less for what God is than for
what He wants us to be. But, nevertheless, on the whole this life never
degenerated into religious formalism. Apart from the fact that during the
second temple there grew up laws, and even beliefs, which show a decided
tendency towards progress and development, there were also ceremonies
which were popular with the masses, and others which were neglected. Men
were not, therefore, the mere soulless slaves of the Law; personal
sympathies and dislikes also played a part in their religion. Nor were all
the laws actually put upon the same level. With a happy inconsistency men
always spoke of heavier and slighter sins, and by the latter—excepting,
perhaps, the profanation of the Sabbath—they mostly understood ceremonial
transgressions. The statement made by Professor Toy (p. 243), on the
authority of James (ii. 10), that “the principle was established that he
who offended in one point was guilty of all,” is hardly correct; for the
passage seems rather to be laying down a principle, or arguing that
logically the law ought to be looked upon as a whole, than stating a fact.
The fact was that people did not consider the whole law as of equal
importance, but made a difference between laws and laws, and even spoke of
certain commandments, such as those of charity and kindness, as
outweighing all the rest of the Torah. It was in conformity with this
spirit that in times of great persecution the leaders of the people had no
compunction in reducing the whole Law to the three prohibitions of
idolatry, of incest, and of bloodshed. Only these three were considered of
sufficient importance that men should rather become martyrs than
transgress them.
These, then, are some of the illusions and misrepresentations which exist
with regard to the Law. There are many others, of which the complete
exposure would require a book by itself. Meanwhile, in the absence of such
a book to balance and correct the innumerable volumes upon the other side,
Professor Toy has done the best he could with existing materials, and
produced a meritorious work deserving of wide recognition and approval.
X. THE HEBREW COLLECTION OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM
The Hebrew collection in the British Museum forms one of the greatest
centres of Jewish thought. It is only surpassed by the treasures which are
contained in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. The fame of these magnificent
collections has spread far and wide. It has penetrated into the remotest
countries, and even the Bachurim (_alumni_) of some obscure place in
Poland, who otherwise neither care nor know anything about British
civilisation, have a dim notion of the nature of these mines of Jewish
learning.
All sorts of legends circulate amongst them about the “millions” of books
which belong to the “Queen of England.” They speak mysteriously of an
autograph copy of the Book of Proverbs, presented to the Queen of Sheba on
the occasion of her visit to Jerusalem, and brought by the English troops
as a trophy from their visit to Abyssinia, which is still ruled by the
descendants of that famous lady. They also talk of a copy of the Talmud of
Jerusalem which once belonged to Titus, afterwards to a Pope, was
presented by the latter to a Russian Czar, and taken away from him by the
English in the Crimean war; of a manuscript of the book _Light is
Sown_,(218) which is so large that no shelf can hold it, and which
therefore hangs on iron chains. How they long to have a glance at these
precious things! Would not a man get wiser only by looking at the
autograph of the wisest of men?
But even the students of Germany and Austria, who are inaccessible to such
fables, and by the aid of Zedner’s, Steinschneider’s, and Neubauer’s
catalogues have a fair notion of our libraries, cherish the belief that
they would gain in scholarship and wisdom by examining these grand
collections. How often have I been asked by Jewish students abroad: “Have
you really been to the British Museum? Have you really seen this or that
rare book or manuscript? Had you not great difficulties in seeing them? Is
not the place where these heaps of jewels are treasured up always crowded
by students and visitors?”
Yet how little does our English public know of these wonderful things! We
are fairly interested in Græco‐Roman art. We betray much curiosity about
the different Egyptian dynasties. We look with admiration at the cuneiform
inscriptions in the Nimrod room. We do not even grudge a glance at the
abominable idols of the savage tribes. But as to the productions of Jewish
genius,—well, it is best to quote here the words of Heine, who ridiculed
this indifference to everything that is Jewish, in the following lines:—
Alte Mumien, ausgestopfte,
Pharaonen von Ægypten,
Merowinger Schattenkön’ge,
Ungepuderte Perticken,
Auch die Zopfmonarchen China’s
Porzellanpagodenkaiser—
Alle lernen sie answendig,
Kluge Mädchen, aber, Himmel!
Fragt man sie nach grossen Namen,
Aus dem grossen Goldzeitalter
Der arabisch‐althispanisch
Jüdischen Poetenschule,
Fragt man nach dem Dreigestirn
Nach Jehuda ben Halevy,
Nach dem Salomon Gabirol
Und dem Moses Iben Esra.
Fragt man nach dergleichen Namen,
Dann mit grossen Augen schaun
Uns die Kleinen an—alsdann
Stehn am Berge die Ochsinnen.
Now Heine goes on to advise his beloved one to study the Hebrew language.
It would be indeed the best remedy against this indifference. But this is
so radical a cure that one cannot hope that it will be made use of by
many. A few remarks in English, trying to give some notion of the Hebrew
collection in the British Museum, may, therefore, not be considered
altogether superfluous.
The Hebrew collection in the Museum may be divided into two sections:
Printed Books, and Manuscripts. The number of the printed books amounted
in the year 1867, in which Zedner concluded his catalogue, to 10,100
volumes. Within the last twenty‐eight years about 5000 more have been
added.
This enormous collection has grown out of very small beginnings. The
British Museum was first opened to the public in the year 1759. Amongst
the 500,000 volumes which it possessed at that time only a single Jewish
work, the _editio princeps_ of the Talmud (Bomberg, Venice, 1520‐1523) was
to be found on its shelves. According to an article by Zedner in the
_Hebräische Bibliographie_ (ii. p. 88), this copy of the Talmud once
belonged to Henry VIII. But very soon the Museum was enriched by a small
collection of Hebrew books, presented to it by Mr. Solomon da Costa,
surnamed Athias, who had emigrated to England from Holland. The
translation of the Hebrew letter with which the donor accompanied his
present to the Trustees of the Museum was first published in the
_Gentleman’s Magazine_, February 1760, and was afterwards republished by
the Rev. A. L. Green, in an article in the _Jewish Chronicle_, 1859. I
shall only reproduce here the passage relating to the history of this
collection. After expressing his gratitude to the “crowning city, the city
of London, in which he dwelt for fifty‐four years in ease and quietness
and safety,” and telling us that he bequeaths these books to the British
nation as a token of his gratitude, Da Costa proceeds to say that they are
180 books, which had been gathered and bound for Charles II., with
valuable bindings and marked with the king’s own cipher. These books were
intended as a present from the London Jewish community to Charles for
certain privileges which he had bestowed on them. The sudden death of the
king seems to have frustrated the intention of the first donors. The books
were scattered, and Da Costa had to collect them again.
Small as this collection is, it is most valuable on account of its
including many early editions of Venice, Constantinople, Naples, etc. The
original letter of Da Costa, with a full list of the 180 books, is
preserved in a MS. in the British Museum (Additional, 4710‐11).