BOOKS._

JEWISH IDEALS.*

THE intellectual isolation of the Church and the Synagogue, notwithstanding their common origin and their continual proximity, would appear unaccountable did we not know from experience how difficult it is for kindred creeds to arrive even at an intellectual understanding so long as they are in a position of practical rivalry. It is still probably true that Christian scholars know less of Judaism than they do of the religions of Greece and Rome, although the former has been always with them, and the latter have been dead for sixteen centuries. There are at present, however, some indications that on both sides this indifference is giving place to in- tellectual interest, if not to spiritual sympathy. Christian scholars now fully recognise the value of Jewish learning for the interpretation of Scripture, and Jewish writers are • Jeiri.h Ideals, and other Essays. By Joseph Jacobs. London: David Nutt. New York : Macmillan and Co. 1896. manifesting a disposition to vindicate their faith at the bar of Christian public opinion. Of this modern Jewish

Apologia we have a specimen in the essays of Mr. Jacobs.

They would, however, possess more importance could we feel assured that the author would be accepted by his co-religionists as a spokesman for their faith. A philosophy of religion, based on history, will be found in Mr. Jacobs' essays, but hardly a religion. If his principles were carried out to their legitimate conclusion, there would be as little room for the Synagogue as for the Church.

The most ambitious essay in the volume is entitled "The God of Israel : a History." According to the essayist, Jehovah was at first a family God, who was afterwards elevated to the position of a tribal and of a national God. But from the beginning, and here Mr. Jacobs differs from Tiele and Ku enen,

Jehovah possessed the attributes of justice and righteousness, and these attributes gave him a moral victory over the other gods with which Israel came into contact. While, however, the kernel remained unchanged, the conception of the divine character underwent a series of changes by means of what Mr. Jacobs not very happily terms, a process of cross- fertilisation. Egypt, Canaan, Babylon, and Greece all con- tributed some fresh element to the character of the God of Israel. Mr. Jacobs resembles M. Renan in his fondness for large generalisations, and like the great French scholar, he

frequently makes assumptions which rest upon a slender

basis of proof. For example, he accounts for the rise of Christianity by a theory that it was necessary for the Judaic

Deity to be Indo-Germanised or Hellenised ere he could become the God of Aryan worship. The transformation was effected by Paul of Tarsus and by the "Alexandrian Pseudo- John." Passing over the assumption that the author of the Fourth Gospel was an Alexandrian, which few scholars would now admit, what are we to say to the assertion that Paul transformed the just God of Semitic prophecy into an Aryan divinity, the Christian God of love? The Hebrew Prophets had spoken much of the compassion and love of God towards his people, and Paul speaks at least as much of the justice of God as of his love. To us it seems more correct to say that Paul reaffirmed the prophetic doctrine of God with the addition that he was likewise the God of the Gentiles.

Mr. Jacobs writes at some length, and learnedly, of the changes which took place in Judaism during the Middle Ages. Under the influence of mystic thinkers, he says, the idea of an ab extra Deity gave place to the conception of a God continuously manifesting himself in the natural order. God became impersonal; and thus a foundation was laid for the mixed rationalism and mysticism of Spinoza, in whom Jewish thought reached its culmination. Of Spinoza he writes :—

" With him ends the history of Jewish philosophy ; later move- ments in Judaism were directed towards the attainment of social status, and, when that had been attained, to raise again the his- toric consciousness, both the reflex results of that large sweep of European thought which we may roughly term Democracy. With him too culminates the long series of changes in the God of Israel. From a family deity it had been raised into the divine Father of All, the Creator of the Universe, and under this form had cross.fertilised GrEeco-Roman culture as Christianity. But 'the whirligig of time brings in his revenges ;' Israel came in contact with Greek philosophy, and was in its turn cross-fertilised by Hellenism. Jehovah was gradually depersonalised, and the world was rendered independent of Him, till under the influence of mysticism He becomes an immanent principle of the universe, as the substantia of Spinoza." (pp. 55-56.) When speaking of the future of Judaism, Mr. Jacobs ven- tures on the prediction that the mind of Europe is at present drifting towards cosmic theism, which he defines as Spinozism with the addition of an historic communion with the past.

The Jews, he says, must always reject Christianity, which is alien to the Jewish Volksgeist, but they may, he thinks, with- out loss of historic dignity, advance to the new faith. It is not easy to reconcile the last remark with the claim elsewhere made by the author for an abiding mission of Judaism, and the permanence of the Messianic hope.

It will be seen that the author is not a believer in revelation in the ordinary sense of the term. History, he says, is the only 4Edipus which can solve the riddle of existence ; but he makes an indirect return to revelation by recognising a divine purpose in the long travail of Israel, to guide the religious destiny of mankind. There is some truth and much ingenuity in Mr. Jacobs' philosophy of history. Those who feel the extreme difficulty of the historical problems regarding the origins and

transformations of religious thought, will follow with some- thing like envy his victorious course through the ages with his "Open Sesame!" of the cross-fertilisation of ideas. Bat we have learned to be suspicious of the single formula when applied to the complex phenomena of history. Judaism and Christianity were undoubtedly influenced by foreign systems of thought. Placed in the world they had to learn the lan- guage of the world, and to make use of its forms of thought. Both, however, retained their original characteristics, and to these, and not to foreign accretions, they have owed their

abiding spiritual Empire.

When Mr. Jacobs descends from the heights of speculation into the by-ways of Jewish history, he is a well-informed and entertaining writer. His volume contains an excellent account of Jehuda Halevi, the great poet of Medixval Judaism. There is a learned paper on Jewish history ad- dressed to the Royal Academy of History in Madrid which gives an account of the present condition and prospects of Jewish historiography. He describes its present direction as an endeavour to elucidate the social aspects of Jewish history, and to show that the Jews were not so different from their neighbours as is commonly supposed. Browning's theology forms the subject of another paper, and there is an enthusiastic appreciation of the Mordecai of George Eliot. The most amusing paper is one on the unpopularity of Jews in society, and the author does not spare the foibles of his countrymen. It appeared originally in the pages of the Jewish Chronicle in the form of a letter to the editor. We can only make room for a portion of it, but the whole deserves to be read, as a specimen of good-humoured but pungent rebuke from the lips of a friend :— " Here you must allow me to digress for a moment. Have you ever reflected on all that is implied by that expressive phrase, 'a Jew's eye' ? I cannot help thinking that the outer world associates with it an ever-watchful gaze, keen to perceive, ever on the move, never relaxing its intensity. Here, then, we have a most appropriate symbol of intelligence, energy, and patience rolled into one. Now, admirable as such an eye and the qualities which it typifies are in the battle of life, and necessary as it must have been in the past for a race that lived in arms, the Jew's eye' becomes a rather inconvenient and objectionable organ in the pauses of the struggle. Life is not all battle, and he that tries to make it so will not be liked by his more peaceful neighbours. Putting one's-self in the place of a Goy, it must be somewhat exas- perating to think that in whatever relation you meet the Jew, his eye is for ever nnslaked in brilliancy, and his soul ready for the conflict, ready and desirous to get the better of the fight. Such was my conclusion as to the cause of our being disliked by the world. Now, to seek for a remedy. The essence of the world's opinion of us I took to be that a Jew is never to be found unarmed. You can never best a Jew' is the feeling of lea autres. And this is not all. The Jew carries on the conflict of life into affairs where there should be no conflict. He converses on politics, the theatre, a friend's character, or what not ; he is never content unless he comes off victor, or at least has the last word. All this leaves an unpleasant flavour with it ; there is no repose in the relations of Jews to others. Thus thinking, I saw my way to a remedy. Let us now and then give way. Let us be content to be at times second best in a bargain, a competition, or a conversation ; or still better, let us cease at times to bargain, compete, or polemicise at all. We have waged the fight long and bravely ; let us put aside our arms for a while and meet our whilom enemies in friendly converse. I thought of proposing a new Festival, a kind of All Fools' Day for Judaism, on which every Jew should try as hard o lose some prize in the battle of life, as he now does to win it. The experiences of a few anniversaries would convince Jews of the wisdom of any advice, and the solution of the Jewish Question seemed at hand." (pp. 99-100.) Mr. Jacob's style is somewhat lacking in the lightness and grace which we look for in the essayist, but he possesses much curious knowledge, and his volume may be recommended to those who feel an interest in the past and present of the Jewish race.