Judaism

CHAPTER I

THE LEGA­CY FROM THE PAST

The aim of this lit­tle book is to present in brief out­line some of the lead­ing con­cep­tions of the re­li­gion fa­mil­iar since the Chris­tian Era un­der the name Ju­daism.

The word ‘Ju­daism’ oc­curs for the first time at about 100 B.C., in the Grae­co-​Jew­ish lit­er­ature. In the sec­ond book of the Mac­cabees (ii. 21, vi­ii. 1), ‘Ju­daism’ sig­ni­fies the re­li­gion of the Jews as con­trast­ed with Hel­lenism, the re­li­gion of the Greeks. In the New Tes­ta­ment (Gal. i. 13) the same word seems to de­note the Phar­isa­ic sys­tem as an an­tithe­sis to the Gen­tile Chris­tian­ity. In He­brew the cor­re­spond­ing noun nev­er oc­curs in the Bible, and it is rare even in the Rab­binic books. When it does meet us, _Ja­haduth_ im­plies the monothe­ism of the Jews as op­posed to the poly­the­ism of the hea­then.

Thus the term ‘Ju­daism’ did not pass through quite the same tran­si­tions as did the name ‘Jew.’ Ju­daism ap­pears from the first as a re­li­gion tran­scend­ing trib­al bounds. The ‘Jew,’ on the oth­er hand, was orig­inal­ly a Ju­daean, a mem­ber of the South­ern Con­fed­er­acy called in the Bible Ju­dah, and by the Greeks and Ro­mans Ju­daea. Soon, how­ev­er, ‘Jew’ came to in­clude what had ear­li­er been the North­ern Con­fed­er­acy of Is­rael as well, so that in the post-​ex­il­ic pe­ri­od _Je­hu­di_ or ‘Jew’ means an ad­her­ent of Ju­daism with­out re­gard to lo­cal na­tion­al­ity.

Ju­daism, then, is here tak­en to rep­re­sent that lat­er de­vel­op­ment of the Re­li­gion of Is­rael which be­gan with the re­or­gan­isa­tion af­ter the Baby­lo­ni­an Ex­ile (444 B.C.), and was crys­tallised by the Ro­man Ex­ile (dur­ing the first cen­turies of the Chris­tian Era). The ex­act pe­ri­od which will be here seized as a start­ing-​point is the mo­ment when the peo­ple of Is­rael were los­ing, nev­er so far to re­gain, their ter­ri­to­ri­al as­so­ci­ation with Pales­tine, and were be­com­ing (what they have ev­er since been) a com­mu­ni­ty as dis­tinct from a na­tion. They re­mained, it is true, a dis­tinct race, and this is still in a sense true. Yet at var­ious pe­ri­ods a num­ber of pros­elytes have been ad­mit­ted, and in oth­er ways the pu­ri­ty of the race has been af­fect­ed. At all events ter­ri­to­ri­al na­tion­al­ity ceased from a date which may be rough­ly fixed at 135 A.D., when the last des­per­ate re­volt un­der Bar-​Coch­ba failed, and Hadri­an drew his Ro­man plough over the city of Jerusalem and the Tem­ple area. A new city with a new name arose on the ru­ins. The ru­ins af­ter­wards re­assert­ed them­selves, and Aelia Capi­toli­na as a des­ig­na­tion of Jerusalem is fa­mil­iar on­ly to ar­chae­ol­ogists.

But though the name of Hadri­an’s new city has fad­ed, the ef­fect of its foun­da­tion re­mained. Aelia Capi­toli­na, with its mar­ket-​places and the­atre, re­placed the old­en nar­row-​street­ed town; a House of Venus reared its state­ly form in the north, and a Sanc­tu­ary to Jupiter cov­ered, in the east, the site of the for­mer Tem­ple. Hea­then colonists were in­tro­duced, and the Jew, who was to be­come in fu­ture cen­turies an alien ev­ery­where, was made by Hadri­an an alien in his fa­ther­land. For the Ro­man Em­per­or de­nied to Jews the right of en­try in­to Jerusalem. Thus Hadri­an com­plet­ed the work of Ti­tus, and Ju­daism was di­vorced from its lo­cal habi­ta­tion. More un­re­served­ly than dur­ing the Baby­lo­ni­an Ex­ile, Ju­daism in the Ro­man Ex­ile per­force be­came the re­li­gion of a com­mu­ni­ty and not of a state; and Is­rael for the first time con­sti­tut­ed a Church. But it was a Church with no vis­ible home. Chris­tian­ity for sev­er­al cen­turies was to have a cen­tre at Rome, Is­lam at Mec­ca. But Ju­daism had and has no cen­tre at all.

It will be ob­vi­ous that the aim of the present book makes it both su­per­flu­ous and in­ap­pro­pri­ate to dis­cuss the vexed prob­lems con­nect­ed with the ori­gins of the Re­li­gion of Is­rael, its as­pects in prim­itive times, its pas­sage through a na­tion­al to an eth­ical monothe­ism, its ex­pan­sion in­to the uni­ver­sal­ism of the sec­ond Isa­iah. What con­cerns us here is mere­ly the lega­cy which the Re­li­gion of Is­rael be­queathed to Ju­daism as we have de­fined it. This lega­cy and the man­ner in which it was trea­sured, en­larged, and ad­min­is­tered will oc­cu­py us in the rest of this book.

But this much must be premised. If the Re­li­gion of Is­rael passed through the stages of totemism, an­imism, and poly­de­monism; if it was in­debt­ed to Canaan­ite, Ken­ite, Baby­lo­ni­an, Per­sian, Greek, and oth­er for­eign in­flu­ences; if it ex­pe­ri­enced a stage of mono­la­try or henothe­ism (in which Is­rael recog­nised one God, but did not think of that God as the on­ly God of all men) be­fore eth­ical monothe­ism of the uni­ver­sal­is­tic type was reached; if, fur­ther, all these stages and the moral and re­li­gious ideas con­nect­ed with each left a more or less clear mark in the sa­cred lit­er­ature of Is­rael; then the lega­cy which Ju­daism re­ceived from its past was a syn­cretism of the whole of the re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ences of Is­rael as in­ter­pret­ed in the light of Is­rael’s lat­est, high­est, most ap­proved stan­dards. Like the Bour­bon, the Jew for­gets noth­ing; but un­like the Bour­bon, the Jew is al­ways learn­ing. The do­mes­tic sto­ries of the Pa­tri­archs were not re­ject­ed as un­prof­itable when Is­rael be­came deeply im­preg­nat­ed with the monog­amous teach­ings of writ­ers like the au­thor of the last chap­ter of Proverbs; the char­ac­ter of David was ide­alised by the spir­itu­al as­so­ci­ations of the Psalter, parts of which tra­di­tion as­cribed to him; the earth­ly life was ethe­ri­alised and much of the sa­cred lit­er­ature rein­ter­pret­ed in the light of an added be­lief in im­mor­tal­ity; God, in the ear­ly lit­er­ature a trib­al non-​moral de­ity, was in the lat­er lit­er­ature a righ­teous ruler who with Amos and Hosea loved and de­mand­ed righ­teous­ness in man. Ju­daism took over as one in­di­vis­ible body of sa­cred teach­ings both the ear­ly and the lat­er lit­er­ature in which these vary­ing con­cep­tions of God were en­shrined; the Law was ac­cept­ed as the guid­ing rule of life, the rit­ual of cer­emo­ny and sac­ri­fice was trea­sured as a holy mem­ory, and as a mem­ory not con­tra­dic­to­ry of the prophet­ic ex­al­ta­tion of in­ward re­li­gion but as con­sis­tent with that ex­al­ta­tion, as in­ter­pret­ing it, as but an­oth­er as­pect of Mic­ah’s enun­ci­ation of the de­mands of God: ‘What doth the Lord re­quire of thee but to do just­ly, to love mer­cy, and to walk humbly with thy God?’

Ju­daism, in short, in­clud­ed for the Jew all that had gone be­fore. But for St. Paul’s at­ti­tude of hos­til­ity to the Law, but for the deep-​seat­ed con­vic­tion that the Pauline Chris­tian­ity was a de­nial of the Jew­ish monothe­ism, the Jew might have ac­cept­ed much of the teach­ing of Je­sus as an in­te­gral part of Ju­daism. In the realm of ideas which he con­ceived as be­long­ing to his tra­di­tion the Jew was not log­ical; he did not pick and choose; he ab­sorbed the whole. In the Jew­ish the­ol­ogy of all ages we find the most ob­vi­ous con­tra­dic­tions. There was no at­tempt at rec­on­cil­ia­tion of such con­tra­dic­tions; they were jux­ta­posed in a me­chan­ical mix­ture, there was no chem­ical com­pound. The Jew was al­ways a man of moods, and his re­li­gion re­spond­ed to those vary­ing phas­es of feel­ing and be­lief and ac­tion. Hence such vary­ing judg­ments have been formed of him and his re­li­gion. If, af­ter the me­di­ae­val phi­los­ophy had at­tempt­ed to sys­tem­atise Ju­daism, the re­li­gion re­mained un­sys­tem­at­ic, it is easy to un­der­stand that in the ear­li­er cen­turies of the Chris­tian Era con­tra­dic­tions be­tween past and present, be­tween dif­fer­ent stra­ta of re­li­gious thought, caused no trou­ble to the Jew so long as those con­tra­dic­tions could be fit­ted in­to his gen­er­al scheme of life. Though he was the prod­uct of de­vel­op­ment, de­vel­op­ment was an idea for­eign to his con­cep­tion of the ways of God with man. And to this ex­tent he was right. For though men’s ideas of God change, God Him­self is change­less. The Jew trans­ferred the change­less­ness of God to men’s chang­ing ideas about him. With child­like naivete he ac­cept­ed all, he adopt­ed all, and he syn­cre­tised it all as best he could in­to the loose sys­tem on which Phar­isaism graft­ed it­self. The lega­cy of the past thus was the past.

One el­ement in the lega­cy was neg­ative. The Tem­ple and the Sac­ri­fi­cial sys­tem were gone for ev­er. That this must have pow­er­ful­ly af­fect­ed Ju­daism goes with­out say­ing. Syn­agogue re­placed Tem­ple, prayer as­sumed the func­tion of sac­ri­fice, pen­itence and not the blood of bulls sup­plied the rit­ual of atone­ment. Events had pre­pared the way for this change and had pre­vent­ed it at­tain­ing the char­ac­ter of an up­heaval. For syn­agogues had grown up all over the land soon af­ter the fifth cen­tu­ry B.C.; reg­ular ser­vices of prayer with in­struc­tion in the Scrip­tures had been es­tab­lished long be­fore the Chris­tian Era; the in­ward atone­ment had been pre­ferred to, or at least as­so­ci­at­ed with, the out­ward rite be­fore the out­ward rite was torn away. It may be that, as Pro­fes­sor Burkitt has sug­gest­ed, the aw­ful ex­pe­ri­ences of the fall of Jerusalem and the de­struc­tion of the Tem­ple pro­duced with­in Phar­isaism a moral ref­or­ma­tion which drove the Jew with­in and thus spir­itu­alised Ju­daism. For un­doubt­ed­ly the Phar­isee of the Gospels is by no means the Phar­isee as we meet him in the Jew­ish books. There was al­ways a la­tent pow­er and ten­den­cy in Ju­daism to­wards in­ward re­li­gion; and it may be that this pow­er was in­ten­si­fied, this ten­den­cy en­cour­aged, by the loss of Tem­ple and its Sac­ri­fi­cial rites.

But though the Tem­ple had gone the Covenant re­mained. Not so much in name as in essence. We do not hear much of the Covenant in the Rab­binic books, but its spir­it per­vades Ju­daism. Of all the lega­cy of the past the Covenant was the most in­spir­ing el­ement. Be­gin­ning with Abra­ham, the Covenant es­tab­lished a spe­cial re­la­tion be­tween God and Abra­ham’s seed. ‘I have known him, that he may com­mand his chil­dren and his house­hold af­ter him, that they may keep the way of the Lord to do righ­teous­ness and judg­ment’ (Gen. xvi­ii. 19). Of this Covenant, the out­ward sign was the rite of cir­cum­ci­sion. Re­newed with Moses, and fol­lowed in tra­di­tion­al opin­ion by the Ten Com­mand­ments, the Sinaitic Covenant was a fur­ther link in the bond be­tween God and His peo­ple. Of this Mo­sa­ic Covenant the out­ward sign was the Sab­bath. It is of no mo­ment for our present ar­gu­ment whether Abra­ham and Moses were his­tor­ical per­sons or fig­ments of tra­di­tion. A Gamaliel would have as lit­tle doubt­ed their re­al­ity as would a St. Paul. And what­ev­er Crit­icism may be do­ing with Abra­ham, it is com­ing more and more to see that be­hind the eighth-​cen­tu­ry prophets there must have tow­ered the fig­ure of a, if not of the tra­di­tion­al, Moses; be­hind the prophets a, if not the, Law. Be that as it may, to the Jew of the Chris­tian Era, Abra­ham and Moses were re­al and the Covenant un­al­ter­able. By the syn­cretism which has been al­ready de­scribed Jeremi­ah’s New Covenant was not re­gard­ed as new. Nor was it new; it rep­re­sent­ed a change of stress, not of con­tents. When he said (Jer. xxxi. 33), ‘This is the covenant which I will make with the house of Is­rael, af­ter those days, saith the Lord; I will put my law in their in­ward parts, and in their heart will I write it,’ Jeremi­ah, it has been held, was mak­ing Chris­tian­ity pos­si­ble. But he was al­so mak­ing Ju­daism pos­si­ble. Here and nowhere else is to be found the prin­ci­ple which en­abled Ju­daism to sur­vive the loss of Tem­ple and na­tion­al­ity. And the New Covenant was in no sense in­con­sis­tent with the Old. For not on­ly does Jeremi­ah pro­ceed to add in the self-​same verse, ‘I will be their God, and they will be my peo­ple,’ but the New Covenant is specif­ical­ly made with the house of Ju­dah and of Is­rael, and it is as­so­ci­at­ed with the per­ma­nence of the seed of Is­rael as a sep­arate peo­ple and with the Di­vine re­build­ing of Jerusalem. The Jew had no thought of analysing these vers­es in­to the words of the true Jeremi­ah and those of his ed­itors. The point is that over and above, in com­ple­men­tary ex­pla­na­tion of, the Abra­ham­ic and Mo­sa­ic Covenants with their ex­ter­nal signs, over and above the Call of the Pa­tri­arch and the Theo­phany of Sinai, was the Jeremi­an Covenant writ­ten in Is­rael’s heart.

The Covenant con­ferred a dis­tinc­tion and im­posed a du­ty. It was a bond be­tween a gra­cious God and a grate­ful Is­rael. It dig­ni­fied his­to­ry, for it in­ter­pret­ed his­to­ry in terms of prov­idence and pur­pose; it trans­fig­ured virtue by mak­ing virtue ser­vice; it was the salt of life, for how could present degra­da­tion de­mor­alise, see­ing that God was in it, to ful­fil His part of the bond, to hold Is­rael as His jew­el, though Rome might de­spise? The Covenant made the Jew self-​con­fi­dent and ar­ro­gant, but these very faults were need­ed to save him. It was his on­ly de­fence against the world’s scorn. He for­got that the cor­rel­ative of the Covenant was Isa­iah’s ‘Covenant-​Peo­ple’–mis­sion­ary to the Gen­tiles and the World. He rel­egat­ed his world-​mis­sion (which Chris­tian­ity and Is­lam in part glo­ri­ous­ly ful­filled) to a dim Mes­sian­ic fu­ture, and was con­tent if in his own present he re­mained faith­ful to his mis­sion to him­self.

Above all, the lega­cy from the past came to Ju­daism hal­lowed and hu­man­ised by all the ex­pe­ri­ence of re­demp­tion and suf­fer­ing which had marked Is­rael’s course in ages past, and was to mark his course in ages to come. The Ex­odus, the Ex­ile, the Mac­cabean hero­ism, the Ro­man catas­tro­phe; Prophet, Wise Man, Priest and Scribe,–all had left their trace. Ju­daism was a re­li­gion based on a book and on a tra­di­tion; but it was al­so a re­li­gion based on a unique ex­pe­ri­ence. The book might be mis­read, the tra­di­tion en­cum­bered, but the ex­pe­ri­ence was eter­nal­ly clear and in­spir­ing. It shone through the Ro­man Di­as­po­ra as it af­ter­wards il­lu­mi­nat­ed the Ro­man Ghet­to, mak­ing the present tol­er­able by the mem­ory of the past and the hope of the fu­ture.