CHAPTER I

THE PEOPLE OF THE BOOK

THE Jews have been made what they are by the Bible, by which I mean, of course, what is usually termed the Old Testament. Their life has been dominated by its law, their feelings by its psalter, their ideals by its prophets, their outlook on life by its wisdom, and their hopes for the future by its apocalypse. When antiSemites complain of the burden imposed upon the life of the Jew by the mass of talmudic technicalities they are unaware that, in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a thousand, these enactments are simply applications of the law of the Bible. The Mishnah and Gemara, which make up the Talmud, bear the same relation to the legal portions of the Pentateuch as the Digest to the Institutes of Gaius or Justinian. The prophets, it is true, found no successors in Israel for their remarkable amalgam of rhapsody and politics, but their spirit informed all

the higher thought of the nation till it ceased to be a nation, and has continued to inspire the higher spirits of the Jewish people ever since. The sweet singers of Israel did not cease with the Fifth Book of the Psalms. In the Psalms and Odes of Solomon, in the rhythms of the daily prayers, in the Piyyutim and Selihot of the medieval hymnologists, the sacred poets of Israel carried on the tradition of the psalmist, more often than not spoiling their poetic effect by too closely clinging to the phraseology of their biblical predecessor. The practical sagacity with which the world has ever credited Jews has always been ennobled by touches of the higher biblical wisdom. Thus we find Glückel of Hameln interspersing her reflections on the state of business at Hamburg or the prospect of good matches for her children with pious acceptance of the decree of the Most High. Lastly, the apocalyptic visions of Ezekiel and Daniel found innumerable successors from Enoch to Herzl, all connecting the fate of the Jewish nation with the higher history of humanity. For over two thousand years the whole of Jewish literature-exegesis and legislation, hymnology and satire, philosophy and mysticism-centered

round and was derived from the Bible. If it be true, as it obviously is, that the Bible is a creation of the Jews, it is also true, though not so obvious, that the Jews are a creation of the Bible.

It was this intimate relation between book and people which enabled them to survive through all the vicissitudes of ancient, medieval, and modern history. Throughout the ages the most convenient bond between men has been

that of contiguity. In the vast majority of cases the land made the people, that is after they had settled down upon it in the agricultural stage. But there are two great exceptions to this rule in historic times. The Teutonic clans so impressed their character upon the lands to which they wandered that the very soil was named after the tribes-France, Normandy, England, Lombardy, Burgundy, and the like. The clans of Israel, or rather of Judah, after they were dispersed from Judæa, never became associated again with any definite land, but yet retained all that feeling of fellowship which goes to make up a people. That they did so was in large, almost in exclusive, measure due to the Bible. The Jews have indeed deserved the title

given to them by Muhammed, "The People of the Book."1

But the book that has thus made the Jews what they are has also, in large measure, laid the foundation of European civilization. In all matters spiritual the Bible is the one common fountain-head of European thought and feeling, as, with perhaps Esop's Fables, it is the only book which every European has read who has read any book. If, in Matthew Arnold's phrase, Hebraism rules the conduct of three-quarters of life (for most men he might have made it ninetenths), for the majority of men it has been the Bible alone which has represented what the poetcritic calls Hebraism. In the Middle Ages, indeed, the remaining quarter of life, which is filled up with art and thought, was also mainly dependent upon the Bible for its influence. The beginnings of modern drama are to be found in the miracle plays, which, in all the cloisters of Europe, enacted the scenes of the Bible for the people who could not read it. The Gregorian music which rolled through all the cathedral

1As a matter of fact, the term is applied in the Koran to any people or sect having a sacred Scripture, and thus includes Christians and "Sabæans" as well as Jews.

2

See for details Chambers' Medieval Stage, Oxford, 1903.