I 2 No. ALCOVE PROPERTY Hebrew Union College Library J OTTU TJ1J IJTJTJTJTTU LTI/1T1JTJTJ U" UTJIJTJTJ^ V".- /; j A DEFENSE OF JUDAISM VERSUS PROSELYTIZING CHRISTIANITY. BY ISAAC M. WISE. 1889. AMERICAN ISRAELITE, CIXCIXXATI AXD CHICAGO. Knit-red According to Act of Congress, in the year 1 - ISAAC M. \VISK. In the office of the Librariiin of emigres:-, Ht. Washington. o PREFACE. fPHE volume hereby presented to the reader was written and published in response to those missionary cheiftains <>f the city ot'Cinrinnati who took a vulgar renegade from . Judaism by his hand, and appointed him a missionary to the Jews; and, notwithstanding the man's illiteracy, fur- nished him with a pulpit, and invited the .Jews week after week by pompous advertisements in the public press and handbill's freely distributed in the -tr-'ets. to d.me and hear that renegade. The author, considering that uncalled-for action of church dignitaries an insult to Judaism, felt it his duty to re-ent it. and so he did. Here is an an>wer to the main question, why the Israelite can not embrace Christian- ity. Quite a number of books exists, in which the relative points are discussed, although the author recollects none written from his standpoint of universal brotherhood, univer- sal salvation and universal religion, moral freedom, political equality and the supremacy of reason, with the highest re- t for Judaism, Christianity, the Islam and every other religion in harmony with the postulate of reason and th" standard of conscience. THK AITIIOR. CINCINNATI. March 26. CONTENTS. I. The Challenge Accepted in Self-Defense, o II. Rejecting the Evangelical Story from Historical Mo- tives, 16 III. The Testimony of Miracles is Inadmissible, 24 IV. The Doctrine of Personal Immortality, - 31 V. Universal Salvation Without the Messiah, - - 38 VI. Mundane Happiness Depends on Morality, Not on Christology, 46 VII. Mundane Happiness Depends on Intelligence, Not on Christology, 54 VI IT. No Christology in the Bible, - 61 IX. No Christology in Moses, 67 Elohim, - 67 Genesis i. 26, 69 Genesis xiv. 4; xxxii. 25, .... 79 Genesis xlviii. 16, 71 Genesis xlix. 10, - - 71 Deuteronomy xviii. 9-12, - - 72 Genesis iii., 74 X. No Christology in Isaiah, - 79 Isaiah vii 14, 83 Isaiah ix 5, 6, - 85 Isaiah liii , 87 XI. No Christology in Jeremiah, - ... 95 Jeremiah xxxi 15-17, 96 Jeremiah xxxiii. 14-26. 98 .leremiah xxxi. 31, e. ., - 101 XII. No Christology in Psalms, ... . 197 Psalm ii., 109 Psalm ex., H3 XIII. A Resume and Reference to Zachariah, - - - 121 CHAPTER T. THE CHALLRNUK Ai'CKI'TKD IN SKLF-DEFKXSK. JUDAISM is the religion of intelligence. Those who be- lieve in one God, as proclaimed and defined by Abra- ham. M oses and the prophets, and the ethical principles, doctrines and precepts contained in and with logical neces- sity following from this sublime belief, believe in Judaism. They are of Israel de jure, and if this belief controls their conduct and directs their performance of duty toward God and man they are of Israel also de facto, whether they know- it or know it not, or, knowing it, confess it, or confess it not, whoever or whatever their ancestors were. Judaism dena- tionalized is universal religion, because it is in full accord and harmony with the postulate of reason and the standard of conscience, without permitting either one to dictate with- out the consent and approbation of the other factor. It is perhaps no exaggeration to maintain that there exist now more Israelites, more conscious and unconscious be- lievers in Judaism, than at any time in man's history prior to this century, although no more than ten millions of the Hebrew race proper exist in the world. We are reminded <>i' the prophecy of Isaiah (xliv. 5), u One shall say, I am Jeho- vah's ; and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob ; and another shall subscribe with his hand unto Jehovah. and surname himself by the name- of Israel," however they differ in forms of worship and denominational peculiarities According to the statement of the Talmud n-nzjn lQ*3n "?D nin' Nip: mr. "Whoever discards Pagan worship maybe called a Yehinli," vulgar, Jew, or also main me-JHi rmon "?3 n:2 mim "733 mrc I?M " Whoever professes belief in the Ten Commandments is rtpia! to him who professes belief in the whole Thorah "- all of them are entit)"d to the name of Israel, if the term Jew does not suit them. (5) 6 A DEFENCE OF JTDAISM Reason never goes begging. It is too proud, too self-con- scious to beg, and on the other hand too modest and too considerate to impose upon others. Man sees and judges others in his own light. The man of wisdom sees fair intel- ligence in every fellow-man of whom he knows nothing to the contrary ; just as the rogue suspects cunning designs in every neighbor's speech or deeds. Solomon said so (Pro- verbs xxvii. 19 ) and experience corroborates it. Judaism being the religion of intelligence could not go begging for proselytes. Its expounders' and teachers' estimation of hu- man nature and their implicit reliance and trust in the in- destructibility of truth, taught the Hebrew mn nay nN "truth will take care of itself," or "yet truth will triumph,'' and depicted for him that final and universal triumph of reason and goodness in the most sublime prophetical speech. The nations will convert themselves, and we see now that they do, by the natural development of intelligence, in the progress of science, justice, freedom, art, culture, external and internal, so to reach the prophetical climax of " God will be king over all the earth, that day God will be one, and One his name will be." (Zachariah xiv. 9.) Again, the Israelite, looking upon his neighbor from the standpoint of Judaism, can not discover a sinner in every human being. He presumes the image of God in every hu- man mind, a being whose two spiritual eyes, reason and conscience, are sound and efficient. Defections of mind, like deformities of the body, are exceptions to the general rule of a normal and healthy state. All men are intellectual and good in proportion to, and to the best of their knowl edge. The Israelite sees sinners only in those exceptional persons who are possessed by the demon of folly. There is no necessity to convert everybody. He who lives up to tin dictates of his conscience and to the best of his knowledge, the conscientious man, be he Jew, Christian, Turk or heathen . philosopher or illiterate, is no sinner, and needs none of your conversion medicine. The Hebrew necessarily thinks, if you give quantities of medicine to the healthy man, you make him sick. Furthermore, tin- Israelite from his standpoint can not Vs. PROSELYTIZING ell UISTIAXITY. , see the gates of hell ajar, lor everybody who fails to see through his neighbor's spectacles in matters of religion, as little, indeed, as lie can discover the pavement in that hot place, that peculiar conerete made of tin- skulls of non- baptized children. The religion of intelligence could not possibly suggest such an unreasonable dogma. Starting from the premises of an all-wise, all-just and all-good Deity and a human family consisting of individuals essentially God-like, intellectual and conscientious, the Hebre\v n> sarilv arrived at the conclusion : D-v? W D-?iyn nraw TDn S3n D-?iy~? P*n. " All good men will inherit their share in eternal life and bliss.'' It is neither necessary nor advisable to medicate a healthy man. to supply the person of sound limbs with crutches, or to show one bis way in his own hou- <)nce, in the time of the Maccabean princes, John Hyrcan and his son. Alexander Jannai, conquered tribes were given the choice either to leave the country or to be circumcised, because they were of the seed of Abraham, as was main- tained, upon whom circumcision was incumbent, and even then the most prominent teachers in Israel, Simon ben She- tach and Hillel. protested agains* that method of conversion* by advancing most humane and intellectual means to that end. In the century in which Christianity is supposed to have originated, many proselytes in the Roman and Parthian Empires attached themselves to Judaism, and among them a whole royal family and relatives of the Ca-sars, as well as Roman soldiers and Arabian herdsmen; but they came of their own accord not as invited guests as later on many thousands, like the Che/ars of Southern Russia attached themselves to Israel without solicitation, of their own free will and accord. Later on the Israelites might have imi- tated the conversion institutions of Christendom and the Islam, bad not Christian love and Mohammedan generosity enacted stringent laws and spiced them with the penalty of death against any Jew who converts a Gentile, and also against such convert or converts. These laws still exist only with a shade less severity in Russia and elsewhere. and were in force less vigorously in all Europe, outside of 8 A DKFENSE OK .It DAI.-.M the city of Amsterdam, up to the year 1848, with some few x'-rptions. This considerably spoiled the Jew's appetite for proselytes, and he made no competition in this branch of business to Christians and Mohammedans, which, we think, is the cause of its unsuccessful operations. The first conversion agent of the two daughter religions was the sword, then came the pyre and the torture with their convincing arguments, and as civilization advanced they were replaced by persecution and ostracism, excep- tional and oppressive laws or total expatriation for infidels, schismatics, free thinkers, Jews and Judaizing Christians, interchanging now and then with the prison or mob law. The progress of humanism changed the conversion tactics somewhat The brokers pay dividends in cash or promise-, patronage or assistance, some form of bribery or other, al- ways with the whip of persecution in one hand and the money bag in the other. Although the doctors do not admit that all the prejudices against the Jew in Christendom, including the modern Anti-Semitism, Russian and Rouma- nian legislation of this kind, and the never-ceasing antag- onism between Catholic and Protestant, rise from the conversion mania of Christianity, the impracticable and unreasonable idiosyncrasy, that all men must embrace this or that form of Christianity ; yet it is so. This is the source of most of the evils under which millions of human beings groaned, bled and died in wars or in dungeons : and is now the cause of hatred, persecution and barbarism. If you begin to think that religion certainly was not given to man for the benefit of God, for he is perfect and exalted iibove all influences rising from man, you will certainly ad- mit that religion exists in human nature for the benefit of man. If so, it must also be admitted that any religion, any doctrine or institution of any religion, which brings mi scry. sorrow, affliction, destruction of life or happiness to a large number of human beings, is undoubtedly an erroneous, dan- gerous and unreasoning superstition, to oppose which is very good man's duty. If you read on the pages of historv. ancient and modern, the misery, sorrow, allliction. destruc- tion of life and happiness which the conversion mania, the VS. PROSELYTIZING fllKIS TIAMTY. 9 piosclytizing fury did bring and brings now over millions oi' innocent men, women and children, simply because they can not think with other people's Drains and would not be seduced to hypocrisy before God and man, you will !> forced to admit that the conver.-ion mania and proselytizing fury is an outrage on religion, is a blasphemy on the Most High, a '-urse to the cause of humanity, hence the revers< - the direct opposite, of true religion. 8till I do not feel called upon to reform Christianity or the Islam, or to resort to the law of retaliation. What I do feel called upon to do is to defend our own From all side- the gauntlet is thrown out to us by zealous men and women under the inlluenre of the same idiosyncrasy. From the pulpit, in journals, tracts and books, by the learned and the illiterate, the loyal and the renegade, the sincere and the hypocrite, the sane and the insane, we are incessantly a.-- sailed and attacked, wounded and mortified in the most tender spot- of man's heart. All that is done with an air and mien, as though experience would hold out the barest ]M,s-ibility that the Jews could retrograde from Judaism to Christianity, or that Christology ever could become the univeisal religion of the human family. That unreasoning mania has reached the very doors of our temples, the abodes of our neighbors and friends, and perverts the heai- clergymen to establish and maintain missions to the Jew-. ot whom they can not say that they are inferior to their Hock in piety or virtue. It is time to defend our own, or else our silence might lead unsophisticated people to believe that we groan under the ban of ignorance, superstition and fanaticism, and the conversionists are the truly good people. ('anon Taylor, an English gentleman, who seems to be a fierce opponent of the proselytizing mania, boldly opj that idiosyncrasy in the Fortnightly Review, of London. \\< forcibly attempts to make otl. -clearly as he himself does the magnitude of the sham which is perpetrated under the guise of Christian missions to the so-called unconverted. with.no other result than the increase of hypocrisy and the annual waste of ten millions of dollars. Christianity. tin- Canon proves, makes no headway among the heathens, in 10 A DKFEXSE OK JUDAISM spite of the efforts of hundreds of paid missionaries. The fe\v converts made yearly are hut as a drop in the ocean when compared with the annual increase from natural causes of non-Christian population an increase which, according to the Canon's computation, it would require the united ef- forts of all the missionary societies for a hundred and eighty- three years to overtake. The results, poor as they are, are terribly expensive. It costs the Church Missionary Society alone $15,000 per annum to make 3000 converts. China has a population of hundreds of millions, but all the toll it paid to the society's agents for the year was represented by 167 adult converts, and these cost about -t7">.000. Egypt. Arabia, Persia and Palestine the last of course being for \\ork among the Jews proved altogether sterile ground. The society spent over $115,000 in those countries, and has nothing to show for the money. Exposures of the missionary humbug (like this ) are not new in England. They are fre- quently repeated, especially the missions to the Jews, which. by facts and dates, have been proved a miserable failur< that each converted Jew costs the societies thousands of dol- lars, for which they have no more to show in London than a few salaried missionaries, servants and colporteurs taken from the dregs of society and turned into hypocrites and claqueurs. We need not go to London for proofs nor to the Berlin missionary organ (Prof. Stiack's). in which it was but lately tvported from London, that besides salaried persons there are no Christianed Jews in London. We have the proof- right here before us. Within the thirty-four y^ars I had the honor to serve this community, one Jewish girl was cap- tured by a missionary, and that is all. Xot ten Jewish per- sona were heard from in all the large cities of the West that had turned Christians, while T alone can show in my book the names of thirty-seven Christian-born persons who em- braced Judaism without any solicitation or persuasion on iiir part. And yet. besides the appointed missionaries, al- mo-t every deacon, pardon, clergyman, elder, sexton teacher, v half-way truly good Christian man or woman, young men's or young women'- associations, however young or old VS. PROSELYTIZING CII :;i>TI ANITY. 1 thev may be, do besides their regular business some mission- arv work, whenever an opportunity offers, as though perpet- ual polemics were the only nutriment of sectarianism, and disturbing others in their religious convictions, the main object of Christianity. It is all Christian zeal, says my Christian friend, as though z"al w,-ro not, where it is contrary to reason and disobedient to c msrience, a twin sister, or a less violent form of fanati- cism; as though, furthermore, fanaticism were not an idiosvnrrasy. Tlie fanatic is as insane as the infuriated. That the proselytizing mania is beyond the control of argu- ment is evident en ipso from its blindness to the often-re- ]>eated facts of its constant failures without taking any no- tice of them. It is no less evident from the presumption t'l it one ever could honestly believe in the Christological iias, which, as St. Augustine maintained, must be believed 'because they are < btealihily l>apti/ed the child in the name of the Trinity, it was declared authoritatively that the Canon law was supe- VS. PKOSELYTIZIN\vn in the Talmud, claimed plenary inspiration for Moses only, hence only for the Pentateuch and not also for the other books of the Old Testament Scriptures.* They must con- sistently admit that every word of those Scriptures is abso- lutely true, every doctrine therein is true forever, every prom- ise and every prophecy of Scriptures must be literally fulfilled. If they fail in believing this, the whole of orthodox Chris- tianity falls to the ground L^e many other idealistic specu- lations of the Middle Ages. '* We treat on this point more extensively in our forthcoming book, "The Theology of Judaism " 14 A UEKKXSK OK .li'DAISM In these Old Testament Scriptures, however, it is stated plainly and repeatedly that (Jod made a covenant Avith Is- rael, in which the Almighty promised to be forever the God and King of Israel, and Israel should he forever his chosen people ; and exacted the promise, which was solemnly given, that Israel should forever be his servant, obey his laws, wor- ship him only, and naught besides him, perpetuate his doc- trine and promulgate it among the Gentiles. None can begin to deny that these are the plain statements of the Bible and the covenant was made D~?W iy iria^l 137 " for us and our children forever " (Deuter. xxix. 28.) It is stated, furthermore, and no less plainly, by Moses and the prophets, that this covenant shall be everlasting.* Everlasting like the hills and the mountains, the laws gov- erning sun, moon and earth, as the prophets expounded it. Based on these promises and prophecies, it is self-under- stood, as the Rabbis of old have it, that every Israelite is rD I'D nniyi yns^o " sworn from Mount Sinai " to remain a member of the house of Israel, and none can be expelled or excommunicate himself from it. By the will of God and the testimony of sacred Scriptures every Israelite and his de- scendants are obligated and sworn to remain faithful to iheir colors. Any one who steps outside of the family of Israel is a deserter, a renegade, who perjures his ancestors and re- bels against the will of God. Every orthodox Christian is bound to admit this conclu- sion from his own premises ; hence his conscience ought to l dl him that it is wrong and sinful to beguile any person ;iway from his family, to counteract the will of God and make of an Israelite a perjurer, deserter and renrtrade. which certainly does not signify " to save a soul," it must rather signify to send one to perdition. Therefore if their belief riptures is correct, their conscience is dumb, as far as * See Leviticus xxvi 44, 45 ; Deuter xxvi 26-19 ; xxix 0-14 ; xxx. 1-6, expounded by the prophets; Isaiah ii 1-4; xlii 5-9; xliv. 1-5 ;li. 1-8; liv. 9 10; Ivi. 1-8 ; lix 16-21: Ix. 18-21 ; Ixi 8, 9 ; Ixvi 22; Jeremiah xxxi 31-37; xxxii 36-41 ; xlvi. 28 ; xlix. 4 5; Exekiel xx 39-44; xxxvii. 21-28: xxxix. 2~>-20; Hosea ii 18-22; Micah iv. 3-7; Zachariah viii. fO-23 VS. l'i;oSKI.YTI/I\<; CIIIMSTIAMTV. 15 making proselytes among Hebrews is concerned. We have then ;i right to maintain that the proselyti/ing mania is no 1 >nger, or in fact it never was, under the control of rational argument or the dicta of conscience ; it has become a faith which niu-t be believed because it is absurd, contrary to the common sense of man and the word of God. We rise in the name of God and Israel, we do rise to pro- test against that pernicious practice, that violation of divine :< achiiigsand human rights, ''to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and those that sit in dark- - out of the prison house." We rise to state " which way dwelleth the light, and where the place of darkness is;" where there is truth and where speculation on legends; where there is salvation and where perdition. If we can not argue that mania out of the present generation, we will at least furnish some argument to be used in the coming gen- eration with better success. CHAPTER II. RK.iK(Ti\<; TIM-: KVAXIJKUCAL STORY FROM HISTORICAL MOTIVES. YTTHY should you not embrace Christianity?'' the con- * versionist asks, " if three hundred millions of people confess it, and among them the most civilized and most enlightened nations?" We, in the style of our Eastern fellow- citizens, could answer this question with some other ques- tions, as for instance. " If } T ou are indeed the most civilized and most enlightened nations, how can you believe the dog- mas of Christology, mysteries as your teachers maintain which no man's understanding can grasp, because they are contrary to reason, which even Martin Luther confirms?" Your proposition seems to be self-contradictory. Or AVC could ask, " Why should you not embrace Judaism, when the most distinguished men of God and righteousness as you verily believe two thousand years prior to the advent of Christian- ity, and three thousand years before your ancestors' conver- sion (from and after Charlemagne in the year 800) to it, as you verily know, believed in Judaism?" Or, also, " Why do not the Musselmans and Pagans, as you call them, who arc four times your number if numbers count with you ask you the question why you do not come over to them, when there is certainly no more difference of opinion in matters of religion among Mohammedans, Brahmins, Buddhists, and Zoroasterites than there exists among the Christian sects " Nor can any sound logician establish by evidence the supe- riority of the Christological dogmas over those of the Islam, Brahminism, Buddhism or Zoroasterism, to say nothing of the wisdom of Confucius and the monotheistic philosophers of ancient Greece. Still we will not be as unfair as some of our Eastern neigh- bors arc, and answer one question by askinir another. Nor (16) A HKFKXSK OP JUDAISM. 17 -.ye dodge this question, since it has been asked by some venerable and earnest men, and conversion generals men and scholars who seem to be unable to see the moral hero- ism in the Jews' consistency, faithfulness and eelf-denial in this tragedy of fifteen centuries' duration, and console their compatriots again and anon with the stubbornness and -till'-necked nature of the Hebrew. It seems, where truth and principle are at stake, the Hebrew is rather stubborn and -tiff-necked. There is nn.- answer first, reserving the others for future discus- sion. The Jew can not believe the Christological dogmas, because lie knows that the story upon which these dogmas are based is not true and can not be true ns told by their accredited authors and vnderstood by their dogmatic expounders. The reader will please bear in mind that we use the three ti-rms Christendom, Christianity and Cbristology in their ex- act signification. Christendom applies to the aggregate of all persons who confess IK- of the causes that the Christians love renegades so well, and the Jews show them no particular partiality. " The Greek is a. beautiful (and lascivious?) boy '' pays Heine, "and the Jew always was an earnest man," who hat. s f trees and despises ihe deserter. 18 A DEFENSE OF JTDAIS.M color. Christianity is the religion called so, because it i> believed that its founder was the Messiah, of which term t'hristos is the Greek and the "Annointed One " the English translation, Christus is its Latin and Christ its English equiv- alent. It consists of two distinct elements, the first (A which is its monotheistic-ethical doctrine, which is essentially Ju- daic or taken from the religion of the ancient Judea ; and the second is its peculiar dogmas concerning the nature and offices of the Messiah, and the fabric of salvation based thereon, and is therefore called Christology. The question of conversion involves only this second element of Chris- tianity the first element it has in common with Judaism* and so it is Christology only against which we argue. It must furthermore be observed here, in order to prevent misconstruction, that we distinguish three kinds of knowl- edge, viz : subjective, relative and absolute. We may call any knowledge subjectively true, if it is in full harmony with all the other knowledge of the same person ; then we say justly, " To the best of my knowledge this must be true." It is relatively true, if in full harmony with all the other knowledge of man ; then we say as far as human reason and experience go, or rather have hitherto gone, this must be true. It is absolutely true, if it is with like necessity postulated by the ultimate laws of nature. We know of no other criteria of truth. Xo Christian reasoner ever maintained that the dogmas of Christology and the story upon which they are based belong- to the category of absolute knowledge, as with this eertitude they would cease to be matters of faith. Nor could any ad- vocate of Christian faith reasonably maintain that thos. dogmas and that story are relatively true, if he knows that four-fifths of all men reject and discredit them. Most of them have been entirely unknown to human consciousness SQO to 1,000 years ago, and all of them were entirely unknown 1,800 years ago, while the four doctrines of universal religion were always present in man's mind, even in Adam and Kve, as * See the author's " Judaism and Christianity, their Agreements and Disagreements." Cincinnati, Bloch& Co., 1882. VS. I'KOSKJ.YTIZINK CHRISTIANITY 1U Scriptures maintain.* Therefore there could lie claimed for Christology and the story upon which it liases no more than subjective knowledge. ' I know it to be true," the Christian maintains, because there is nothing in his mind to contra- dict it. With precisely the same reason and the same right the Hebrew and others maintain '' to know" that theChr s- tian dogmas and the story upon which they are based are not true, because they do find in their mind essential contradic- tions against those dogmas and that story. It must be ad- mitted therefore, that in justice and equity, neither God nor man could hold the Christian accountable for his belief or the Hebrew and others for their disbelief. It is an acknowl- edged fact that in all cases when- reason does not directly sug'_ r e>t and demonstrate, man thinks and believes analo- gous to what he has most frequently heard and seen, per- ceived and conceived, as undisputed truth and right. Among a hundred thousand, there may be one perhaps who asserts his manhood and rises above and beyond his inherited dis- positions and acquired prejudices. Your materialistic phy- sicians and other naturalists are the best proof that men of learning also think and believe that which has long enough been imposed upon them as undisputed truth and then they can scarcely form the idea how others think and believe otherwise. Therefore the Christian believes in Christianity and the Jew does not. The Christian " knows " subjective- ly, of course that the Christian story is true, and the Jew " knows " no less and no worse that it is not true. The matter being fairly presented to the average intelligent Hebrew, he must naturally think, first and foremost : How * We formulate these four doctrines thus : 1. There exists a Supreme Being, living, mightier and higher than any other being known or imagined. 2. There exists in the nature of that Supreme Being and in the nature of man the desire and capacity of interrelation, intercommu- nication and mutual sympathy. 3 The good, right, beautiful and true are desirable; Ihe oppo- site thereof is objectionable and repugnant to the natu.es cf God and man. 4. There exists for man a state of felicity or misery beyond this state of mundane existence. 20 A DEFENSE OF JUDAISM do those neighbors kno\v that the Evangelical story is true ? Because their books, which they consider holy scripture-. - inform them. How do they know that those books are really holy, that their authors were men of divine inspiration or even of undoubted veracity ; that they themselves were eye-witnesses of the story which they describe, or that they only committed to writing what they had heard of others by way of church traditions or from then existing documents of which we possess no accounts, and if so, who Avere those " others " on whom those writers relied? The answer to all those queries is : So have we received it from our fathers and forefathers, and so did they receive it from their fathers and forefathers up to the original apostles, who maintain to have been the eye-witnesses of the whole story. Then the He- brew tells himself, they accept that entire belief on the tes- timony of their fathers and forefathers and point in the highest instance to twelve witnesses in whose veracity they place implicit faith ; we also point to the testimony of our fathers and forefathers and in the highest instance to mil- lions of contemporaries of the apostles, who consistently and invariably deny the whole Christian story ; why should not we rather believe our ancestors than theirs, especially if we know that the testimony of an entire people is much more reliable than that 01 twelve individuals, be they even saints or philosophers, if we have no guaranty for their state- ments besides their own words, which, for all we know, may be the inventions of writers that flourished a century post festum? The Christian, of course, can argue against this common-sense argument, but with what success? Eighteen centuries of history reply, "With none;" for the Israelites to-day, as did their ancestors eighteen centuries ago, main- tain the same, the Christian story is not true, certainly not, as the first writers narrate it, and the authors of the dogmas expound it. The Jews' argument is invigorated by the" protests of mil- lions of Christians in past centuries against the orthodox dogmas ; and in our century especially, by the disputes and controversies of the hundreds of Christian sects now extant. If YOU take together the sum of all denials bv those sect- VS. PROSELYTIZING CHRISTIANITY. 21 nothing is left of the whole orthodox Christology. Every one of them denies something which the others consider essential to true Christianity. It would sound like the voice of the anti-Christ y if one would compile all the arguments of the various sects against what others consider essential t> Christianity. Then come the host of Christian anti-Chris- tian writers in our century, whose books and essays would fill any church in this city, who in fact all argue the same thing, that the Hebrews' protest against dogmatic Christian- i y is just and well founded. How could the conversionists now expect of the Israelite that he should accredit and accept his knowledge of Christianity in preference to that of his own fathers and forefathers and over the heads of those millions of Christians who simply deny the whole story and the dogmas based on it? Then if the Israelite can rise to any thing like a philosophi- cal argument, he will say Christianity can advance in its fa- vor the historical argument, it can not and does not appeal to philosophical demonstration; if such alleged facts are true, m/o, they can lie explained by such and such hypothe- uly ; and in this only argument in its favor it falls de- cidedly short of Judaism. The Sinaic revelation is an- nounced as a direct communication of the Deity to 600,000 men, besides women, children and hoary hea Is, all of whom saw the sights and heard the sounds, when God made a covenant with Israel and made known to them the object and law of that covenant. Then came their descendants for 3,000 to 3,300 years, and confirm this tradition almost without a dissenting voice, until at last Christendom and the Islam one-third of the whole family of man em- bracing the most civilized and most enlightened nations, rose to testify to the Sinaic revelation and the covenant made at Horeb. This is historical testimony, the like of which you can adduce to no other fact accepted in history. And now comes the conversion agent of the \e\\- Covenant and offers you the historical testimony of Christendom to prove that the New Buperceded the Old Covenant. You ask him, Did Clod say so? lie must say no, but we believe his son did say so, the son supplemented, amended or even L'L ; A DKFKXSK OK .ITDAISM. pended the Father's word. You must believe God had a son, a mother and brothers, because the Book tells you so. Who testified to the allegation of the immaculate concep- tion besides Mary? None. Who testified to Satan tempting Jesus on the roof of the temple and on that particular moun- tain from which he could see all the kingdoms of the earth? None again. Who testified to the resurrection and ascen- sion of the crucified besides a few women, and, according to one version of the story, eleven of the twelve apostles? Xone, none. Then came the sects right from the apostolic age down to date, each denying this or that part of the story, so that there is hardly sufficient evidence left to prove that such a person as Jesus of Naxareth ever existed on this globe. How can you compare the evidence of Judaism with the historical evidence of Christianity, which is based upon no testimony and is denied by all except the strictly ortho- dox Christian? Says the Israelite : t% I need not be a prophet nor the son of a prophet, nor even a lawyer or the cousin of one, to clearly enough that your argument, opposed to ours as far as historical argument goes can not unsettle any Jew in his conviction that as certain as the Christian believes to know that the Evangelical story and the dogmas based on it are true, so morally certain the Israelite knows that they are not true, and can not be true as narrated in the Book and understood by the authors of the dogmas. Such is human nature. What appears to one indisputa- ble knowledge inconsequence of impressions received when his mind was yet unable to reason on them, or he has heard .often enough when his mind was otherwise occupied, and accepted them on the authority of others, appears to others without those impressions in his mind the most incredible absurdity. It is natural, therefore, that with the same jus- tice and soundness of mind the Christian believes and the Hebrew denies the Evangeli'-al story, as may be the case with every other subjective knowledge. CHAPTER III. THE TESTIMONY oF MIKACLI> I> INADMISSIBLE. THE conversionist approaching the Israelite, the infidel, or any other interesting subject, us tin- physician says, to practice on him, will invariably plead miracle, from the supernatural standpoint of course. The heroes of the Evan- gelical drama wrought astonishing miracles, he maintains, and then basing upon these premises he advances the con- clusion, therefore everybody must believe that whole fabric of Christology as preached (and believed?) by this or that particular sect. If one takes him at his own word, viz: If those alleged miracles ;nv incredible the entire Christology is a conglomeration of fallacies, he is stunned, for he knows that millions of Christians, and among them thousands of learned priests, preachers and celebrated authors, never did believe in the X, -\y Test ameiit miracles. If an honest census could be taken in any city to ascertain how many church members do believe in those miracles, the result would as- tonish the conversion agents and societies to learn what an amount of work is left for them to do among their own con- stituents. As long as those miracles appear incredible to persons born and raised as Christians, they could not pos- sibly appear credible to the outsider born and raised in a faith which declares all those miracles products of fiction. The Hebrew does not advance this argument, because lie has a better one ; he argues thus : Miracles in general prove nothing, and opposite Judaism, irJiir.h bases none of its doctrines on the evidence of miracles, they are dcnncdJij worthless. In regard to miracles, it must be borne in mind that in ancient times, and even now among the illiterate portions of the human family, arts and sciences being almost un- known to them, manv a performance or phenomenon ap- (23) 24 A J)EFE.\SE OF .JTDAISM peared miraculous to them, which seem quite natural to us now. The writers reporting such supposed miracles may have been honest men, who were no more enlightened on those points than their illiterate contemporaries for whom they wrote. Besides, it must be taken into consideration that imagination, especially the bold and vivid imagination of the oriental poet, produces incidents and occurrences as mere tropes, ornamentations or illustrations, which in most cases the uncritical reader takes for actual facts. Therefore every written miracle rouses in the mind the two questions : Was not the writer ignorant of the natural cause underlying that miraculous incident or phenomenon? Is it not tin: writer's own poetical ornamentation or illustration of a doc- trine, if we even do not charge him with wilful falsehood? It seems to us unjust and unfair to charge writers of holy books with wilful falsehood, unless final evidence forces one to the accusation. But then the question arises, did the writer intend to report facts, or was his book originally in- tended to be legendary, i. e , written for ths purpose of being read to produce devotion, wholesome reflection and contem- plation? This may be the primary cause of all miracles. The written miracle in proof of any doctrine requires two acts of faith, one to believe the miracle and another to be- lieve the doctrine which rests upon no other proof; and aside of this it throws suspicion on the doctrine which t<> prove it is intended, anyho\v with every person least inclined to skepticism. He tells himself, If the doctrine is true, what is the use of the miracle? If one is the eye-witness his mind may be momentarily overwhelmed and overawed, to believe a doctrine for which he has no other proof, although he must know that the miracle and the doctrine have no connection whatever in logic. The reader, cool and composed, whose mind is not overawed by black spots on white paper, feels more disgusted than convinced, if he finds a series of alleged miracles imposed upon him in support of this or that doc- trine, and inadvertently tells himself that miracles prove nothing. And now comes the conversionist and expect- of the He- brew to accept Christology as true conclusions hascd nj.oti VS. PBO8ELYTIZING clIKISTIAMTV. 2-> solid facts, after he lias read the Gospels, which begin and end with the hugest miracles and produce new miracles on almost every page between the first and la-t. And what kind of miracles ! Some which the testimony of thousands of eye-witnesses could not establish, as for instance Mary conceiving of the Holy Ghost, being one person of the Deity, and her son being also the son of David, another person of the Deity; or Satan tempting the very son of God, dragging him about, arguing with him and treating him like an infe- rior companion; or that the crucified martyr rose from the dead in his very body, and with that body he ascended t heaven and sits at the right hand of God. which is also his own right hand. No Israelite will ever he able to grasp the-- impossibilities. Then comes the other class of miracles, the fictitious character of which we all know. We all know that there are no evil spirits, no unclean spirits, no kinds of demons, hence no such devils ever could take possession of any human being, and so nobody could drive them out, and yet the New Testament is full of exorcism and thaumaturgy. We all know that faith cure, cure by touch, uttering magic- spells, or t'..e passing shadow, are delusive superstitions, and yet there they are in the Gospels as veritabe miracles. Then come the imitated miracles, as reviving the dead, like Elijah and Elishah ; being buried three days (only one and a half), like Jonah in the lish ; as-ending to heaven, like Elijah; speaking down fiMiu a mountain to an audience in the val- ley, like MM.-I-- speaking down from Sinai ; feeding a hun- gry multitude with a few fishes and loaves, as was done hv Elishah, precisely the same thing (2 Kings iv. 42-44). And yet comes the conversionist and demands of the Hebrew that he believe all those miracles, so that he might be able, or rather prepared, to believe the fabric of Christology Evi- dently he demands too much of the poor man, he could n>t possibly believe all that, hence he can not believe in your Christology, unless he change his whole mind from its ra- tionalistic turn to the mystic proclivities of the person born and bred under those peculiar infltieiic 3. A main point in support of our thesis is that the orthodox. Christian confesses that miracles prove nothing, anyhow 26 A DEFENSE OF .H'DAISM not the dogmas of Christology. Ho believes tho Xew Testa- ment miracles, because they are written in that book. There exists no other evidence supporting them. There are other "i-ooks of the same kind, vix : to teach religion and right- eousness, as, for instance, the Koran, Zendavesta, Vedas, Kings and other "sacred hooks of the East," as Christian theologians of England call them. In each of these hooks miracles are recorded, and some o.' them even hear a strik- ing resemblance to the evangelical miracles, as. for instance, the inca'-nation and p-riodical resurrection of Buddha or tiie passions of Prometheus. And yet the orthodox Chris- tian strenuously refuses to accept the doctrines taught in those very hooks, exactly as the Israelite refuses to believe in Christology. All those miracles rest upon precisely the same authority of this or that book or tradition; hence one must believe all or none. Believing none of them, one is no orthodox Christian. Believing all of them, one must believe also all the doctrines taught in those books, or ho must con- 38 with us that miracles prove nothing. That is a sort of dilemma. Says the conversion 1 st : Those pagans, those heathens, that unredeemed human ilesh, that fodder of Mephistophe- r Beelzebub, invented a conglomeration of falsehoods, no confidence can be placed in their statements, and no argu- ments can be bas.-d on them. This is not exactly true, nor are we willing to subscribe to it, that the most important of human beings are fools or knaves, simply because we believe in the God-like nature of man. Still, we will not argue tin' question here. We rather point to other sources. The Hebrews, the mo-' orthodox Christian must admit, ar- 1 no pagans, no heathens, no polytheists, no infidels even. They did not lie, certainly not in olden times, when they wrote the Old Testament Scriptures and furnished the men and material for the New Testament. They were repeatedly redeemed since that 1'haraoh of old was baptized in the Red nat the very word ''our Redeemer" is of Hehre\\ origin : so that Mo.-cs could exclaim in the last momemts of his life. ' Hail Israel, who is like unto thee a people saved by Jehovah " (Peiiter. xxxiii. '29), and Isaiah could repeat : VS. ]'ROSELYTI/IN<; I'll RISTI ANITV. L'7 "Israel is s:ivi>u say th?n th Nraslito is a rationalist? So ha is, in p-LMrd to miracles anyhow, although many of them are iirm ln-lievers in miracles and believe also those of the Talmud. Still none l>: i !ieve that salvation depends on this or that mir- acle; hence aside of all otlrn* considerations opposite the Hebrew the testimony of miracles is inadmissible, if it be in- tended to prove Christology. He is too far advanced in his onward march toward the postulate of reason to be en- trapped in any sort of mysticism. rilAITKI! IV. THE DMCTKIXI-: OF I-KKSONAL IMMORTALITY. MV :riend .laeob lives with his family comfortably in his own hoiist-.cn X Street. A real estate broker comes to him one day ard oilers to him in exchange ; t better house, as the agent maintains, than the one in \vliich he lives. Mr. -Taeob inquire- : " Is that house a more solid structure than mine, is it in a better location, has it more rooms and better rooms, has it more air and light?" The agent,* of course, a'lirms all this, but Mr. Jacob knows well what the agent's "business requires him to tell, and so he goes to look at the house, and discovers that there is nothing in that house that is not in his own. while he knows that his is a strong and solid building, and the house offered is unknown to him as to its foundation, its walls and roof, and he say- to the agent, it can not be done. The conversion agent offers you another house for your own. He must laud the advantages of his offer. Business men believe best what they know best. You go and see the house offered you in exchange, and you will soon discover, that the agent knew that house but did not know yours. You will soon discover that Christianity offers nothing to the Israelite which he has not in his own house, yet it is demanded of you to exchange your home with its solid foundation for a structure whose foundation is the quick- sand of legend and myth Coming from the general to the particular, we follow the conversion agent in his own line of argument. His first al- legation most always is : The Messianic son of Mary brought into the world that sublime doctrine, that soothing and cheering belief of personal and self-conscious immortality of man. life eternal, self-conscious life beyond the grave. Op- (31) 32 A DKFE.XSK OF ,in>AISM posite this allegation we advance from the basis of authentic history : The consciousness of immortality is innate to man, was known to and verily believed by all nations prior to Socrates, that in the scale of culture had risen to the height of intelligible lan- guage, and ivas no less known to and believed by the undent He- brews up to prehistoric times The first book of the Hebrew Bible, called rve>N-Q 1ED by the Hebrews and Genesis by the Greeks, contains the oldest records of the human family. Adam and Eve and their de- scendants to the tenth generation are recorded there. Noah and his three sons, with their descendants to the tenth generation, the sires of the seventy nations that appear on earth at the very beginning of history, "their origin, loca- tion and fate are inscribed there, saved from oblivion by the first eleven chapters of that wonderful book, over which a host of learned professors still quarrel and dispute. In those ancient records we are also informed what man in those primitive days thought, felt and believed, and, strange to say, the rudiments of that which all men always did think, feel and believe, are there from the very beginning of the human race. The belief in a Supreme Being who gives commandment to man for his own well-being, was present in the minds of the first parents. The desire and duty of man to worship that Supreme Being is on record in the sacrifices made by the first men born on earth, and Enosh, the grandson of Adam, is the head of the human family, when man began to worship God in words of prayer. In the same account of primitive man the book informs us there was the belief current that God created man in his own image, by giving to the animal body the breath of life. the soul of man which is of God, comes from God and is as ;-iosely related to its Maker as is the child to its parent, while the relation of all things in nature to their Maker is only that of a work of art to its artificer. The first man knew that he is of God and in God, that among all the ani- mals none is like him, none could be his companion, or in short the lirst man knew that he is a man, superior to all VS. rKOSKI.YTIZINi; CII KISTIAMTY. 38 creatures, with the universe in his consciousness and the grant of immortality and happiness in his soul. So did and so do now all men think, feel and believe, although some savages are unconscious of their own thoughts, feelings and beliefs, and others have not the words wherewith to communicate their beliefs to others ; although there are skeptics and atheists in the world that expelled this knowledge out of their souls very few succeed entirely in this as the criminal by steady practice and self-delusion deadens his conscience. Yet there is no nation on record that has no conception and belief, in this or that form, of f its nature ; the same must be the case with the soul. The Chinese, Hindoos, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Persians, Syrians, Arabs and Egyptians, speaking of the oldest nations known, confirm that the belief in a Supreme Being and the immor- tality of the soul is universally human, and none has a definite notion of its beginning. The Scythians, Celts and Teutons, savage and ignorant as they were in their forest homes, held the same beliefs, only in other forms, as did the nations of culture. So did and do the American Indians, the nearest and most accessible patterns of primitive paganism. No just man acquainted with these facts will seriously maintain that the ancient Hebrews, Abraham and Moses in- cluded, were ignorant of that belief which was known to all and stamls before us in the first chapter of the Bible, of which they were the first authors. It is not reasonable to think that those who bequeathed to all the world the highest ideas of Ik'ity, righteousness and holine-s. creation, nature and cosmos, were ignorant of human nature. The only le- gitimate question in this connection is : Why did not Abra- ham and Moses speak more distinctly on this matter, or at least as distinctly as did the authors of the Psalms, Isaiah, E/ekiel, Daniel, !' tea, Wisdom Of Solomon, Macca- bees and others? We can not discuss this point lr re. BJ only wish to show that the Hebrews, like all other nations, ?>-! A DKFENSK oK JUDAISM did believe the immortality doctrine, and knew not when, where, or with whom it originated ; although one reason for this silence is stated plainly enough in Deuteronomy xxix. L )v >. Moses, agreeable to his system of teaching and legisla- tion, would not go beyond the line of induction, and this line reaches not into the region or personal immortality. Xot only is the Talmud, with its traditions, reaching up to the beginning of the Maccabean period, and the ancient books on which it comments,* brimful of the immortality doctrine in the two forms of immortality of the sou! and resurrection of the body, and num -rous legends based on this belief; but at a very early date the dogma was established most likely opposite the Grecising Helenists, whose immortality doctrine was that of Socrates and Plato that one must be- lieve that the Thorah of Moses teaches the immortality doc- trine. Prior to that time, about 150 B. C.. Josephus informs us. the three sects quarrelled over this doctrine, the Phar held 'the resurrection of the body, the Kssenes the immor- tality of the soul, and the Sadducees' belief in this matter was unknown to the historian. f The Ixabbis date this con- troversy back to the disciples of Simon the Just, who died '2^2 B. C.. and it appears from Kcdesiastes and Daniel that it did exist in their respective times. Sects do not cjuarrel over the form of a doctrine which is not known and believed. Hence the immortality doctrine existed among the Israelites long before the advent of Christianity. The Witch of Kudor, we are told in the Book of Samuel, j; conjured the spirit of Samuel to appear and to speak to King Saul ; mint lie not have believed in immortality? The prophets Klijah and Klishah. we are told in King-, reanimated th dead children of the widow at Zarefath and the celebrated Shunamith. must not they have believed in the Incorruptibility of th.- soul? In I. Kings xvii. 17-22 it is specially state.! and re- * These books are, Mishnah, Thosephtha, Mechiltha, Saphni 8 phri, Meguillath Thanith, Seder ).'ani, 1'irkei Rabbi Kliezer, all ex- tant, besides the Bible and the book of Jesus lu.-n Sirach. t Wars II . viii. i 1 Samuel xxviii. VS. PKOSKI.YTIZI.V; i 'IIKISTI ANITY. 35 pealed that death means the departure of the soul out of the body (now U mnw K-?"U7K ly), that the soul is a substantial being which dies not (nin T?n &EJ K: 3CTI) and coming back to the dead body it reanimates the same (ntn nm 5?a: 3tm m mp -?y). When that same book tells us that Klijali went alive to heaven to remain forever incorruptible, and that a dead man, whose remains were thrown upon the grave of Klishah, was reanimated, then- remains no doubt that the lEebrews, 800 B. ('., knew and believed the immor- tality doctrine. Could one be a. prophet and feel the presence of God in his inspired mind, or behold the glory of the Eter- nal in his soul, as did Isaiah and E/ekiel. and not know that he is of God and in God, hence an imperishable (rod-like creature? It seems impossible. It must be admitted, then-fore, as far a< the 1 c petrified. The Church reasons not, it dictates. because it is a super- natural revelation, says the priest. It tells you in plain and unmistakable language that he who believes and is bap- tized shall be saved, and he who believes not shall damned; in order to gain the precious prise of eternal life and bliss you must overrule and override all consider;;- of reason, all hesitations of conscience, and believe the v. evangelical story and the entire Christology based upon it ; if you can not do this, or you could and do not do it. yol damned to everlasting torments or final destruction of the soul. Mr. Calvin iroes one step beyond this and ii that those who are predestined or elected by the Father of (38; VS. I'KOSEI.YTIZIN*; CHRISTIANITY. 39 imin will lie saved, all others are damned. Christian sa- vants ditl'er widely in their definitions of the ideas >! saved," and "damned," although in the main they all agree that salvation depends on that particular faith which Christ- ology teaches; and we think the whole is a conglomeration of human speculations basing on erroneous premises. We maintain that alvation is promised to all men who do not wilfully and violently destroy the divine in human nature, and has been specially and unconditionally promised to all who are of Israel. We agree that there is in us and above us the eternal God, Greater, Preserver and Governor of all beings, Source of life, love and intelleet, Father and Providence of mankind, who.-.- attributes, like those of love, mercy, grace, goodness, wisdom justice and freedom, are infinite and absolute as himself, above and beyond all comparisons with similar qualities of any finite being. He is the All-in-All and the beings in this All are the products of his will. There can be no contradic- tions in the Perfect Being, there can be no evil and no evil one, nothing aimless, nothing without an intelligent purpose in (rod's creation. There must be an eternal fitness of all things in their times and places, all things properly co-ordi- nate and subordinate for the well-being of the whole, and everything perfectly equipped and qualified to fulfill its des- tiny and to attain its full share of happiness. If one can get the conversion agent to interrupt his memorized speech long enough till he has heard this confession of faith, he will, if he is candid, aflirm that he also believes in it, and that all this is well said in the Old Testament Scriptures, nothing can he added to it, nothing taken away from it without offending the authority of revelation and the maj- of reason. In this harmonious All, however, man appears to be an alien, an interloper, a disturbing element, a tormenting and tormented wretch, overburdened with care and labor to pro- vide for himself sustenance and shelter, of which even, the fish in the water is free. In his childhood the weakest and most helpless of all creatures, in old age a child again, in the prime of Hie exposed to nuiiieruus d iscase-. ] tain, grief, mor- 40 A DEFENSE (IK .TTDAISM tification, gnawing disappointments, gifted or cursed with the consciousness of threatening danger and approaching death, under the pauseless combat of passion and conscience, man ekes out the few brief years on earth, all of which is unknown to the animal, whose every day is unconscious and careless happiness. On the top of all this misery then- comes the Darwinist and tells you that you are the son of an ape, taking out of the poor creature the little pride of an- cestry which afforded him some consolation in his misery.* Then comes the priest and informs you that all men are sinners, all bear the burden of an original sin besides, and groan helplessly under the curse of universal depravity, so that the poor man is not merely the son of an ape, but the damned son of a chimpanzee. Man may justly ask Provi- dence : Why is it thus? Why am I gifted with nobler feelings, these loftier sentiments, this restless and sleeples conscience, this indomitable consciousness, this superior intellect, these hopes and fears, this insatiable longing, yearning and dis- satisfaction, which reduce my share of happine>s in this beautiful world below T that of the irrational beast? Where is God's justice, love and wisdom manifested in human na- ture and fate? At this point of the cogitation reason's voice chimes into the melancholy and confused accents of plaintive man and swells the discords into harmony and soothing melody. It is a revelation, a divine revelation, a revelation of the di- vine, only in another form, it reached man by the mediation of reason, therefore it came alike to all men. It is the great truth, that man is an immortal being His sojourn on this earth is the first stage of his existence. His life on this planet is a continuous state of development and preparation for another and higher state of existence, if he does not vio- lently obstruct this course of the divine in his nature. His order on happiness which lie brings along from on high is * It took a Christian savan, one that grew up under the pessimis- tic and degrading estimate of human nature, to hit upon the idea of man's descendency from a brute, in none else could the ideal of manhood become so debased. VS. PROSELYTIZIM. < ' II 1USTIAMTY. 41 nt fully honored in this state of existence : it must be re- deemed in another state of existence, when In.- is sufficiently developed and prepared to receive, enjoy and appreciate it. The chicaneries, the teaming afflictions, the pains, griefs and \\-ot-sto which man is exposed in this life a"e to many ad- monitions and impulses to him to continue his course of development and preparation for a higher and purer life ; "to be reminded that mundane life is not the only nor the high- est object of man's existence. Pain, grief, sorrow, woe. dis- appointment and mortification, the dark clouds on life s ho- ri/on, are providential means of education for a better and higher existence, and that existence is man's real aim and ultimate purpose. So reason solved 'In- mystery of human existence and human woes. If this is so and that it is so the beliefs of all nations, ancient and modern, seem to confirm and (lod is all wise, all just and most merciful, he must have provided ample means for every human being, and placed thorn within his reach, to fulfill his destiny on earth and in heaven, to attain the object of his exist-'iice. the ultimate aim of his being. If salvation and bliss, in that higher state of existence, be the end and aim of the human being, then the means to at- tain it, like the knowledge there f, must be innate in man and with equal liberality equally bestowed on all children of man. We must believe this or deny the justice and good- of our Maker, and yield to pessimism and despair. If the Church maintains that salvation depends on its particular belief and practice, of which nine-tenths of all human beings from Adam to our days never heard, never knew of its existence, it blasphemes the Creator of man by the Hat denial of his justice ami goodness. If those nine- tenths of humanity are damned in the estimation of the Church, then it must admit that its God is not only the most merciless tyrant and most furious despot but also the most unwise and unskilled workmaster. having made ?o nfany millions of human beings in vain. ;,s they did not ful- fill their destiny, did not attain the end and aim for which they were originally intended. If that be so, then the God of the Church owes a heavy debt to those uncounted millions 42 A MKKKNSK OF .ITDAISM of men whoso order on happiness was not redeemed, whose sufferings and afflictions in mundane life were not recom- pensed. What kind of a God is he who is not even as good as that /.ealous conversionist who would go thousands of miles to save one soul; not as merciful as any ordinary mortal, who is willing and ready to save any human being from perdition, and alleviate the sufferings of even the most abject criminal ; not as wise and provident as any common machinist, any ordinary watchmaker, who would not con- struct any wheel or any other part of a machine which would fail to fulfill its destiny? Before the judgment seat of com- mon sense such a God is an idol of human fabrication. Hold on, says the conversion agent, the Evangelist, or rather Paul, did not mean that, although the stern dogmatic understands it so. For Mark says first ; " Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature ; " hence tin- sense of the next passage must be, that only those who shall hear the Gospel and know it, and believe not, shall be damned. Yes, yes, it might be understood so, but it never was, especially not by him who wrote the Gospel according to Nicodemus, with the story of Christ's descending to hell, which has become a part of Christian belief. Paul did not think so, when he excused the unbelief of the Jews, and maintained that they could be saved by the Law. Still if we do admit this, it does not improve the cause of Christology. For, in the first place it admits that many millions of human beings were saved and are saved now not knowing the Christian story without the interference of the crucified Mi-ssiah. hence the power of salvation must be in human nature or in God, however imperfect the roneeption of Deity was in those millions of men. If so, there was not only no necessity of enacting that whole Gospel drama, or rather tragedy, as men were saved without it, but it made the case so much worse, as formerly all men could be saved, and now those who know the story and do not believe it ar<- damned. So much advantage millions of men have loft by a special derive of the Deity, as they maintain. Where is the justice, goodness, mercy and wisdom of that supposed God who issued that despotic mandate? If one VS. 1'KOSELYTI/IM; < 'HKISTI AXITY. 43 <-an justify this merciless absolutism in connection with the All-good and All-wise, he must also admit that at that time when the Gospel-drama was enacted God changed hu- man nature in such a peculiar manner that those who know nothing of the story remain in statu quo, and those who hear and do not believe it lose their inherent power of sal- vation. There is no fact known in nature or history and no law in logic to prove such an anomaly in (rod's govern- ment. It might be maintained that we who worship God as the supreme goodness, justice, wisdom and love are mistaken, although M<.-es and the Prophets taught so. The Supreme Being, taught from the standpoint of Christology, would appear to us so merciless and revengeful that he could not forgive the sins of his children, as any good, human father would cheerfully do, and would grant them no pardon till he had sacrificed his only begotten son, which no good hu- man father and no other just man would do. We condemn those heathen kings and princes of old who in time of great distress sacrificed their own sons to move the compassion of the gods, as did Mesha, the King of Moab, some Pho>- nician kings and other heathens. We know that God said to Abraham not to slay Isaac, who was ready to be sacri- ficed, and to M'>se~ : " Him who sinned to me will I blot out from my hook." hence God wants no human victims, no vicarious atonement, no innocent man to die for the sins of others. To us, indeed, such a God appears the most relentless, im- placable and cruel Moloch which the most bewildered phan- of a barbarous age could invent. Still the Supreme J>eing, taught from the standpoint of Christology, is entirely different from our ideal and knowledge of Deity. What we call mercy, love, grace, long-suffering, justice and wisdom, is not that at all in the Supreme Being as understood by the believers in Christology. Hence we unbelievers do not know at all what love, justice, wisdom, etc., in the Supreme Being is. and so we can not see why this one should be saved and that other one damned ; we can not see why and wherefore the salvation of mankind should depend upon a book, a 44 A DEFENSE OF .H'DAISM particular belief or performance. We let them have this ar- gument, if it does them any good, as long as they do not at- tempt to force it on us. Subjective truth is a factor in man's mind, which produces the same wonderful effects as does the excited phantasy. It is difficult to sit in judgment over it. We only say, because no human reason can think it and no man's unprejudiced conscience can indorse it, we reject it. But when one indirectly or directly maintains that the God of the Old Testament is either an impostor and said things which are not true, or an ignorant power, Avho said and promised then and there and repealed or countermanded it afterward, then he knows better, we are sure that the man, church, angel or devil who maintains this utters a blasphe- mous falsehood. So does he, however, who maintains that after the crucifixion and ascension God decreed that he who knows and believes the Christian story and is baptized shall be saved, the rest shall be damned ; when in the Old Testa- ment Scriptures it is repeatedly and emphatically stated that Israel is saved an everlasting salvation, and we are of Israel, know and do not believe that story ; when it is repeatedly and emphatically stated there that God alone and himself is the redeemer and savior of Israel ; when. God said, " This is my covenant with them, my spirit which is upon thee, and niy word which I have put into thy mouth shall not depart from thy mouth, and from the mouth of thy seed, and from the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith Jehovah, even from now to eternity," and a hundred similar passages, upon which ancient expounders based their dogmas. "Every Israelite has part in the future world," and "The good men among the Gentiles have part in the future world." When did God utter a falsehood? Certainly not when he spoke to Israel. When and where did God repeal or revoke his promises and assurances? < Vrtainly not on Mount Calvary or in any ecumenical coun- cil. When and where did God violently change human na- ture to push millions into the oblivion of damnation? Cer- tuinly not at any time within man's memory. Hence, that salvation argument of the conversionist is a poor dodge to hide the weak point of Christology, that it has nothing to VS. PKOSKI.YTI/IM. < ' 1 1 1! I STIAXITY. 45 offer to the Hebrew except a little worldly advantage in a society benighted with childish prejudices, steeped in myths and selfishness. No retrogression, no petrification, no Christology for us. With all men of reason, we believe in universal salvation and need none of your crutches, because we believe, as did our ancestors, in the true God whose grace endures forever, and whose mercy is as infinite as his power and wisdom. CHAPTER VI. MUNDANE HAPPINESS DEPENDS ON MORALITY, XOT ON CHRIST- OLOGY. UTJONOR thy father and thy mother, that thy days be J-l prolonged upon the soil which God thy Lord giveth thee." This is one of the Ten Commandments, which are fundamental laws to all nations professing in any form the re- ligion of monotheism. In that same good book the promise is often repeated, "that it may be well with thee and thy days be prolonged," that thou mayest live long and live well, content and happy It must be evident, therefore, at least to all who believe in the divine revelations of the good book, that the natural yearning of man to live long and happy is no less a law of God than the dicta of conscience and rea- son. If so, all Nazirite practices, all ascetic self-inflictions, unless in individual cases they are intended to bridle over- grown animal passions, all voluntary misery, every curtail- ing oi happiness to any human being, be it self or others, is sinful, because it is a transgression of the law of God. The question in divine jurisprudence can only be, when and to what extent am I permitted to sacrifice my own happiness to that of others? The framers of the Constitution of the United States, in fact the authors of any constitution for just government paid close attention to this important ques- tion We will say nothing here about the direct contrary princi- ple underlying Christology which goes so far as to maintain that even God himself inflicted the utmost passion, pain and suffering upon his own person, suggesting to all believ- ers ' Go and do likewise.' We only call attention to the ir- refutable inductions that those who believe in the revela- tions on Mt Sinai and all who believe that the laws revealed in human nature are no less divine, must admit that mun- (46) A DEFENSE oF .JUDAISM. 47 dane happiness is at least one main object of religion. Therefore it might justly be maintained, if Christology of- fers no special advantage to any one in aquiring that unde- fined bliss in the future state of existence, it might offer mundane advantages which recommend it to our special consideration. True, the proselytizing Christian I mean him who is honest does not hold out any worldly induce- ments to the lost soul, he only speaks of salvation and bliss hereafter. He does that in accordance with his faith, the founder of which said, ''My kingdom is not of this world." But you who do believe that mundane happiness according to the will of God is of some importance, it is at least one of man's ultimate objects of existence, you might take into consideration the point upon which the conversionist can not well dwell, as quite a number of renegades from our camp have Actually done, and all those disreputable indi- viduals do, who sell their birthright for a mess of lentils, prostitute their conscience for a loaf of bread, to speak with King Solomon. It is proper, therefore, to investigate this point. It must be said right here that any momentary advan- tage, the purchase of any brief happiness is not what I mean, or else the thief or the robber to whom the booty affords a momentary advantage and a sort of happiness, or the re- vengeful man who slays his foe that is in his way, to gain a momentary advantage and satisfaction, would be justifiable on the same principle. What I mean to discuss is, does Christology offer any lasting and universal advantage to hu manity to gain mundane happiness? With every good Christian I answer this question in the negative : It offers no such advantage. Not Christology but sound morality is the first main factor to produce mun'lanc happiness to the individual and society. The first condition of lasting and universal happiness we all agree is sound morality. Any country, society or individual can enjoy only so much happiness as is counter poised by so much sound and just morality in principle and action. The exceptions to this rule are few and short-lived. Any one whose standard of happiness is correct and not 48 A DEFENSE OF JFDAISM imaginary, judges individuals and communities from their own standpoints, and not his particular one, and considers a person's whole career in life or a nation's long period of history, can easily convince himself that mundane happi- ness is commensurate to the quantity and quality of moral ity. It is with mundane happiness as with eternal bliss. If the Maker of man is the benign, merciful and gracious father of all his ch'ldren, he must have destined them for happiness. Love is the desire to shower happiness upon its object. If so he must have endowed ever)' human being with adequate capacities and placed the means within his reach to acquire his share of happiness. This or that par- ticular religion is not within everybodys reach, sound mo- rality is ; everybody can be moral to the best of his knowl- edge, and this quantity suffices to procure mundane happi- ness. Therefore individuals and communities under the influence of the most opposite and not seldom most perni- cious doctrines of faith acquired an adequate share of happiness. In this particular point, however, Christology can do nothing for us theoretically or practically. The forte of Christianity is its moral doctrine. All the good it ever did and ever can do is accomplished by the spread of this moral doctrine among such nations or tribes with whom, on account of their defective intelligence the s andard of morals was low and inadequate to attain that amount of happiness which man is naturally endowed to enjoy. Press- ing the honest and considerate Christian to the sequences of his logic, he will confess that Christology has nothing to do with morality, per se, whose kingdom is not of this world. He will only claim that Christology is the vessel in which this morality was shipped from Judea, to Damas- cus, Alexandria and Rome, and distributed fr in those points far east, west, south and north, and as such a vessel it was quite a success. Besides this, he will claim that the will of man must have an incentive to encourage and strengthen him in the practical realization of that which he has learned to be good, right and proper, and Christ VS. PROSELYTIZING CHRISTIANITY. 49 ology has proved such an incentive, which we can not un- conditionally admit, and will discuss it later on; here, however, for argument sake we admit it all. If I borrow every day twenty five dollars from you and pay y u back twenty dollars a day you would not get richer by this operation. All the moral doctrine in pos session of Christianity is borrowed bodily from Judaism. How could it come now to us to teach morals? It could not give us back all it borrowed, because it lost largely from its original capital, hence we could expect only twenty dollars for the t-.venty five dollars loaned. We are too far advanced to do any such business This is not said in fun, it is a solid fact. With Moses the revelations of Deity closed ; so much and no more the human mind is enabled to know of the Supreme Being, that he is and what he is, that he rules and how he rules. Reason has no means to rise beyond the infinite, absolute, eternal One who is the source and cause of all being. No phantasy, no intellect and no acquired wisdom can soar higher, there is the limit of human ability ; and so did Moses see and teach his Jehovah, nothing can be added to it. All theos- ophists, theologians and philosophers after Moses could not and did not add one iota to our knowledge of God where Mo?es leaves us. That God is merciful, beneficent, long-suffering, but just, the highest ideal of grace and truth which man could possibly conceive, that he is our Father and we are his children, of him and in him, Moses has ex- plained mo-i expressively and most impressively; that it is man's duty to love God with all his heart, with all his soul and with all his might, to love our neighbor, to love the stranger, to embrace lovingly God and his creation, by which we remain in continual connection with God and nature, was revealed fully and abundantly to Israel, di- rectly and indirectly, by Moses. Nothing was, nothing could possibly be added thereto ; the mind of man and the reason of mankind can not rise higher in conceiving the Absolute Deity, the divine in nun or the interconnection of the universal with the individualized spirit. We furthermore know with moral certitude that all 50 A DEFENSE OF JUDAISM teachings, doctrines, precepts, law, commandments, or in any other form concerning form of worship, faith in im- mortality and providence, forgiveness of sin, all ethical principles, all moral doctrines and commandments, if true, humane and beneficial, are no more and no less than the necessary sequences of our conceptions of Deity, from which they flow with inevitable necessity as categoric imperatives, imperative categories as laid down in the Dec- alogue and elsewhere. As is a man's or nation's or any system's conception of Deity, so true or false, so high or low, is their moral conception, their ethical principle or principles. In Moses we have the loftiest and purest con- ception of Deity, hence also the loftiest and purest moral conception, the most eminent ethical principle and princi- ples, to which nothing can possibly be added, although much could be and has been taken away. Christianity started out originally, earnestly, zealously and energetically with the Mosaic God-conception, somewhat dimmed by the then prevailing mysticism, Gnosticism and Alexandrian electicism ; and took along from home as much of the moral principle as was compatible with that dimmed conception of Deity. It was meek, gentle, affectionate, tol- erant and unselfish. The further away from its birthplace it went, the more conquests it made among the Gentiles, the more it accommodated itself and its God-conception to pagan notions, sentiments, habits, forms and heritages. As its God-conception was toned down, so its moral principle was enfeebled. When it came to power it was arrogant, combative, intolerant, its meekness and gentility were turned into a haughty spirit of persecution, its unselfish- ness was drowned in despotic imperialism and an imperi- ous hierarchy, its humane affections were submerged in the barbarous rudeness of half-civilized masses, from all of which it never did fully recover. When it first broke forth in its complete heathen garb in the Crusades, it bore no more resemblance to its original state than a block house does to a gorgeous palace, as every knowing Christian of to-day will readily confirm. It is evident, therefore, that as the God conception was obscured under the mist of pagan VS. PROSELYTIZING CHRISTIANITY. 51' notions, in the same ratio the moral principle was de- graded, as even Paul of Tarsus said, truth became a mock- ery and God's law a dead letter, buried under the rubbish of fantastic speculations, pervert and froward practices. Christianity did not recover yet from the dogmatism of the Medieval church, and just so is its moral principle sickly yet, as morbid as its God-conception ; it can teach us no morals theoretically. Judaism also, you say, retro- graded. Indeed it did, lamentably so. It learned too much of its neighbors. But it never degraded its God- conception, and so its moral principle remained intact, sound, firm and unalloyed. The literature of both Chris- tians and Jews, from the dark ages of mysticism and igno- rance, afford proof positive in this matter. That is all theory and speculation, one might say. Take into consideration the practical results and you will find that after all Christianity has built up this civilized world on three continents with all its grand institutions of justice, virtue and righteousness not, however, without the aid of Hebrew and Moor. Is this no mundane advantage? Must it not appear so clearly, especially to the Hebrew, who has neither king nor country? Thank you for this little re- minder which we hear so often and indelicately, although there is not overmuch truth in it. Christology no more than Greco-Roman heathenism built up no civilization as an improvement on the former. The Christian empires of to-day are in proportion no more powerful and no better organized than the Roman Empire was in its day. Slavery, serfdom, despotism and corruption in all strata of society, are to-day not wiped out in Christendom, the feudal laws, originating in robbery, are extant, and fanaticism is ram- pant yet. If the Messiah produced this civilization, then you must give credit to Jupiter, Zeus and Chronos, who did the same thing in a much shorter time, as it took Christendom fif- teen to sixteen centuries to produce anything like a decent civilization, although they were the heirs of Rome, Athens and Jerusalem. Did the Greco-Roman heathens whip more slaves than did the Christian knights? Did they shed more 52 A DEFENSE OF JUDAISM blood in war than the Christian potentates? Did the Roman lords oppress and rob their subjects more than did the Christian barons, princes and kings by the grace of God? Did those heathens steal, rob, murder, lie, swindle defraud, bribe and misrepresent facts more than did the Christians? The Romans threw the captives of war before ferocious beasts and were delighted with the sport, and Christians tor- tured and roasted alive witches, heretics, Jews, Mohamme- dans and American Indians, and sang to it the praise of the Lord. That Christian civilization which is superior to the Roman is not two hundred years old yet, in the main it dates from the American and the French revolutions, and is limited yet to one-half of Christendom, the other half stands to-day below the Greco-Roman civilization. This superior civilization was not produced by Christology or by the Church at all; it was produced by the progress of the moral principle in the consciousness of humanity, the prog- ress of commerce and industry, the discoveries of Schwarz, Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Guttenberg and Columbus, all of whom the Church opposed. Cromwell and the Puritans were the only religious factors who assisted in producing this civilization, and they were heretics, who did cling most tenaciously to the Old Testament, with hardly a trace of or- thodox dogma about them. Practically the Hebrew's morality is certainly not below that of the Christian. He is as merciful, benevolent, libe- ral generous, peace-loving and law-abiding as any good Christian. His family relations are a-t pure, his daughters as chaste and his business relations as proper j\s one has a right to expect from the best Christian. And he is and does all that without the devil with the lash swinging whip- ping him into virtue and righteousness, without the priest's hell and surveillance, and the Holy Ghost's impetus or in- centive to strengthen his will to overcome his lethargy, to make him feel decently. The Hebrew has no king of his own, so Greece has not, nor Italy, nor Spain, nor Sweden, nor even Prussia; most all potentates are foreigners in their own countries. The Hebrews thank God that they have no king. They have as much country as anybody else VS. PROSELYTIZING CHRISTIANITY. 53 has, except the barons of England and Russia, they own it all, and the poor man is a tolerated tenant, as a precious heritage of the Christian civilization. No nation has a country any longer, every country is inhabited by different nationalities and mongrel races. Jerusalem is in the hands of strangers, so is Constantinople, Cairo and Bombay, Alex- andria and New York City. None of the ancient nations now exists intact, and none of the modern nations is a na- tion in fact. Who is usually the best man of the two, the persecutor or the persecuted, the fanatic or his victim? Ask history and it will reply in favor of the Hebrew. Neither practically nor theoretically, as far as this mun- dane life and happiness are concerned, could the Hebrew possibly learn anything of or gain any actual advantage by Christology, therefore do not molest him, he would not do it. CHAPTER VII. MUNDANE HAPPINESS DEPENDS ON INTELLIGENCE, NOT ON CHRISTOLOGY. unto wisdom, Thou art my sister; and call under- standing a chosen friend : to deliver thee from the strange woman, the stranger with her beguiling speech." (Proverbs vii. 4, 5.) This says that wisdom and under- standing afford protection against the allurements of vice and sin, the beguiling counsel of the irrational instincts. If unbridled these instincts sacrifice life's real happiness to a brief, momentary gratification; if under proper control they contribute continually to man's mundane happiness. If this be so and so the wise King Solomon says in all variations in the first nine chapters of his Proverbs then we know that the impetus to and the supporter of the will to do the good and right and to shun the opposite is intel- ligence, or, as the Book calls it, " Wisdom and understand- ing ; " not the Holy Ghost, but the human spirit, is the comforter, guide and protector of man, the Creator's gift to every human being, as you might expect from a just and benign God, who distributes equally his gift of happiness among all his creatures. Said Job, " And thou sayest to man (all the children of Adam), Behold the fear of Jehovah is wisdom, and to eschew evil is understanding." If this be so we may lay down the proposition : The second, though not secondary , factor producing mundane advantage, success and happiness, is intelligence, on the opera- tion, development, progress and steady application of which man's happiness depends. Nobody doubts the correctness of this proposition in all worldly affairs. The more intelligently and circumspect- ively any piece of work is begun and accomplished, the more successful will it prove. Luck, chance and brainless (54) A DEFENSE OF JTDAI.-M. 55 labor may exceptionally prove beneficial, but generally in- telligent work accomplishes its purpose. This is a world of cause and effect, there is nothing outside thereof. Wis- dom presages the effects one wishes to produce, under- standing or intelligence proper discovers the cause or causes producing such effects, together with the mode and method of proper application. The intelligent laborer, mechanic, agriculturist or artificer contributes vastly more to the comfort and wealth of the community than any four of his thoughtless crew. The in- telligent teacher teaches and develops heart and soul, the unprepared schoolmaster drills mechanically. A regiment of intelligent soldiers is worth three of machine warriors. The same is the case with industrials, merchants, bankers, professional men, politicians and statesmen, the most in- telligent connected with the requisite energy and mor|ality is also the most successful and approaches nearest to perfec- tion in his particular vocation, hence he achieves so much more success and happiness from his labor, while he is of so much more benefit to his fellow-men, contributing so much more to their happiness. If reasoning from analogy is legitimate, we might say in- telligence is here one of the main causes of mundane hap- piness ; furthermore there can be no more essentiality in the effect than in the cause, happiness in quantity and in quality depends on the quantity and quality of the efficient intelli- gence ; therefore this must hold good also in regard to eter- nal happiness in that other state of existence. The Jewish Aristotelian philosophers, indeed, consider this axiomatic truth ; but we are not to discuss here this point, being foreign to our subject, with which we proceed. All morality and morals depend upon the intelligence, and can, in quantity and quality, only be corresponding to it. Men may be born blind, deaf, without the proper organs or limbs, but no man is born without the capacity of conscience. Conscience is characteristic of human nature and appears active in every human being, infants and idiots excepted. Every one feels and knows that the good, the right, the true are good and ought to be done, and that wrong is wrong and 56 A DEFENSE OF JUDAISM ought to be shunned. The most degraded criminal respects the righteous man above the wicked Few are so debased as not to abhor the wickedness of others. The moral senti- ment, the sent-e of duty, conscience, is in every man who is not completely brutalized. A good God has given this com pass to every one of his children. The definition, however, as to what is right and what is wrong, is the work of reason, and depends largely on outward conditions. Therefore, the moral law varies in different ages and countries and depends for its breadth or narrowness on the state of the intelligence of individuals and nations. Aa narrow and as uncultivated as is the intelligence of the savage, so is his moral code. As the intelligence expands and is more enlightened among nations of culture, the moral vision widens and its code is enlarged. All depends at last on the grade and state of the intelligence. The same is the case with morality,* e., subjecting the de- sires, wishes, impulses, instincts, passions and volitions to the commandments of the moral code. The lower the in- telligence, the less authority it exercises over the will ; the higher the intelligence the more authority it exercises over the will. The reason of all this is quite plain. The lower intelligence can not look ahead very far the animal can not do it at all consequently it does not calculate the evil consequence of evil deeds, directly to the evil-doer himself, or indirectly through the injured society; it can not see how the evil deed of the individual affects society, or in bib- lical language, how the iniquity of parents is visited on their offspring, even to the third and fourth generations. This in- tellectual inability of looking far ahead leaves the instincts and passions without restraint, and they move the will to prompt actions, gratifying the instincts and passions, which may be good, bad or indifferent. The higher intelligence does look far ahead this is its very nature calculates the consequences of every deed or omission, as experience teaches, shrinks back at the dire consequences of evil deeds and eschews them, or is prompted by the gratifying results of the good deeds and seeks the opportunities to do them. VS. PROSELYTIZING CHRISTIANITY. 57 So it is intelligence again which lead? to a higher morality by the higher authority it exercises upon the will.* The religion which the individual or the community pro- fesses exercises a marked influence on its professors. Its finished and authoritatively established laws, command- ments, doctrines and precepts support and direct the intel- ligence to define correctly that which the conscience in general or individual cases calls good or bad, as the indi- vidual intelligence does not and can not in all cases appeal to itself and wait for its own decisions, just as it is with the public law in general. Conscience, for instance, de- clares that it is good to be grateful to parents, as they are our first and greatest benefactors, the protecting angels of God for the tender plant of childhood. But if parents do not care for their offspring, neglect or even abandon them, reason asks, Does the son or daughter owe them any spe- cial consideration? If father or mother be low and de- spicable, rebellious and worthies?, does the child owe them any particular respect? Reason might arrive at different and contradictory decisions on these points ; religion, how- ever, has decided the question and commands: "Honor thy father and thy mother," or " Every man shall fear his father and his mother." It makes no difference whatso- ever they be or do, being thy father and thy mother you owe them honor and respect and whatever these senti- ments suggest and prompt you to do for them. Conscience considers it bad and wrong to slay a human being. If, however, a person is too old and decripit to enjoy the boon of life, in painful and woful agony, without hope of recov- ery, like Saul and Jonathan on Mount Gilboa, or the hap- less child of wretched parents who could only raise it to a life of misery, reason asks, Is it not best to slay them, is it not best for themselves and society to slay them? Religion decides the question apodictically, '* Thou shalt not kill," and shuts out all individual opinions on the subject. So your religion decides the questions in all cases where the individual intelligence, or even the intelligence of a nation or nations might arrive at contradictory or conflicting re- sults. Nation and nations considered it just and right to 58 A DEFENSE OF JUDAISM have and enforce exceptional laws for different clans and classes of society, more or less oppressive, and it is held so yet ; but your religion tells you once for all and forever : "One law and one statute shall be for you and the alien." Nation and nations considered it right, century after cen- tury, that certain men are privileged to enslave and hold in bondage their fellow-men, and it is held so yet in various forms in different communities, yes, right here in this State and in this city. Your religion, eo ipso, forbids to make a slave or bondsman of any fellow-citizen, and cuts short all definitions, excuses or dodges which the individual in- telligence might invent by the medium of a nation or na- tions. So your religion, by its laws, commandments, ordi- nances, doctrines and precepts, supports and directs the in- telligence to judge and decide correctly the suggestions of conscience. Religion strengthens, prompts and elevates both the will and the intellect. It influences the will by its very revelations that there is a just God above us, a holy God, to whom every wickedness is an abomination, and none goes unpunished. As cause and effect are linked universally, so are wickedness and misery an All-wise and All-seeing God, who is present in the secret recesses of the heart and witnesses every deed, every thought, sentiment, wish and hope of the human being, how could one sin in the presence of his Maker? It rouses, prompts and strengthens the intelligence by directing it to this cosmos as God's creation, wherein the will, power and wisdom of the eternal God are realized, actualized, indellibly im- printed, although readable to human intelligence only. It rouses and raises the intelligence far above this material world, and its mechanism in search of the cause and the cause of all cause, the source of all being, all wisdom, jus- tice and love, prompts it and presses it onward from the finite to the infinite, the timely to the eternal, the perish- able to the absolute, the manifold and fragmentary to unity and oneness. Nothing within the bounds of human knowledge is so eminently and excellently fitted to rouse and raise the intelligence as is the contemplation and cogita- tion of the one, infinite, absolute, only and true God. VS. PRO. In course of time Jehovah became among the Hebrews the only proper name of God, and the word Elohim was used in the appelative form. It was applied to pagan gods, to judges, also to angels, so that if applied to the one and only God it was necessary to say HA-ELOIIIM, THE Elohim, as we now spell Lord with a capital L, if it is intended to designate God. Scriptures contain many other terms designating the Supreme Being, like AIL SIIADDI, " the Self-sufficient All-supporter," AIL ELYON, '' the Most High," ADONI, " the Ruler or Governor," HAT-ZUR, " the Rock/' in later times connected with ZEI'.AOTH, " Lord of Hosts," in royalistic times also, MELECH, " King," and other appelatives, but these two names, Elohim and Jehovah, were most frequently and alternately used to designate the one and only God. This is best illustrated by the very first sentence of the Decalogue, beginning, ' And Elohim spake all these words, saying v 'I, Jehovah, am thy Elohim, who,'' etc. ; the Shema, " Hear, Israel, Jehovah is our Elohim," etc., and by the people's exclamation on Mt. Carmel, "Jehovah, he is" the Elohim." In this connection, however, we need not define all these terms, we have only to place in proper light the term Elohim. ELOHIM. The two words, Jehovah and Elohim, are purely Hebraic, they are found in no other language. Elohitn is supposed bv trinitarians not by manv now any more having the (67) 68 A DEFENSE OF JUDAISM plural form ' : im." suggests a plurality of Deity. It is the plural of Elovahh. Against this we have to say, if Elohim .means more than one God, it does not necessarily mean trinity ; it may nvan the two gods of Zoroaster, or the thou- sands of heathendom. In this latter signification the term appears even in the Decalogue, but as trinity it appears no- where in the Old or New Testament. But it is no plural, although it ends in " im," like Shomayim, ''heaven ; " Mayim, " water ; "* Chayim, "life;" Neurim, "youth;" Pam'm, " face ; " Mitzraim, " Egypt ; " Yerushalaim, " Jerusalem," and many other Hebrew words, which, as in other lan- guages, have the plural form and singular signification. It is a prehistoric term, preceding the pure monotheism of Abraham, and was originally coined to designate the Deity as the unity and source of all elements and forces of na- ture. When Abraham discarded that pantheism he could not banish the word from the language, but coined the more spiritual name of EL-SHADDI, "the Self-sufficient, All- supporting Power." This was still too materialistic for Moses, and he named the Deity by the purely abstract term of " Absolute Existence," which is the tetragrammaton, without eliminating the older terms from the language. When the Christians of the fourth century advanced the Elohim argument in favor of the trinity, we see from Tal- mud Babli and Yerushalmi, the rabbis pointed to all pass- ages in the Bible where the verb with Elohim as its subject is always in the singular number; hence it could not have been understood as a plural. Besides that Elohim is purely Hebraic, and is employed by Moses and the Prophets. You might just as well suppose to find Baal, Ormuzd, Zeus or Jupiter in the New Testament as a trinity or polytheism in the Old, espacially in Mosas, who might be called the arch- enemy of all such speculations. He advances that God himself told him, "No mm can see me and live," which, translated in our language, says, if God indeed were triune, man could not know it, for none could know the nature, es- sence or substance of the eternal Deity. We know not what life, intellect, or even what force is, how should we be able to comprehend what the source and substance of life VS. PROSELYTIZING CHRISTIANITY. 69 and intellect, the power of all powers, is in his very nature? In nature and revelation there is but one God discern- ible; if the Christian believes three in one he must have I- irued it from another revelation or imagination, being ii-ither in reason nor in nature ; in revelation it is certainly not, the New Testament positively knows nothing of the trinity, and the Old certainly not; hence the dogma is a piece of imagination hatched out in the third and fourth centuries to adjust contradictory statements of the Gospels and various traditional beliefs concerning the offices, per- son and nature of the Messiah who was son of David to the nascent church, Metathron to Paul, Logos to John, and finally one of the trinity to ex-heathens, hanged according to Peter, crucified according to Paul, ascended and deified according to the church. That is all right to the Christian, but when the conversionist comes with that matter to the Jew he must tell him it is a piece of speculation, originat- ing in imagination, which neither Moses and the Prophets nor any other Jewish mind could ever hatch or advance. The Jew always had too much respect for the very name of God and was too realistic a reasoner, always remaining within the bounds of nature, to hit upon such an idea; the Kabbalah grew upon Hindo-Parsic Christian soil. XKSIS i. 26. But here it is written in the same first chapter of Genesis, that God said, '' Let us make man," does not God speak of himself in the plural number as potentates and newspaper editors do, and it can not be said of God that the idiosyn- crasy of an imagined self-importance and self-aggrandize- ment swells his head to the bombastic "we," consequently here is the declaration that God is a plurality. True, it may just as well mean a thousand-fold or a dual God as trinity, but the Christian comes to the passage with the trinity pre- judice, hence this " we " signifies to him a triune God. The non-Christian, however, observes in that very same passase all verbs in the singular number. "God made" the "body of clay. " God blew in his nostrils" the spirit of life, "God created inan " when the soul changed the form of clay into 70 A DEFENSE OF JUDAISM a God-like being, and all these verbs are in the singular number. This " we" must be plural, says one party, " God held a counsel with the family on high," says another, and the one piece of exegesis is as good or as bad as the other, for neither of them is based upon the terms or the spirit of the whole piece in which the expression occurs. Here in the first place we are told that God " created " first of all, heaven and earth. Any child, almost, can see that this means that God first created nature with its forces, laws, harmony and material. After that first deed of the Almighty he creates no more except animal life (verse 21) and human nature (verse 27), where the verb bara, "he created," occurs again ; because animal life is justly supposed to be a new creation, it is not discernible in physical nature ; human nature, with its superior intellect, ideality, mental variability, and that wonderful capacity of education and elevation to all con- sciousness, is again a new creation in addition to animal life. In all other acts of creation, the word " created " is used no more ; God " said " let there be light, let the water be gath- ered together, let the earth sprout grass, let there be lumina- ries, let the water abound in moving, living beings, let the earth bring forth living beings, etc. That is, God commands and nature works in obedience to each command. Man be- ing a product of nature and a special creation of God, it is quite plain that he said to creative nature in this case, " Let us make man." Those mystic Rabbis, who made angels of nature's forces understand the passage that God counseled with them; the trinitarian, however, has nothing in that grand piece of Scripture to support his supposition. GENESIS xrv. 4; xxxii. 25. The funniest piece of exegesis is that the 318 men who went to war with Abraham (Genesis xiv. 14), signify Jesus, who was the army of Abraham, although it? 1 in numerals makes but 316, and yet Barnabas says it was the greatest truth he ever uttered. Next to it comes that the man who wrestled with Jacob till the morning dawned (Genesis xxxii. 25) was also Jesus, which gave rise to the English phi he wrestles with the Lord. That Eesh, " man," mentioned VS. PROSELYTIZING CHRISTIANITY. 71 there in course of time grew into an angel (Hosea xii. 4-6), and with Christian interpreters it became Jesus, although that whole story, says Maimonides, was a dream, or as that other man isavs, he (Eesh) must have been a freebooter, that wanted to rob Jacob, and this " other " man appears to have a correct understanding of the obscure passage. Legends grow in proportion to the distance from their source. (Com- pare Exodus xiv. with Psalms cxiv.) GENESIS XLVIII. 16. When Father Jacob said to the sons of Joseph, " The angel that redeemed me from all evil, may bless the lads," he certainly did not think of a ivdi-cmer to make his ap- pearance on earth fifteen centuries later; such a power of prediction was not given to Jacob. Nor was the Messiah expected to be of Ephraim or Manasseh. He certainly thought of his own iron will and unshaken faith in the jus- tice and goodness of Providence, which was his angel re- deeming him from all the evil which he encountered on life's meandering path, therefore, he continued, "May there be called upon them my name, and the name of my ancestors," i. e., this, our character, may be duplicated in the lads thus blessed. This is a blessing indeed worthy of a venerable patriarch to bestow upon his grandsons, as we, under such circumstances might say, may the character of our family be continued and honored in your live*, my sons. <;K.\ESIS XLIX. 10. But then comes Jacob's blessing to Judah, " the scepter shall not depart from Judah " (Genesis'xlix. 10) ; therefore the Messiah had to be a son of David, who was a scion of Judah, simply because Jacob said so, although it is not maintained there that God said so to Jacob. This is a piece of misinterpretation common to both Jews and Christians. It is ridiculous to suppose that the shepherd prince Jacob knew anything of a scepter which a thousand years after that still was a thing unknown, unknown even to David and Solomon, to all the kings of Judah and Israel, and all other kin;j;s of that high antiquity. The man who speaks the Ian- 72 A DEFENSE OF JUDAISM guage of nature so forcibly that he compares his sons to the lion, wolf, ass, serpent, speaks also of so artificial a thing as a scepter, as a symbol of royalty, although the Hebrew lan- guage has many centuries later to adopt the term " Sharbit " (in Esther) to name that thing. In the same place the word " Shebet " occurs three times ; twice it is rendered u tribe," but that once it must mean scepter, because prejudiced ex- pounders want it so, and Shiloh, then the capital of Canaan (Joshua xviii.), must signify Messiah. You might just as well say that Salem, Jerusalem or Philadelphia means Mes- siah. The worst in the case is, the scepter did not come into the hands of Judah until about six hundred years after Ja- cob's death, and was lost again and never restored 586 B. C., and previous to that time, after the death of King Solomon, Judah ruled itself and Benjamin only, it wielded no scepter over Israel any more. If Jacob prophesied the royal suprem- acy to Judah for all time to come, he must have been a very poor sort of a prophet The verse in question must In- rendered by any honest translator : "No tribe shall turn from Judah, And the commander from between his feet (warriors), Until he shall come to Shiloh (capital of Canaan), And nations (of Canaan) shall have submitted to him " This translation is literal. Honest men can see no more in it than Jacob's will that the tribes should remain united with Judah, who should lead them in the conquest of the land of Canaan and be their head until this is accomplished excluding every idea of prophecy; and this was literally carried out. Judah always was in the van (Numbers ii. ; Joshua xiv. 6 to xv. 63 and xviii. 1 ; Judges 1. 1, 2. ) DEUTERONOMY XVIII. 9-12. The prophet, however, whom God promised to Israel (Deuteronomy xviii. 9-21), that means Jesus surely, say> the Christian exegetic, namely, he who does not read the whole passage; which can surely not mean that or any other Messiah. For, in the first place, it is stated that the prophet promised should be " like Moses," and Moses was no god, no son of a god, and no person in the trinity ; it VS. TROSELYTIZIX ; CHRISTIANITY. 73 was not bis mother, but his sister, that was called Miriam, and Joseph was not his father, but his great-great-grand- uncle; there exists no more similarity between Moses and .ICsus than between the architect of a grand structure and the fresco painter that decorates some of its rooms. In the second place, it is stated there plainly enough that Israel should not be dependent for the knowledge of God's will on sorcerers, diviners, astrologers, necromancers, thauma- turgists, and the like, but God will always send them a prophet like unto Moses, who should announce to them the divine messages, ' ; to whom ye shall hearken," and not to impostors like those who mislead the Gentiles. If the promise does not mean that God would always send prophets to Israel, as he actually did, but waited fifteen hundred years till he keut his word, then Israel was per- mitted, or rather forced, all that time to consult those im- postors concerning the will of God, and yet the Law and the Prophets forbid this repeatedly and expressly, and Saul already made the attempt to drive that kind of people from the land, although he did not succeed fully. (1 Samuel xxviii. 9.) A man who gave his sanction to the same superstition which Moses promised should be prevented and replaced by divine messages, viz : the existence and de- moniac power of the evil spirits, as Jesus did, was certainly no prophet like Moses, who denounced this and every other superstition of that kind, not could he be the prophet pre- dicted by Moses. With that piece of exegesis Christian in- terpreters did a poor kind of business, for they must admit that Jesus anyhow was only like Moses, hence he was no god. Then they must admit that either all the ghost stories of the New Testament are fabulous, or Jesus was not the prophet promised to Israel. And lastly they must confess that either God did not fulfill his promise and keep his word for fifteen centuries, till the Messiah appeared, then nobody could think or imagine that this was the man whose coming Moses prophesied, and all prophets before him must have been counterfeits ; or they must admit that the promise means that each time will have its prophet in 74 A DEFENSE OF JUDAISM Israel, which admission is equal to a confession that their interpretation is false. These misinterpretations alone seem sufficient to honest expounders of the Bible to send that whole canon of exe- gesis to oblivion, and to characterize conversion agents still harping on those often refuted arguments either as wilful impostors, or too ignorant to read intelligently what is be- fore them in Scriptures as plain as daylight, as men under the influence of an idiosyncrasy generally do. CEXESIS III. Therefore it will hardly be considered necessary to enter upon any special argument on Genesis iii., containing that beautiful and instructive fable of Mother Eve's enticement by the beguiling and cunning serpent, turned and twisted into the fall of man, the original sin, the necessity of re- demption and the other dogmas connected therewith. Since there is no clue whatever in the whole of Moses' writings to any Messiah or redeemer, of any kind of redemp- tion except from the bondage of Egypt, the fable can not be expounded by such a hypothesis. No person has a right to expound any document by an event which transpired thousands of years post festum, how much less then a fable which may mean a dozen different things, of which we have no longer any knowledge. If so important a code of religion as Christology maintains to be was hidden under that fabulous garb, we would have a right to censure its author in harsh terms for his unkindness and unfairness of burying so important a lesson of salvation under so child- like and delusive a little story, subject to any amount of different interpretations. If any lesson of particular relig- ious import was contained in the little story, some one of the prophets must have alluded to it, which, however, is not the case anywhere in the Bible The passages in the Talmui referring to it were produced from 300 to 500 years after the origin of Christianity, and are no more than thoughtless repetitions of what Christian exenetics had ad- vanced. It need hardly be said that this is certainly also the case in tin- Kabbalistic literature, it being generally 1- VS. PROSELYTIZING C!I RISTIAXITY. 75 lieved now that Zohar is the product of the twelfth or thir- teenth Christian century. Whatever the import of Genesis iii. is, the form is that of the fable. The speaking animal, in this case the serpent, is characteristic of the fable. It appears that the author be- gins this narrative with the word Vehannachash, " And the serpent," in quite an unusual way, to tell us at once that this is a fable. Christian and Kabbalistic expounders maintain the serpent was not that animal, it was the evil one, although it is said expressly in the text that it was the most cunning of all the beasts of the field which God had made, that an enmity should always exist between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, and the evil one, to the best of our knowledge, had no children. If Satan it was, why did that author not call the thing by its right name? How could we think of a personal Satan if the writings of Moses and the Prophets negate and exclude the existence of that prince of pessimism? If he indeed meant Satan when he said serpent, how could the ex- pounders know it, if they are no prophets? The serpent has to remain a serpent and a speaking animal which rea- sons and argues, hence the story, however didactic, in- structive, suggestive and philosophical, remains a fable, which no sensible man will take to be the fundamental structure of the religion and salvation of the human family. And yet the whole of Christology falls to the ground if this story is not literally understood, as its expounders do. That is like building a tower upon a woman's thimble. None can read the introductory chapters of Genesis without feeling that one of the objects of that author was to dethrone the gods of ancient heathenism, which benighted the nations of culture, especially in the original home of Abraham, Ur of Chaldoa, and in Egypt, The earth, the sea, the elements, together with all living beings, the sacred animals and vegetables of Egypt included, are not only one God's creatures and subject to his will, they are even placed under the control of man, who should subdue them and have dominion over all living beings ; hence they are no gods, not as much divine even as man is, who was <0 A DEFENSE OF JUDAISM made in the image of his Maker. When he comes to sun, moon and stars, then most universal objects of worship, he speaks extensively of the purpose of the Creator in pro- ducing those luminaries, saying in as many words, clearly and distinctly, these are certainly no gods, there are no ter- restrial and no celestial gods. The serpent also was one of the gods, an important figure in ancient mythology.* Gen- esis iii. deposes that supposed divinity. Perhaps that is the principal import of the fable. But there remained one most dangerous divinity, more dangerous even than earth and heaven, elements, luminaries and sacred animals, and that is man. Also this divinity is overthrown in Genesis iii., which tells us man is so long a sort of a god on earth aa he lives in obedience to God's will and command ; when he rebels, is led astray by his lower instincts and the specu- lations prompted by them, he is driven out of paradise, and his godhead vanishes. This seems sufficient moral for one didactic fable. But there appears to be much more in it. Various hypotheses and theories have been advanced, but none as little as the Chris- tian conception affords a satisfactory solution of the mysteri- ous trees of knowledge and life, the Cherubim and the flaming and revolving sword, and the truly enigmatical words after the supposed fall : "And Jehovah, Elohim, said, behold man hath become like one of us (or one of its kind) to know good and evil" (Genesis iii. 22), corresponding to the words of the serpent (verse 4). This sounds as though by this act of eat- ing of the forbidden fruit, human nature had been per- fected and finished, not that man fell, but he rose to a higher state of perfection. All of it may or may not have been intended to dethrone heathen deities and deified man espe- cially ; still none can tell, with any degree of certainity, what * Dr. Moriz Winternitz, of Vienna, pupil of Prof, Buehler and as- sistant of Prof. Max Mueller, has just published in the Mittheilungtn der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft, of Vienna, an interesting mono- graph of forty-three pages on the Old Indian Serpent cult. The arguments are chiefly derived from Assyrian sources, Pali, San- skrit, Zend, etc., but the Semitic scholars will find many points re- lating to the Serpent cult in the Bible and among the Arabs. VS. PROSELYTIZING CHRISTIANITY. 77 the author's actual intention was, to what end he employed those symbols, and symbols only they can be, as is the speak- ing and arguing serpent. Still if we admit the Christian conception of the fall of man and original sin, although it .does not explain those symbols and words, it does not benefit Christology, and proves nothing in its favor. This sin could have poisoned only Cain and Abel, for after these are disposed of in Scrip- ture, we are told that Sheth was born in his likeness and image, viz : of Adam, who was made Bidmuth Elohim, " in the likeness of God," which certainly signifies uncorrupted, sinless. (Genesis v. 1-3.) If Sheth was born in the likeness of Adam, and Adam was made in the likeness of God, then Sheth must have been born also in the likeness of God, with- out the poison of the original sin. If this is so and none can see why it should not be the original sin, if inheritable, would cling only to the seed of Cain, and those only to the fourth generation. (Exodus xx. 5; xxxiv. 7.) If it be main- tained that this law of God was not in operation yet, and all the descendants of Cain inherited the poison, or it be even maintained that the seed of Sheth also inherited the same poison, it would not benefit Christology ; for all Cainites and Shethites, except Xoah and his family, perished in the Deluge, and it is stated clearly and expressly in Scriptures that Noah was free of all iniquities. " Noah was a righteous man, perfect was he in his generation, with God did Noah walk," or conduct himself. (Genesis viii. 9.) There is no trace of any iniquity or sin whatever. In chapter ix. we are told that God blessed Noah, precisely as he did Adam before he sinned (Ibid. i. 2S\ and then that God made a covenant with Noah, or rather continued with him the original covenant made with man and mankind. In all this not the shadow of original sin or the fall of man is perceptible, nor does the Bible anywhere refer to it again. Consequently if Genesis iii. is to be understood in the Christian sense, it must any- how be admitted that consequences of the first parents' sin did not extend beyond the fourth generation of Cain, or at the utmost it certainly was wiped out in the Deluge. Then Noah was the promised redeemer, if one was promised, and 78 A DEFENSE OF JUDAISM. after him no redeemer was necessary, and none appeared ex- cept redeemers from oppression, slavery, despotism, de- moralization and corruption, the first of which was Moses, and the last to date George Washington. CHAPTKIl X. NO CHKISTOLOGY IN ISAIAH. THP]RE are some passages in the Old Testament to which conversion agents never refer, perhaps because their knowledge of that book reaches not beyond that limited num- ber of prophetical oracles, which, so to say, are their stock in trade. Some of those neglected passages are very interest- ing. Let us quote some : " Put not your trust in princes, in the son of man, in whom there is no salvation. When his spirit goeth forth, he re- turneth to his (native) earth: on that very day perish his thoughts. ( But) happy is he who hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is on the Lord his God, who hath made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is therein; who keepeth truth forever." (Psalms cxlvi. 3-6.) If this is a prophecy, is it not very plainly to the effect that none should put his trust in the hero of the Evangel- ical story, the son of man, as he called himself, in whom there is no salvation ; death cut short his career, defeated his schemes, while He who is the Maker of heaven and earth liveth and keepeth his word forever? It looks rather like a passage written long after the crucifixion, when the son of man had grown into a prince of salvation among his BibLe- <'xpounding disciples. Still we know that this Psalm \vas there long before the year one. I had an idea that it referred to Deuteronomy xiii. 2-6. "If there arise in the midst of thee a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and he givetli. thee a sign or a token, and the sign or token come to pass, whereof he spoke unto thee, >ayiiv_ r . Let us L r o after other gods, which thou dost not know, and l-t us serve them, then shalt thou not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or unto that dreamer of dreams ; for the Lord your God pro\vth you to know whether you in- (79) 80 A DEFENSE OF JUDAISM deed love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. After the Lord your God shall ye walk, and him shall ye fear, and his commandments shall ye keep, and his voice shall ye obey, ami him shall ye serve, and unto him shall ye cleave. And that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he hath spoken revolt against the Lord your God, who hath brought you out of the land of Egypt, and who hath redeemed you out of the house of bondsmen, to mislead thee from the way which the Lord thy God commanded thee to walk therein ; and thou shalt put the evil away from the midst of thee." But it seems I fell into the same error as the conversion- ists do, for the Messiah of the Synoptics at least never-said that he was a god, or a son of God, hence did mislead none to worship other gods ; on the contrary, he taught his disci- ples to pray to " Our Father who art in heaven,'' exactly as the Hebrews did to D'CBCff H'DK. * Let us read some interesting passages from Isaiah In chapter xliii. the prophet opens in these solemn words : " Thus saith Jehovah, thy creator, O Jacob, and thy maker, O Israel, fear not, for I have redeemed thee ; I have called thee by my name, mine thou art." Then he goes on with promises of redemption (from Babylon) until he reaches the following climax : " Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant, whom I have chosen in order that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he; before me there was no God formed, and after me there * It is strange that the learned expounders of Christology never paid any attention to this law of Moses, which so plainly ordains that the prophet who proposes to his cotemporaries, " Let us go and worship other gods," should be put to death. If Jesus did main- tain that 1 e was a god or a person of the trinity, performed those miracles to prove his divinity, and exacted of his disciples faith iu his own divinity, any criminal court acting under the laws o Mo- ses was obliged, the fact being proved, to have him put to death ; and yet in the trials preceding the crucifixion, also according to John, no reference to this law is made. This ought to be sufficient proof to believers that the son of man never claimed to be more than man. VS. PROSELYTIZING CHRISTIANITY. 81 will be none. I am the Lord, and besides me there is no Savior. I myself have announced it, and I have saved, and I have let it be heard, and there was no strange (god) among you; and ye are mv witnesses, saith the Lord, I am God." In the same strain (xliv. G) that prophet says : " Thus saith Jehovah. King of Israel and redeemer, even Jehovah Zdiaoth, I am the first, and I am the last, and besides me there is no God I am Jehovah, this is my name, and I will not give my honor to another, or my praise to idols." (Ibid. xlii. 8.) " I am Jehovah, and besides me no God ; I will help thee, if thou even didst not know me. That all may know from the rising of the sun and from the west that there is naught besides me, I am Jehovah and none be- snlrs.'' (Ibid xlv. 5-6.) "Am not I Jehovah, and there is no other God, besides me there is no righteous God and no Sa- vior. Turn unto me, and be ye saved all ends of the earth, for I am God and none besides " (xlv. 22.) These interesting passages from Isaiah inform everybody that this prophet did not and could not think that God, in whose name he speaks, ever would create or otherwise produce another God, or any demi-god with whom he should divide his glory and the veneration due to him alone. If this is a declaration, of theological principle, it declares clearly and intelligibly enough the fallacy of the trinitarian doctrine and the man-worship connected with it ; if it is a prophecy, it declares in advance, and in the name of r.od. that the whole of Christology, with its scheme of salva- tion, is of human invention, unjustly and illegitimately propped on some misinterpreted passages from Scriptures, against which the prophet in advance cautioned his people. Aside of that, however, these passages are of peculiar in- terest also in this respect. The Church believes that the sixty-six chapters of that book were written by the one and the same Isaiah. And yet the same church which reads these unequivocal declarations of the prophet against all kinds of polytheism, trinitarianistn. any and every kind of redeemer or savior, points almost exclusively to the same Isaiah and this is done in the Gospels for 82 A DEFENSE OK JUDAISM oracles that predicted the miraculous birth, life, work and death of the Messiah who certainly was "another god" as long as he wore baby's clothes or man's habiliment and walked about on this earth, and remained that " other god," to whom prayers are still addressed and homage is done at least every Sunday, and every feast instituted in honor of his name. Those good people, clinging to their subjective knowledge, have no idea how paganized they are in theory and practice, and how self-contradictory their allegation? are. wherever they attempt to prop the Evangelical story by passages from the Old Testament. But we who labor not under the burden of that subjective knowledge, we consider it an irrevocable truism, that The prophet like Isaiah with these emphatic declarations of the purest monotheism, which exclude in the Deity all kinds of dualism or trinitarianism, all conceptions of plurality, corporeal- ity and anthropomorphism, could not possibly intend with any of his prophecies to predict the coming of any son of god, any di- vine messiah or supernatural redeemer or savior, person of the trinity, or any other superhuman being. Therefore every pre- sumption of discovering Christological predictions in any pro- phetical passage must be the outcome of prejudice and misinter- pretation. Isaiah (chapter vi. ) and Ezekiel (chapter i.) describe their sublime visions of the Ufarcabah, "Throne of Glory." They inform us that they saw their Seraphim, Cherubim, Ophanim, Hayoth, Hashmalim, all in the plural number, poetical figures with wings of fantastic shapes, colors and movements. But they saw no son of God anywhere If such a conception had ever been in their minds, they would have seen it in their prophetical vision just then and there. If they did not see him, we certainly could not. William Gesenius and other Christian expounders of the book of Isaiah, Psalms and such other books, have given up the idea of finding Messianic predictions in those books, but the conversionist has his own canon of exegesis and clings \<> old errors, because he can do no better. If Isaiah, for in- stance, did not predict that particular Messiah, there not only exists no biblical proof that he was a M.- iah at all, but VS. PROSELYTIZING CHRISTIANITY. 83 the Gospel itselr must contain at least as many errors as it has references to that prophet. The general principle just laid down shows the impossibility of actually discovering such predictions in Isaiah, hence the conversionist can do no better than cling tenaciously to his old errors. Let us point out some of them. ISAIAH VII. 14. This verse is translated in the English Bibles : " Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Emanuel " In Matthew i. 23 it reads : " Behold a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emanuel." This, says Matthew, refers to the son of Mary, although none before him nor any of the Gospel writers after him ever understood it so, none referred to this supposed prophecy besides Matthew ; and what is still more surprising, Jesus knew nothing of this miracle, never refers to it, and vulgarly calls his mother woman, and Mary also evinces no knowledge of it, and calls him Joseph's son. ( Luke ii. 48-50.) If we say that but two words in the translation of that verse are correct, viz : ben and shemo, we do not exaggerate. Let us see : HA-ALMAH does not mean " a virgin ; " it means the maiden, or this young woman Bethulah is the Hebrew term for a virgin, and without that Ha. HARAH does not mean " shall conceive," which would be Tkehcrah; it means she is with child, as is evident from the parallel passage, Genesis xvi. 11, hence she was no virgin.* VEYOLEDETH is not in the future tense, it is the present participle, feminine gender, not she shall bear a son ; it means (as the next verb proves) and thou (woman) bearest a son (now or shortly thereafter). f * In the case of Hagar, who certainly was pregnant when the angel spoke to her, the angel addresses to her precisely the same words as the prophet does to this Almah. "p r~i~?"*" r~nn "j-H v:r rx-p t In the case of the mother of Samson (Judges xiii.), who was not pregnant yet when the angel spoke to her, the same terms are used 84 A DEFENSE OF JUDAISM VEKARATH does not mean " and she shall call," or else it must read Vethikra; it means thou (woman) callest his name. E.MANUEL is not Jesus ; he is not called so anywhere. The translator, following Matthew, makes of that verse Hinnah Bethulah Theherah, Vetholid ben Vethikra Shemo Yishu, so that nothing remains of the original paragraph except the words ben and s^emo. A woman standing before him is addressed by the prophet, as also the situation there in Isaiah and Kings show. Ahaz, the King of Judah, is threatened an invasion of his capital by the Kings of Israel and Syria, which was about ten to twelve years prior to the fall of Samaria. Ahaz wants to call to his assistance Tiglath Pileser, King of Assyria, and did finally do so, which the Prophet Isaiah just- ly opposes, because he dreaded the invasion of Palestine by that warlike king and people ; and his apprehension proved to be well grounded, for in a few years later Assyria over- threw the Kingdom of Israel, and Sennacherib would have captured Jerusalem, if he had not lost his army under its walls. All this is clearly sketched in 2 Kings and 2 Chron- icles. Isaiah tries to dissuade King Ahaz from his scheme of purchasing the assistance and invasion by the Assyrian, and tells King Ahaz that God gives him a sign to assure him that those enemies would not conquer him, and that both countries which now distress him would be depopu- lated before the child of the Almah, even if fed on milk and honey, would be old enough to despise evil and to ch< good. It is absurd to maintain that this sign referred to an event to come to pass seven hundred years, or even one year later, when Isaiah spoke to King Ahaz. Therefore the passage must read as said : A young woman, perhaps the queen, being in an advanced stage of pregnancy, standing before them, the prophet says : This woman will give birth to a son and this was the sign whom she might in the future tense (verse 4). p mT*1 mm The passage in Isaiah is an imitation of the ab we two, as is the angel coming to Mary. Therefore Matthew quotes (he passage from Isaiah. VS. PROSELYTIZING CHRISTIANITY. 85 call Emanuel, " God with us. 1 ' for he will not permit those two kings to conquer this country. The irrefutable proof for this conception of the matter is the beginning of Isaiah viii., where it is narrated that the same sign was given before two high-ranked witnesses, as the king rejected the prophet's sign and message ; then fol- low the prophecies in viii. 4, the same precisely as in vii. 16. Then in viii. 18 he refers to both cases, that the signs given' h:id been fulfilled literally, the two boys had been born as predicted; therefore his prophecies oughMo be believed in preference to the necromancers and sorcerers, that most. likely advised the king contrary to Isaiah's predictions Xow take up the book and read from Isaiah vii. to viii., in- elusive. and you will be astonished how glaringly absurd the Christological exegesis is. ISAIAH IX. "), 6. lu the same connection a number of oracles follow after each other, all in reference to the Assyrian invasion. King Ahaz disobeyed the prophet, sent an embassy with heavy sums of money to Tiglath Pileser (2 Kings xvii. 8, 9), who invaded Syria and decimated it. Now the prophet an- nounces his oracles as to the consequences ot this invasion, which will not end with the overthrow of the two kingdoms of Israel and Syria, hitherto Judah's protection against As-vria, but Judah also will be invaded and hard pressed by the enemy whose.- friendship King Ahaz bought so dearly ; but Judah will not perish, it will be saved by the successor of King Ahaz, the then crown prince Hezekiah, in reference to whom he says, what the English version renders : " For unto us a child will be born, a son will be given, and the rnment shall be on his shoulders, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Ever- lasting Father, the Prince of Peaec." This, of course, must refer to that Messiah that should come 700 to 750 years after that, although the prophet always speaks of the present distress, and of one who should deliver Judah from the power of that invader (Sennacherib). The whole, how- ever, is another abuse and misrepresentation of Scriptures 80 A DEFENSE OF JUDAISM for dogmatic purposes. The verbs yullad and nitthan are in the absolutely past tense, can only be translated in the past, tense, " A child was born to us, a son was given to us," they can refer only to a person born long before those words were spoken, and can not be tortured to refer to one to be born 700 years later. To whom did the prophet refer? To one who will take the government upon his shoulder, which could be the then Crown Prince Hezekiah only, who was then from twenty-three to twenty-five years old. He, the Prophet believed, will change the pernicious and God-defy- ing policy of his father, Ahaz. He will be heir to the de- structive consequences of his father's policy, the Assyrians will invade, overrun and distress the land, but by the merits and piety of this prince the country will be saved at last, and then he will be called ""\Vonderful." Why will he be called so? Because he will be a mighty strong counsellor (in time of national distress), <; master of the booty " (in time of war), and a " prince of peace " (after the invader shall shall have been expelled). The English translators made of yoez el-gibbor, which by the accents and good gram- mar is one phrase, a noun, yoez, with two adjectives, el and gibbor, two phrases, to bring out " counsellor and mighty god," contrary to the sense and spirit of the whole Bible, which never calls any man a god ; contrary also to good grammar and the Massoretic accents. Then they make of Abi-ad an everlasting father, when everybody who knows the Hebrew Bible also knows that ad nowhere signifies everlasting, which the Hebrew expresses by the phrase adei-ad, olam-woed. Ad as a preposition signifies a limit in space or time, " until or unto," also " so that " in New He- brew, it never signifies endless time or space, hence the "everlasting" must be dropped. Nor does Abi signify father, it signifies progenitor, producer, inventor or master ( Genesis iv. 20, 21). But we know that Ad in Gnu-sis xlix. -7, signifies "booty," and the prophet most likely referred to Benjamin as included in Judah, whom he calls the gibbor, and so he calls the king in t connection with one another, met with precisely the same fate, good or ill luck. It is almost impossible to be other- wise among so many uncountable millions of human careers. many duplicates must occur Besides these two we have to urge a third objection: as Hebrews, we could not believe in fatalism, because our Scriptures teach a God of freedom and a free humanity. The criterion of intellect is freedom, and intellect is the main criterion of Deity and humanity. With us God is perfect, which a God without freedom can not be. man is hi si mage which lie could not be without the quality of freedom. That fatalism that any living man sutlers and perishes because the prophet in the name of God did centu- ries ago foretell it and as he did foretell it, can 7iot be believed by us, who are the children of the covenant with the God of freedom. It is one of the fallacies of Christology advancing the be- liefs that events must come to pass literally as prophesied centuries ago, which means as foreordained by Providence, and then count it a merit to the one, or a crime and sin to the other, on whom or by whom the inevitable and uncontrolla- ble will of God as foreordained and foretold is actualized. In the case under consideration it was no merit to Jesus to suf- fer what he did suffer under the ban of inevitable necessity : nor could it be accounted a crime to those who crucified him under the compulsory will and force of the Deity. The Hebrew could not base any religious belief or doctrine upon such a contradiction in re. Most disastrous in this case against the conversionists' al- legations is the fact that Isaiah liii. contains no prophecy at all, it is plain narrative of a past event. You take up this chapter in the original and you discover at once two strange facts. The one is that the whole chapter is not at all of the Isaiah style, and the second is that it breaks the connection between chapter lii and liv. so perceptibly and ostensibly that no honest critic, even reading the translation only, can help seeing there an interloper, the product of another writer, put there for a purpose. The same seems to be tin- case with Ivi. 10 to Ivii. 13, which also breaks the connection VS. I'UOSELYTIZINi; CHRIST. AMTY. 89 between Ivi. 11 and Ivii. 14, is also written in the same style as liii., and cm tin 1 same or n similar subject, so that evi- dently those two pi. .-> were originally one, belonging to some unknown writer. But what is n:"-t striking in both pieces is that they are written in the past tense ami do not in anywise claim to be a prophecy. In verses 10-12 occurs the future tense in strict accordance with a rule in Hebrew grammar.* It is plain and unmistakable narrative of tin- fate of a despised, suffering, woe-stricken, righteous man,who bore up Courageously and with unshaken faith in the time of misery, which brings him prosperity, happiness, victory and glory at the end. The whole could refer only to one who had lived before this chapter was written. There is not the slightest allusion to any future event in the whole chapter. No unprejudiced reader can find the Christian Messiah in that chapter, also not if he does so much violence to the text that he turns the past into the future tense. In verse three it is said of that suffering hero. '' He was despised, shunned of men, a man of painful afflictions and in sickness ex- perienced," all of which, according to the Evangelical story, the son of Mary was not. None despised, none shunned him ; on the contrary, we are informed that thousands of all classes of people came to him, treated him quite respectfully, and many loved him well. Nor was he a man of sore afflic- tions and many diseases; he is described rather as a healthy and cheerful young man, free from bodily blemishes and dis- 3. Iii verse 9 we are told, "And he gave (to) the wicked ones his sepulcher and (to) the rich his height," or cast'e. -I- -u- had no sepulcher of his own to give away to anv wicked men, and certainly no high pla.-e or castle to give to the rich. In verse 10 that suffering hero is promised -.-ed (and) length of days," and both terms Sera and * It must be borne in mind as a fixed rule of Hebrew grammar, that relating a past event of two or more actions the verb express- ing the first in time is in the past tense and the succeeding actions, although also past are marked by the future tense of the respective verb or verbs because the narrator places himself in the time, when his narrative begins then the succeeding actions were all lying in the future. 90 A PKFKNSF. OF .H'UAISM Yaarich Yamim, everywhere in the Bible have the literal sense exclusively, literally children, descendancy and long life on earth, none of which was given to Jesus. The hero of Isaiah liii does not perish in the sufferings, on the contrary he lives to see all the blessings showered upon him from verse 10 to 12, and Jesus did perish in the catastrophe. The question might be asked, to whom does that chapter refer if not to the Christian Messiah? It would be proper to say. 1 (]o not know: 1 only know that it does not refer to any future event, and could not refer to your Messiah. Still, we have to advance some rational and probable prop- ositions in explanation of that part of Scriptures. All kinds of suggestions have been advanced as to the real subject of that chapter. It is the Prophet Jeremiah, says one class of expounders, to whose life of incessant struggle, sorrow, disappointment and alHiction the whole chapter tits ; and it was written shortly after his death (Ivii. 1), perhaps a funeral oration by some mourning pa- triot over that sorely n filleted prophet, who had suffered so much by the sins of his people. Others maintain it is the people of Israel, so often called in Isaiah the servent of the Lord, in the time of Oambysus and Smerdes, when the young colony was in great distre--. prohibited to continue the rebuilding of the temple, the laud trodden down by invading armies alternately from Persia and Egypt, oppressed by despotic king-, scorned and derided by their neighbors round about, and coming out triumphantly in the days of Darius II. Kabbalistic expounders, who see prophecy and mystery everywhere, found in it the Messiah ben Joseph, who must be slain prior to the approach of the real Messiah, or also the right Messiah ben David, as they had learned it from Christian expounders in the third to the fourth century. Another opinion, basing on 2 Chronicles xxxv 25, i^ that Jeremiah wrote Isaiah liii., a lamentation on King Joshiah, after he had lost his life in the battle of Megido. But this seems not to fit to the close of the chapter from Vel'Se 10 to the end. VS. PROSELYTIZING CHRISTIANITY. 91 Still there are many other rases possible, even more plausible than the former. 1 It is a didactic poem without reference to any special individual, on the same subject exactly as the whole book of Job was written, showing the truly righteous man, who in affliction despairs not of God's justice and wisdom, and triumphs at last over misery and degradation, as foreshad- owed in Malachi iii. 13-18. Isaiah liii. is the counterpart of Psalms Ixxiii. and xciv 2. It is the funeral oration delivered over the demised Job ; every word in Isaiah li.ii. applies to him most exactly. Job lived in the time of Daniel and Ezekiel, as the latter testifies. He was one of the men who returned from the Babylonian captivity, according to the testimony of Rabbi Jochanan in the Talmud, and according to the most re- spected critics that was the exact time when Isaiah liii. was written These obsequies are even mentioned in the Tal- mud Sotnh 35. 3. It is a panegyric on the royal sire of Zerubabel, King Jehoiachin or Jekoniah, whose life and fate correspond pre- cisely and exactly to the entire chapter from beginning to end. At the age of eighteen he was made King of Judah, three months later the Babylonians overran the country and threatened Jerusalem with destruction, he laid down his crown, delivered himself up to the enemy without a murmur, and, like a sheep dragged to the slaughter-pen, he went into captivity, left his family sepulcher to the wicked invaders, and his castle or high place to his rich brother and successor. He then was thirty-seven years a captive and prisoner, despised, shunned, disgraced and sick on ac- count of his people's sins, till Evil mcrodaeh took him out of prison and bestowed upon him the highest honors (2 Kings xxiv., xxv. and elsewhere). This was in the year 5-")9 B. C In the year 536 Zerubabel returned to Palestine and so that king did see " seed, length of days " If he lived yet he was but seventy-eight years old when Zerubabel returned. At any rate he could not have been dead many years when that panegyric was written, under the influence of the great prophetical triumph, Zerubabel leading home 92 A DEFENSE OF JUDAISM the colony, to restore the ancient kingdom, to rebuild the temple on Mount Moriah The sins of the king in his youth were forgotten by his sufferings, the glory of the living prince cast its rays on the deceased king. The tra- ditions treat this king much better than sacred history- does, and Abraham Ibn Ezra maintains that the whole of Deutero-Isaiah (xl.-lxvi.) was written by that very King Jehoiachin.* It must be admitted that any of these opinions explains Isaiah liii. better, more natural and sensible, more agree- able to common sense and history, than the Evangelical conception of the matter, which belongs to the homiletic speculations of an uncritical age and an unphilosophical school, if school you can call it. Consequently no intelli- gent person will expect of the Hebrew to submit to the con- versionists' argument, which has nothing in its favor except the belief that Jesus indeed was crucified, that the event transpired exactly as narrated in the Gospels, and it was not an accident, a peculiar and accidental concurrence of two men's fates turning out exactly alike ; but that is the very thing which this portion of Scriptures is called into requisition to prove. If it does not prove this it proves nothing in favor of the conversionist, and in order to prove this the story must first be believed. This is the regular vicious circle. If we look upon the New Testament from the standpoint which the English, German and French critics established^ it is nearly impossible to prove that any such person as Jesus of Nazareth ever existed, or if this be taken for granted on the testimony of Paul and those passages from the Talmud which I pointed out elsewhere, it is next to an impossibility to point out with any degree of certainty what he did or said and what his biographers invented for him. In regard to his crucifixion the proof is still more difficult to produce, because (a) it is three times denied according to " Acts " by no less a person than Peter. (Acts v. 30 ; x. 30 ; * See on this point Nachman Krochmal'a Morth Rcbuchei haz- Zeman, p. 82, e. B. VS. PROSELYTIZING CIIKISTIA.MTY. 93 xiii. 29). According to Toland (Na/aren. Letter 1, chapt. 5) Barnabas maintained in his gospel that Jesus was not crucified, which was also the belief of the Basilidians, and in this form the Gospel story reached Mohammed (Koran iii. 53; iv. 156). (6) In the rabbinical traditions he is not known as the crucified one, but as M"?n one who was hanged, as maintained by Peter in >( Acts." (c) " Him crucified " was preached by Paul only, and, according to Toland's statement, opposed by his own companion and co- laborer, Barnabas. The crucifixion story in the Gospels was written according to Paul's version of the matter, and contrary to Peter's, and Paul, who had never seen Jesu>. had a particular reason to preach " him crucified," which renders his testimony suspicious, as I have explained else- where.* Anyhow, there exists no available material, out- side of the Gospel to establish the fact that .Jesus wa> crucified. This is proof enough to the Christian, who comes to the matter with his subjective knowledge and faith, but the non-Christian could not possibly accept this uncertainty, as the corpus delicti in the case, from which to conclude that the prophets predicted it, to say the least is not produced. This leads us to our point of conclusion. It is uncertain that the Messiah was crucified at all. It is impossible that Isaiah liii. or the other passages from the Old Testament refer to that event, hence but one presumption is left, viz. : That the incidents in the crucifixion story were partly in- vented and partly so changed and shaped that they should seemingly fulfill certain Scriptural tropes and supposed prophecies, in order to lead devout Gentiles to believe that the new religion was the continuation and fulfillment of the Old Testament. Paul undoubtedly was the original author of " him crucified," as he was the author of the last supper and resurrection accounts. The first gospel writer, Mark, who \\as called as bishop of the Xa/arenes from Alexandria to Jerusalem about 130 A. C., wrote the story in Greek for the purpose of being read in the churches, as it was pro- * History of the Hebrews' Second Commonwealth. "94 A DEKiNSK ()F .Il'DAlSM hibited by the Emperor Hadrian to read Moses in the syna- gogues, hence also in the churches. His gospel gives in brief tin- story as prepared by Paul. Matthew and Luke wrote after Mark, not in Palestine, but in Syria, and lastly John wrote in Alexandria, all before 170 A. C. Each of them took his story from Paul and added to it such matter as he found in the traditions of the various churches and his own a priori reflections. The few Jew Christians, who were called Ebion- ites, had left Jerusalem in 130 A. C. The gospels were written for ex-heathens only, who were not conversant with the He- 1 >ivw Scriptures, and for them only such applications could be made of Scriptural passages as were made by the Gospel writers, the author of Acts and of the Epistle to the Hebrew.-. There is abundant proof in the New Testament in support of this theory, only that I do not wish to write the matter again, having done so in 1874, in a book called u The Martyr- dom of Jesus of Nazareth," and subsequently also in another bonk called "Judaism and Christianity, Their Agreements and Disagreements " Here I think I have proved n.y origi- nal proposition, that the New Testament is a continuation of the Old by the grace of the church and the book binder. There is nothing in the Thorah, nothing in Isaiah which could honestly be construed to support or justify the stories of the Gospel upon which Christology is based. CHAPTER XL NO CHRISTOLOGY IN JEREMIAH. IF the conversion agent should call upon us again, after having read the previous chapters, we would have to ask him the following question : Suppose you would find in any book, ancient or modern, the story that three wise men, magii, princes or dervishes, had discovered a star, which they recognized as the star of a new-born prince of a distant country and this particular star, moving from east to west, guides those persons to that distant country, and does it so exactly that by it they discover that very stable in which that prince was born, would you not say that this is plainly a piece of astrological superstition woven into a legend? That good man, if an orthodox Christian, would say : " If you refer to Matthew ii., I say it is no astrological superstition, it is a miracle." This would but dodge the question, still we accept it was a miracle, although skepticism would suggest quite a num- ber of objections, such as, to what purpose did God go to the far east to work a miracle to no conceivable purpose, as those three obscure strangers did no good to Jesus or his Messiahship, and were never heard from again ; why was not a miracle wrought nearer home, to convince such men that the Messiah was born who could assist and support him and advance his cause? Why did God work this excep- tional miracle, which became the immediate cause of the cruel slaughter of so many innocent babes in Bethlehem, if he is the loving father of man? How does it come that both the astrological miracle and the massacre of the babes of Bethlehem remained unknown not only to all unenlightened Hebrews like Josephus, but to all the Gospel writers be- sides Matthew? None of them, not even Luke, noticed it How does it come that Luke contradicts that whole story (95) 96 A DEFENSE OF JUDAISM of Matthew except in one point, viz : that Jesus was- born in Bethlehem? How is it that in this one point both record the chronological error that in the lifetime of Herod I. Joseph and Mary came from Nazareth to Bethlehem to be registered or counted, because then the Roman officer took the census of Judea, when it is well known that no census could have been taken and none was taken during the reign of Herod or his son Archelaus ; none could be taken before Judea was a Roman province, which it became after the banishment of Archelaus, six or seven years after the death of Herod I , as recorded in Josephus (Antiquities, book xviii.)? As long as these objections are not removed Matthew's story must appear to every unprejudiced reader a legend by or for a believer in astrology, to which class we do not belong, nor did the Prophet Jeremiah, who said : ' Thus saith the Lord, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven, becauss the heathens are dismayed at them, for the customs (statutes) of the Gentiles are vain." (Jeremiah x. 2, 3.) If our conversion agent is well versed in Christian her- meneutics, he will be ready to reply: "However improb- able, impossible or even immoral and contradictory the two narratives may seem, it must, nevertheless, be true, for so it was prophesied especially in JEREMIAH xxxi 15-17 : " Thus saith the Lord, A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation and bilter weeping; Rachel weeping for her children, refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not. Thus saith the Lord, Refrain thy voice from weeping and thine eyes from tears, for there is a re- ward for thy work, saith the Lord, and they shall return from the land of the enemy; and there is hope in thy future, saith the Lord, that thy children shall return to thine own border.' 1 As this prophecy could not possibly relate to the affairs in Bethlehem, which are said to have transpired six hun- dred years later, and yet Matthew refers to it (ii. 18) in support of his story; he betrays himself as a writer of VS. PROSELYTIZING CHRISTIANITY. 97 legend, as he does with his other Scriptural quotations in the same connection (ii. 6, 15, 23 1, the latter exists no- where in the Old Testament. These Scriptural passages suggested to him the touching though superstitious legend. The whole story is Derusk, a homiletic attempt for the fdification of an illiterate audience, then called Am-ha- retz, as was the popular method in the earlier centuries of Christianity, some remote ideas or Biblical tropes were changed into a story for the purpose of edification. Luke, who certainly must have seen Matthew's Gospel, understood the character of the story and would not accept it, but took its idea and incarnated it in an entirely different story to the same effect, with a different genealogy and soie additions; neither of the two stories was adopted by Johii, simply, perhaps, because they were written much later than the two Gospels. It is not difficult to see that the prophecy of Jeremiah if such it was has no connection with and no reference to the Bethlehem story. The voice of lamentation heard in Ramah can not refer to the lamentation in Bethlehem. Ramah was located in Benjamin and Bethlehem in Judah. Rachel was not the mother of the Judaites, she was the mother of the Benjaminites and the Ephraimites, to whom the prophet refers in the next verses (xxxi. 19,20). Ac- cording to Matthew's story the verse should read : "A voice \v;is heard in Bethlehem, Leah weeping for her children, etc." Besides the first part of the Jeremiah passage is no prophecy at all, the verb nithina is in the absolutely past tense, the prophet narrates a past event, Rachel's voice was heard in Ramah, really or fictitiously, some time before that, hence he could not think of the Bethlehem affair. When her chil- dren were led away into captivity, either the Benjaminites or Ephraimites, the latter it appears from verse 20 were up- permost in the prophet's mind, he prophesied not only the restoration of Judah, of which Benjamin was an integral portion, but also of Israel or the northern kingdom, of which Ephraim was the ruling tribe. The prophecy an- nounced in this passage is, "And they (those captives) will return from the land of the enemy," and furthermore, "And U8 A DEFENSE OK JUDAISM the sons (of those captives) will return to their borders." So Jeremiah understood the words of Moses as recorded in Leviticus xxvi. 38-45 and Deuteronomy xxx. 1-10, and ^o it came to pass seventy years later, when the sons of those captives returned to those borders. Nothing of the kind o > curred after Matthew's Bethlehem story, none returned from the land of the enemy an 1 none cams back home to their borders. The Jeremiah prophecy has no relation whatever to the Bethlehem story. The two stories in Matthew and Luke were originally conceived, to connect the birth of Je sus with two prophetical passages in Micah v. 1 and Zacha- riah ix. 9, to which we refer in the last chapter of this book although the Evangelists did not know where or when Jesus- was born, certainly not the 25th of December, where or when he died and was buried ; it is all the same Deru?h " that it be fulfilled." .IERKMIAH XXXIII 14-26. Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will perform that good thing which I have promised unto the house of Israel and to the house of Judah. In those days, and at that time, will I cau-e the Branch of righteousness to grow up unto David; and he shall execute judgment and righteousness in the land. In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely : and this /* the name wherewith she shall be called, the Lord our righteousness For thus saith the Lord ; David shall never want a man to sit upon the throne of the house of Israel; neither shall the priests, the Levites want a man before me to offer burnt offerings, and to kindle meat offerings, and to do sacrifice continually. And the word of the Lord came unto Jeremiah, saying, thus saith the Lord; if ye can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night, and that there should not be day and night in their season ; then may als> > my covenant be broken with David my servant, that he should not have a son to reign upon his throne ; and with the Levites, the priests, my ministers. As the host of heaven can not be numbered , neither the sand of the sea measured : so will I multiply the seed of David my servant, and the Lev tes that minister unto me. More- over the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying. Considerest thou not what this people have spoken, saying, The two families which the Lord hath chosen, he hath even cast them off? thus they have despistd my people, that they should be no more a nation be- fore them. Thus saith the Lord : If my covenant be not with day and night, and if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and VS. PROSELYTIZING CHRISTIANITY. ( .9 earth; then will I cast away the seed of Jacob, and David my ser vant KO that I will not take any of his seed to b? rulers over the seed of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob ; for I will cause their captivity to re- turn, and have mercy on them. This and similar passages, especially in Jeremiah ami Ezekiel, in which the restoration of the Davidian dynasty after the captivity is prophesied, have become favorites with Christological expounders of Scriptures. They forget that in none of these pas?ages is it stated that the son or scion of David will save the nation, or any individual ; hence if these prophecies are Messianic they certainly do not point to the Christian Messiah who is announced as the savior of every- body. In all those passages, as in the above, the son or scion of David becomes great and renowned only with Judah and Israel, and after they are restored and re-established, not by him, but he after them there can be no throne without a people which could not possibly refer to the son of Mary, who appeared upon the stage when Judah and Is- rael had ceased to be an independent people and were never again restored and re-established. On the other hand it is a well-known fact that after the return from Babylon the Davidian dynasty was restored in the person of Zerubabel and his descendants prior to Nehemiah, and Zerubabel was a righteous and eminent ruler in Israel, hence those prophe- cies concerning the Davidian scion were fulfilled. The Davidian dynasty, as said by David himself (1 Kings ii. 2-4 and elsewhere) was not given the perpetual heriditary right, it was granted on condition, which many a Davidian prince violated and forfeited the throne, till at last they lost it altogether. That was also the casa with the descendants of Zerubabel, as is evident from the Book of Nehemiah, their claim was forfeited, and they were replaced by Nehe- tniah, by the high-priests then, and at last by the Herodians. They are never mentioned again till after the Chiistian era, simply because nobody in Palestine believed that those prophecies extended beyond Zerubabel and his descendants up to Nehemiah. In the passage before us this is evident enough. It says first (verses 14 to 16) that the good words spoken concern- 100 A DEFENSE OF JUDAISM ing the house of Israel and the house of Judah shall be ful- filled, the nation will be restored. Then God will raise to David a sprout of righteousness (after the restoration) and he will do justice and righteousness in the land (as Zeru- babel actually did). Then Judah will flourish or ' be ^aveil,'' and Jerusalem will dwell in safety (under the reign of that ruler); and it will be called, viz : Jerusalem, God is our justice, or "God is just to us." * Then in verses 17 and 18 Jeremiah reiterates that both the Davidian dynasty and the Levitical priesthood should be restored with the nation, which many who believed in the reconstruction of the nation did not consider ne:essary, to restore the Davidian dynasty or the Levitical priesthood and the sacrifices. The prophet maintained all that must be simultaneously restored. Hence he certainly did not think of the Christian Me?siah, with whom the sacrifices and the Levitical priesthood certainly were not restored ; both, ac- cording to Christology, were forever abolished by him. Then inverses 19 to 22 he merely amplifies the aforesaid with an exaggerating figure of speech, perhaps in response to those who knew how sma'l the number of the princes of the Davidian blood and the Levites then were; but always the two, David and the Levitical priesthood with their sacer- dotal functions in close connection. Then inverses 23-26 he argues against those who believed that no national restoration would follow, closing up the whole passage with the characteristic expression that Da- *Here may be noticed a peculiar error of some Christian secta- rians. This expression Jehovah Tzidkenu, occurs twice in Jeiemiah in the same conne :tion. Jeremiah xxiii 6. The Davidian to exe- cute justi e and righteousness in the land is called Jeh/vah Tzidkenu, ' And that is the name which they will call him " Jeremiah xxxiii speaking of Judah and last of Jerusalem, which shall dwell in safety, it iseaid : "They will call her Jehor a h Tzidkenu. viz, Jerusalem which word is feminine in Hebrew, it having no neuter gender This Je- hovah Tzidkenu being suppo ed to mean Jesus we could not tell why to whom the prophet refers once as him and then as her, and Jesus came on earth as a man the first time, he must come the sec- ond time as a wo ran. That is one of those pieces of theology based absolutely upon ignorance of the Hebrew language. VS. PROSELYTIZING CHRISTIANITY. 10] vidians (in the plural number, not one Jesus) will rule asain over the seed of Abraham Isaac and Jacob (not over ll nations of the world), u When (not if or for) I will bring back their captives and show them mercy.' There is no trace in the whole passage of any Messiah to come six hundred years later, or of any savior from the house of David, political or theological, or any person to die at all a natural or unnatural death as a vicarious atonement. Tins is the case with all similar passages in Jeremiah and E/ j kiel. They prophesied the restoration under the old re- g HH-, with the Levitical priesthood, the sacrifices and a Da- vidian ruler, and never go beyond this, except where they expound the prophecies of Moses, viz. : the indestructibility of the Hebrew people and the covenant which includes the final triumph of truth, justice, freedom and humanism for the whole family of man, without the slightest allusion to any person or individual to produce that indestructibility or this triumph. JEREMIAH XXXI. 31 E S. ' Behold days come, saith Jehovah, and I make (or cut) a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah; not like unto the covenant which I have made with their fathers in the day when I took them by their hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, when they frus- trated my covenant and I lorded over them (or lovingly em- braced them), saith Jehovah." This is the prophecy, say the Christian expounders, clearly foretelling the ad vent of Christianity which, is called the new coven mt; but they never tell that Christianity was called th<3 new covenant, because these two words (Be.rith Chadn- shah) were conveniently found in a propheov of Jeremiah concerning the restoration of Israel after the Babylonian nativity, when in fact it predicts rathe* the catalog of Christology than the genesis of Christianity, according to \vrse 34. Such misinterpretation of Scriptures would appear par- donable with popular preachers, for whom the texts are mere pretext, to be used to advantage without reference to 102 A DEFENSE OF JUDAISM the preceding and succeeding statements. It appears un- pardonable, however, if men of learning and critical sense ad- vance impossibilities as the meaning of Scriptures, simply because it was imposed upon their minds that Christianity is called a new covenant. They must know that the section of the book of Jeremiah from chapter xxx. to the end of chapter xxxi. is one speech which the prophet wrote in a book by special command of God. Having prophesied the destruc- tion of Jerusalem, the dissolution of the commonwealth, and the subsequent captivity, he prophesies now the restoration of the people, viz. : Israel and Judah (xxx. 2), the indestruc- tibility of the Hebrew people (verses 10, 11), the rebuilding of the city of Jerusalem and its temple (verse 18), and the state of happiness, of peace, concord, virtue and piety, the nourishing condition to ensue after that, and this is the very sense of that new covenant ; and closes the whole speech with a forcible reiteration of the indestructibility of the Hebrew people as a people, and the rebuilding of Jeru- salem as a city. The whole speech is one solid piece, with this purpose in the prophet's mind. Nothing foreign to this purpose could honestly be interpreted, nothing else can rationally be discovered in it, if one reads the speech as a unit. Certainly the man of truth can not state now, ' For behold days come, saith Jehovah, and I will return with the captives of my people Israel and Judah, saith Je hovah, and I will bring them back to the land which I have given to Abraham, and they shall possess it ; " then add (xxxi. 22), "And you shall be my people and I will to you be God," and closes the same speech with the solemn assur- ance of the indestructibility of the same people, and the city rebuilt ; but in the midst of that very speech he contradict? his own statements by prophesying a new covenant to supercede the old, and make an end of that very people, city, temple, Thorah, and all institutions connected there- with, all replaced by Christianity. No honest inquirer can charge a prophet with such contradiction, although those learned gentlemen in consequence of their subjective knowl- edge fail to see that they discover Christianity in the' VS. PROSELYTIZING CHRISTIANITY. 103 prophet's "new covenant," because the two terms are iden- tical in their minds. Taking the passage in question out of its connection it remains no less evident that the Berith chadashah can have no relation to Christianity. The passage begins with the express words that God will make a covenant " with the house of Israel and the house of Judah," the Hebrew peo- ple as it then was and never again thereafter. Not with the sons of Israel, with some of Israel, not with any persons outside of Israel, but with the people comprised in tbe house of Israel and the house of Judah, the prophet says, this new covenant should be made. These express terms can not be stretched or spiritualized to refer to any state or persons besides the Hebrew people, as it then was. If we even take for granted that Christianity at its inception was a new covenant, it was certainly not the one an- nounced by Jeremiah, for it was not made with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. They never recognized the Christian Messiah nor the religion supposed to have been advanced by him, nor the redemption ascribed to him, hence that new covenant was never made or con- summated with the Hebrew people, and the prophet's prediction never came to pass, or it was fulfilled in the second Hebrew Commonwealth, or it is to be fulfilled here- after ; in the Christian dispensation it certainly was not fulfilled. Investigate the nature of the new covenant as described by the prophet, and you must arrive at the same result. It should not be like the covenant which God made with their fathers " in the day when I took them by their hands TO BRING THEM OUT of the land of Egypt," which they frus- trated, and God lorded over them (verse 32). Mark the ex- pression Lehoziom, the old covenant which is referred to is one that was made with the fathers and not with the peo- ple, before they came out of Egypt, and with the end in view to bring them out of that land. It is not the covenant at Horeb to which Jeremiah refers, for this was made with the people and not merely with the fathers, after they had left Egypt, and not before as the means of bringing them 104 A DKFFNSF OF JUDAISM out. He must have referred to the covenant which was to be partially fulfilled and renewed by the exode from Egypt. This could only be the covenant recorded in Genesis xv., in which the Egyptian bondage and redemption are announced (verses 13-16), the land of Canaan is promised to Abraham (verse 7), and God covenants with him that this land should be given to his descendants (verses 18-21). This covenant is referred to again in unmistakable terms and repeatedly, " In the day when I (God) took them by their hands to bring them out of the land of Egypt," and Moses was sent to accomplish it, in Exodus iii. 6-10, 17; vi. 2-8; xiii. 5. It embraces no more than Israel's title to possess the land of Canaan, and is again referred to by Moses (Leviticus xxvi. 42) as a special covenant concerning the land. This covenant was frustrated, the right of possessing the land was forfeited, as Jeremiah himself states in chap- ter xi. 3-10, in the same words (verse 10) as he does in xxxi. 32, which is certainly not accidental. At the same time, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Isaiah speak not only of the eternity of the covenant and the people, but also of pos- sessing again the very land of promise, although the right to possess it was forfeited. Therefore Jeremiah announces a new covenant, which means no more and no less than a renewal of the title to the land, a new grant by the Al- mighty to the sinful people. All this has certainly nothing to do with Christianity or any other religion, the Christian or any other Messiah. The condition of the old covenant was the worship of the one, only and true God ; it was frustrated by idolatry and polytheism. So Moses said, and the prophets repeat it. The question then was, if this covenant be renewed, the land of promise be reoccupied, will it not be frustrated again by the same causes? Jeremiah answers no, it will not, "I have given my law in their raids'. ' which can not fail to enlighten them ; they have gone astray, but by their downfall, national disasters, captivity, and consequent misery, they will be purified, take the la\v to their heart, ' and I will write it upon their heart, and I shall be to them God and they shall be to me the people." So said Moses, :'i;<>sKLYTizi.\i; CIIUISTIAMTY. 105 and the prophets repeated it; BO it actually came to pass, even literally so. From and after their return from the Babylonian captivity there was no more idolatry, no poly- theism, none from Zerubabel to this day in Israel. With the Christian covenant, however, these aberrations of the mind did not only not cease, but went from bad to worse, as darkness and superstition from century to century pro- gressed, so that the Protestants still call Catholicism a huge paganism, the Unitarian considers the trinitarian a heathen, and all of them denounce the Greek church as a conglomeration of sin and aberration. As the cause of this change and conversion from the state of idolatry, polytheism and immorality to that of pure religion and morality, the prophet states, u And they will no more teach i ne his neighbor and a man his brother, Know ye Jehovah ; for all will know me, even from their small to their great ones, saith Jehovah," as all true religion and morality depend on the correct knowledge of the Supreme Being; all religious beliefs and moral principles are rays from this central sun, man's knowledge of God. Also this prophecy was literally fulfilled in the Hebrews' second commonwealth, the knowledge of the tne, only and true God was universal in Israel, while darkness and thick clouds covered the nations from one end of the earth to the other. On Mt. Moriah was the only temple in the world where the one, only and true God was worshiped and proclaimed. This was never the case in Christianity, and is but exceptionally the case now. A forest of saints of both sexes, images, pictures, crucifixes, a mother, son and assistant of God, Satan, demons and hell-fire obstructed the vision, and Christology does the same work yet. So Jeremiah explains his own words in the xxxii. chapter, verses 38-41. The cause, however, of this change from pagan corrup- tion to the monotheistic religiousness and morality, the prophet continues, is " for I will forgive their iniquity and iheir sinfulnesa will I not remember again." Steeped in sensuality, wealth, sin and shame in their own county, thev could not see truth and righteousness any longer, and 106 A DEFENSE OF JUDAISM. so their sight was obscured and their mind bewildered they could behold and know God no more. Captivity and miser)', calamity and grief far away from home will rouee them from their sensual dream life and purify them, their sins will be expiated, their iniquity will be burned out with the fire of repentance, and they will again behold the glory of God, the majesty of truth and righteousness. The captiv- ity will be the furnace of purification. And so it was, as Moses predicted, the prophets, especially Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Deutero-Isaiah, repeated, and the next foil owing chap- ters of history confirmed. This, again, has nothing in com- mon with Christianity, which acknowledges no forgiveness of sin, no pardon of iniquity, no expiation of transgression without the vicarious atonement through the blood of the son. The new covenant of Jeremiah's prediction took effect in Israel with Zerubabel and the returning captives, and was never again frustrated. Israel remained faithful to his God, as Jeremiah announces in conclusion of that divine message (xxxi. 35-37). There is no Christology either in Moses or Isaiah, none in Jeremiah, certainly none in Ezekiel, who in the main, in principle and doctrine, was the counterpart of the former We need but consult one more book, the Psalms, to prove that the New Testament is the fulfillment and continuation of the old, by the grace of the church and the bookbinder. CHAPTER XII. NO CHUISTOLOGY IX PSALMS. AMONG all the prayers, hymns, adorations, anthems and doxologies written by poets, none can equal the Psalms of David, none have found such universal acknowledgment and admiration, none have brought to the uncounted mil- lions of human beings so much consolation, comfort, hope, faith and santification. Every line in those one hundred and fifty chapters breathes stirring religious inspiration in the simplest, often child-like language of nature, rising on the pinions of nameless piety to the very pinnacle of poeti- cal affluence, now soaring aloft witli the strains of a heavenly lyre to the very throne of the ineffable Deity, then bringing down Eternal Mercy so close, so near to the petitioner, that be feels the ecstasy of his loving kindness, sees and grasps his hand outstretched to rescue, to save him, feels and sees hi:? nearness. These Psalms form the substance of all exist- ing devotional literature among civilized nations, they have furnished the modern language with their main phraseology, and are the fountain of consolation to millions of aching hearts. This collection of pious effusions certainly deserves par- ticular 3 Mention. \Ve can learn from it the natural language of the suul under the most varied states of the mind, from shunting joy to dumt'ounded grief and sorrow. We can also learn from it the religious and theological sentiments and doctrines as they lived and coursed in the people's hearts and souls during all the centuries from David to the Macca- hcan prince Simon, a period of nine hundred years, free of all dogmatic artifice, political bias and philosophical ab- straction, the religion and theology of the people in that people's lantruaire. (107) 108 A DEFENSE OF JfDAISM The most ivniark;il>lr points, perhaps-, in this connection an- 1. The stern and uncompromising monotheism through- out the hook. It is the one, only and true God who is wor- shiped, no angel, no saint, no mediator, no .savior, no hypos- tasis, nothing besides God himself. Heaven and earth,with all that fills them, the elements and the intelligences, all strains of music and all phantoms of poetry are invoked, personified and apostrophized to worship, adore and glorify the majesty 011 high, the maker, ruler and preserver of the universe, but to none of them any homage is paid, the Great I Am is all in all. 2. The nearness of God to man and man to God, the most intimate relation between the Father and his children char- acterizes the entire book. Man appears in the brightest sunlight of the Deity, and God is manifested with the most tender affections of the noblest humanity. 3. The lofty position ascribed in the dispensations of Providence to virtue, righteousness, purity and holiness in God and man, as the very points in which they meet, and which are the scales to reach the summuin b<,num. It is not a religion, it is THE religion, not a theology, but TBE theology, which attain most adequate expression in those Psalms. And yet the advocates of Christology want to make us be- lieve that the peculiar doctrines or dogmas of that faith are outlined, foreshadowed or prophesied in the Psalms, in which there is not the slightest attempt at predicting or foretelling any event the praying man, the God-adoring poet, never prophesies and not an iota of an idea contrary to absolute monotheism is discernible anywhere in the whole book, it seems to be even more illegitimate and arbitray to discover Christology in the Psalms than in Moses and Isaiah, the fallacy of which we have exposed; because popular prayers and hymns naturally contain no mysteries unknown to or not understood by every petitioner or worshiper; and it is certainly absurd to presume that the ancient Hebrews prayed for a thousand years prayers, the import of which they did not understand. VS. PKOSELYTIZIXii ril KI STIAMT Y. 109 The most renowned Christian expounders of I'salms have given up the idea of Messianic prophecies in the Psalms. Not so the conversion agent ; lie must cling to his inveterate errors, he has no other stock in trade. He goes on telling the same old story, however often refuted, and it takes well with church members, who never could read a line of Hebrew, because their minds are saturated with the Christ- ological stories and dogmas ; consequently the missionarv's expositions suit their prejudices with which they come to the Bible, and they do exactly as he does. That is all right as far as it goes. But when they come with those old stories to the unprejudiced Hebrew, who can examine Scripture iuth-- original, it becomes all wrong. In proof thereof we examine some of those Psalms. Right in the very beginning of the book, in the sec- ond chapter, a son of (lod is mentioned twice, who is also called King, and Messiah. The P^nglish version of it reads thus : ' Wherefore do nations rage, and people meditate a vain thing? The kings of the earth raise themselves up, and rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and his anointed : Let us break asunder their bands, and castaway from us their cords. He who dwelleth in the heavens will laugh : the Lord will hold them in d rision Then will he speak unto them in anger, and in his displeasure will lie ter- rify them (Saying.) Yet have I appointed my king upon Zion my holy mount. I will announce the decree, the Lord hath said unto me : My son art thou : I have indeed thi.- day begotten thee. Ask it of me, and I will give the nations as an inheritance, and for thy possession the uttermost ends of the earth. Thou shall, break them with a rod of iron; like a potter's vessel shalt thou dash them in pi' And now, O ye kings be wise : take warning ye judges of tin- earth. Serve the Lord Avith fear, and rejoice with trembling. Do homage to the son, lest he be angry and ye be lost on the way; for his Avrath is so speedily kindled. Happy are all they Avho put their trust in him." 110 A DKFENSK OK .H DAIS.M In this translation it looks almost like a prophecy con- cerning a king, Messiah and son of God, which it will be shown in a moment it is not. If it were a prophecy it could not refer to the Christian Messiah. This "son of God " does not amount to much as a proof in favor of any person, as the whole of Israel was called by God " my first- born son/' which Moses and Hosea repeated. The -whole tone of the psalm is too martial, too much re- bellion and conspiracy-like, to fit to a prince of peace. And then the gentle son of man to break the nations with a rod of iron and dash them to pieces like a potter's vessel ; who can find in that tone of wild uproar and that furious punishment following any prediction of the Messiah lamb- kin? We could easier discover in this chapter John Hyr- can, Alexander Jannai, Mohammed, Charlemagne, Atilla or Cromwell, than the son of Mary. Besides it must be ad- mitted that nothing of the kind occurred in the life of the Christian Messiah. No heathens raged and no people im- agined vain things. No kings set themselves up and no rulers conspired against God and his Messiah. No bands and no cords were either put on or broken by anybody, and no nation was broken with any sort of a rod and none dashed in pieces; nothing of the kind happened. It takes a goodly stretch of the imagination to see in this chapter a prediction concerning the Christian Messiah. This psalm, however, read in the light of grammar, is no prophecy, no prediction at all ; it is a poem on a lately transpired event, like Psalm i., written by some anonymous poet, who does not maintain at all to be either a prophet or the son of a prophet. The psalm begins thus : Lamah ragueslu Goyim, the verb strictly in the past tense, which, to be honest, must be translated, " Why did the Gentiles rage?'' then, of course, all the verbs following the first, describing the actions con- nected with it in chronological order are and must be in tin- future tense But as soon as that chain of actions is closed, and a new one begins in verses o and 6, there is again the past tense, Va'ani nasachti Malki, ic I did anoint VS. J'ROSELYTI/I.\ called Messiah, or the Anointed, and that was the King of all Israel, Saul, David and Solomon, later on King Josiah, who had again assumed the scepter over all Israel ; and still r King Cyrus was called Messiah, although he v heathen, because all Israel was under hifi r. King * The beginning of verse 5 is falsely translated in the future tense; it should be, " Then did he speak as IT" TX (Exodus xvi. ; Numbers xxi 17); -V *N (Joshua xii. 2); Hir TJ* (1 Kings xi. 7); also 1 Kings viii. 1, and elsewhere. 112 A J>KFKNSK ol .H'DAISM Hezekiah did attempt, as the Talmud says, to become a M'-ssiah, but he did not reach it.* The Messiah of the Lord must have been Saul, David, Solomon or Josiah. Let us see whether we can not pick out the right man. The Messiah of Psalm ii. must have been one who was anointed upon Zion, for nasach (verse 6) means primarily to anoint, and is synonymous with ma shack. That was cer- tainly not the Christian Messiah, who was never anointed, nor can anybody tell that he ever was on Mount Zion at all. It was not Saul, he never reigned on Mount Zion, nor was it David, lor he was not anointed on Mount Zion. This limits the matter to Solomon and Josiah. Let us see whether we can select the right man from the two without casting lots. The particular Messiah of Psalm ii., according to verse 7, must he he concerning whom God said, " Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee ; '' and all that in the past tense (dinar and yelacW.icha), hence it refers not to the Christian Messiah, as it must have been said before the psalm was written. Besides that, even according to Chris- tian authority, it is not God ; it is the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove, cooing something which was understood to that effect, about which the Synoptics considerably dis- agree. It was not Josiah, of whom it is reported nowhere that God called him his son. Solomon is the only person of whom we are informed in Scriptures that God called him his son. The Prophet Nathan brings to David the divine message (2 Samuel vii. 4-17; 1 Chronicles xvii.) that he should build no house to the Lord, but his son and successor should do so; and concerning this son and temple builder the prophet in the name of God announces Ani eheyek lo I'ab, vehu yiheyeh lee l"ben: " I will be to him (like) a father, and he shall be to me (like) a son" (1 Chronicles xvii. 13, and 2 Samuel vii. 14). Besides Israel, whom ' calls '' my first-born son " ( Kxodus iv. 22). to which refer.- * Psalm Ixxxix. was written on the death of King Josiah, in he battle of Megido, and on the humiliating sequences. There the Messiah reallv was slain. VS. PIUfSKI.YTI/IM. rmusTIANITY. 11. Deuteronomy xiv. 1, "Ye are sons of the Lord your God," and llosea xi.. " For Israel was a lad, and from Egypt have I called my son," no one was called a son of God except Sol- onion. To him, then, and to him only, could the poet refer when he let him exclaim. " Jehovah said to (or concerning) me, thou art my son." This certainly was a dose court secret, of which, besides Nathan and David, none had any knowledge, or else David's son, Adoniah, would not have himself proclaimed David's successor, nor would Joah and Khyathar have supported him (1 Kimrs i. 5-7). Therefore, we suspect Xathan to have been the author of Psalms i., ii. and Ixxii. This rebellion must have occurred when Solomon mounted the throne, or else it could not be maintained that God said of him, " To-day have 1 begotten thee." which again could not refer to the Christian Messiah, if he was the eternal Logos. And here, again, we have before us positive Scriptu- ral proof, in 1 Kings, chapters i. and ii., that there was a re- bellion in Jerusalem with quite a bloody catastrophe when Solomon was anointed successor to his father. Then comes a brie.' mention of that same rebellion at the same time in Syria under Resan and in Edom under Adad (1 Kings xii 14-25). Here arc the " kings of Syria," the Malchei Erez, not kings of the whole earth, and the Rozenim princes, chiefs and judges of the Gentiles and also of Jerusalem that re- belled against Jehovah and his Messiah. David was King of Syria up to the Euphrates Uiver, of Kdom, Ammon, Moab and Midian. These Gentiles rebelled against Jehovah and his Messiah when Solomon mounted the throne. This is the event to which Psalm ii. refers Therefore the Syriae bar comes in>tead of the Hebrew ben. The Goyim refers to the Syrian principalities and the Lcumim to the Edomitic tribes, as in Genesis xxv. 23, which the poet had in view. P-AI.M X. Another example of misinterpretation and misapplica- tion of Scriptures for dogmatic purposes is the Evangelical presentation of Psalm ex., or rather the first ver>e thereof, to make King David testily to the plurality in the Deit; 114 A DEFENSE OF .ll'DAISM. though there were two Gods. This teat was accomplished by a simple trick not uncommon at that time among homi- letic expounders of Scriptures, known in the Talmud as "ipn ~N "Do not read this word as is its established read- ing, but read it so as I propose," and it will tell that which the preacher wants it to say. This rule of-exegesis may be unobjectionable, if it is applied in support of some moral lesson which might thus be better impressed on the minds of the hearers by being seemingly based upon the Scriptural testimony. But when this is used to establish a fact other- wise unknown, it is not only illegitimate, but downright mis- representation, and this is evidently the case in the Evan- gelical presentation of the first verse in Psalm ex. The worst, perhaps, in the matter is that the Evangelists produce that cunning misrepresentation of Scriptures with- out feeling that by so doing they bring their master down i the level of such preachei> whose object is not to teach truth but to produce some sham testimony in support of what they assert. They did not succeed any too well after all, for they let Jesus quote this verse in one place to prove that he was, and in another that he was not, a son of David, hence they did not know exactly what Jesus said or that he said it at all ; the latter is most likely. Let us see how that psalm, according to Evangelical sug- gestion, reads in English " The Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool. The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion : rule thou in the midst of thine enemies. Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning : thou hast the dew of thy youth. The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent. Thou art a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek. The Lord at thy right hand shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath. lie shall judge among the heathen, he shall fill the place* with th<- dead bodies : he shall wound the heads over many countries. He shall drink of the brook in the way ; therefore shall he lift up the head." According to this version, it is to be understood that J ';- VS. I'ROSKI.YTl/IM; r 1 1 KISTI AMTY. 11") vid prophesied which he never did or maintained that (iod said to (Jod, "Sit at my right hand," etc. This is the very place where the trick conies in At that time the vowel points and accents were nut written with the P>ihle text. The consonants were written as now in the scrolls of the Law in tin- synagogues, the vocali/.ation was traditional The re fore that al tJi/kra trick was easy enough, especially when the Hebrew was no longer the popular tongue, opposite people not so very well versed in the Hebrew Bible, and ni< T. especially by the evangelist-, who had not the original but the (Jreek version, or a Syriac rendition from the Creek be- fore them It so happens that one of the Hebrew names of God is in consonants identical with that of " My human ma>ter or lord," both are A D N Y; the difference is only in th<- vowels. That name of God is pronounced "Adonoi,'' and that of the human master is " Adonee," my master. In the origi- nal the second "Lord" of the translation reads '\\donee, " my (human) master, or as in England, "my lord," which was then common address in polite language, and occurs al- ready in Genesis (xxiii. 6, 11, 15; xliv. 18) several tim< ~. That verse reads literally, "Jehovah saith (or communic. to my master, sit at my right hand." But by that al tfiikri trick the "Adonee" became "Adonoi " in the Gospels, and in the English version, " the Lord saith to my Lord," both with a capital " L '' to which is added the second blunder of making of the second Lord "my Lord," which "Adonoi " never signified; hence either the capital " L " or the " my " is false, According to the text the capital " L " is a de tion. Had that poet had the idea to say God said to God, he would certainly have said, Jehovah saith to Elohim, to avoid misunderstanding. Besides the t^rmneum is no verb. does not signify said or saith, it signifies "a communication of Jehovah to my master or lord," it being absurd to sup- pose that God communicates something to himself, then tin- object to whom the comunication is directed must he the Adonee, God's communication to Adonee. As this ee can not be used in Hebrew, except to a person addressed or men- tioned before in the same connection, consequently this 116 A DKKKNSK (K .1CDAISM A to David :" somebody brings that message to the king and an- nounces it to him personally; then that heading of Psalm ex. reads thus, "To David, a psalm, Jehovah's communica- tion to my lord (the king), sit at my right hand," etc., and tho whole dualism of Deity vanishes. Perhaps the Hebrew is wrong, and the Evangelical read- ing is right, the Massorites falsiiied that word or any similar dodge which conversionists have on hand. Unfortunately the whole chapter, like Psalm ii., is too martial and cruel i prince of peace. ''The Lord is at thy right hand,'' in ">. can not refer to that Messiah, who is himself seated at God's right hand, as supposed to be said in verse 1. Then comes in the sanv verse splitting or cutting in twain as the term m-tchaz signifies the king on the day of his wrath, fill- ing the land with dead bodies and splitting heads over many countries, in verse 6, which the English version changes into emergency, must seek sal- vation in speedy flight. Attended by a small band of heroic companions and trained warriors, David precipitately leaves the capital he had established, mourning and weeping, and followed by a lamenting multitude he hastens toward the Jor- dan, to cross it before the enemy would overtake him, to seek refuge and shelter somewhere in the wilderness, to protect him against the fury of his own rebellious son. Before he reached the Jordan, Shimei, son of Gera, comes out, insults and curses the exasperated old hero, and he bears it all without a murmur. Imagine David's state of mind ; it is not described except partially in Psalm iii. By the strategy of his wise friends left behind in Jerusalem, David succeeded in reaching Mahanaim, east of the Jordan River, and in gaining time and succor for organization. Before Absalom, with his army, could reach him, he had completed an organization of his forces and reinforcements under three chief captains to fight the fratricidal battle, David is ready to lead his hosts in the combat, but his men would not permit it, and said to him : ''Thou shalt not go forth, for if we flee away, they will not care for us ; neither if half of us die will they care for us, but now thou art worth ten thousand of us ; therefore now it is better that thou succor us from the city." (2 Samuel xviii. 3.) The king obeyed. What his feelings were when he stood at the gate of Mahanaim to see the hundreds and thousands of his host marching out to fight the horrid bat- tle what were his hopes and fears, his anxieties and regrets, the hurricane of most contradictory sentiments which up- heaved his soul can hardly bo expressed in adequate words. Then and there, perhaps, at the gate an inspired poet, with harp in hand, sang the Mizmor to David. A communica- 118 A DEFENSE OF JUDAISM tion of Jehovah to my lord (the king), " Sit thou at my right hand," under the protection of God sit quietly in Mahanaim, as the people want it, "until I shall have made (or put) thine enemies thy footstool," till the battle is fought and won, and the enemy is subdued, " Jehovah will send from Zion the staff of thy power, rule thou (wilt again) in the midst of thine enemies," after the rebellious host will be con- quered and scattered. Now this poet continues with giving reasons in support of his consoling and hopeful message : "Thy generous people (or thy people of generosity those not engaged in this rebellion) in the day of thy might, in holy attire from the womb of the morning, thine is the dew of thy youth." (All those who fought with thee and sup- ported thee in the days of thy youth, when thou didst per- form all those valorous deeds, are still with thee. This re- fers to the heroic host that have just left Mahanaim, to the succor he received there from the East (2 Samuel xvii. 27) and the thousands of Judah and Benjamin, that faithfully" stood by him in the days of peril at the zenith of his power.) The poet then gives a second reason why the king should be hopeful and cheerful : " Jehovah hath sworn and will not revoke, Thou art Kohen (ruler, 2 Samuel viii. 18) forever, by my decree (Ibid, chapter vii.) art thou my just and legitimate king." (God will never revoke his decree which made him the legitimate king. Aldibr-ithi nowhere in Scriptures signifies " on the order," although Gesenius says so on the strength of this one passage ; in connection with God it only signifies decree, command, revelation, propheti- cal speech. Tzedek signifies true, righteous, as wt-11 as just and legitimate. " Melkizedek " is not there in the Hebrew text, it reads : Malki Zedek, two words connected by a makif, which may be intended to refer to the fact that David was the first kins of Jerusalem, as was the Malkisedek of old the first king of Salem, while in the main it signifies, " my le- gitimate king.") Basing upon these two pillars of strength and hope, the love of his people and the decree of God, the poet announces to the king, "Adonoi is at thy right hand, who crusheth kings in the day of his wrath, and ju