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Some Jewish Witnesses For Christ. Bernstein Aaron
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The two classes used generally to meet in a public library called בי אבידן or in another place of assembly called בי נצרפי and we may rightly infer that some, at all events, of the beautiful sayings in the Talmud which resemble N. T. passages are due to the influence of the Hebrew Christians upon the rabbis in their discussions with them during the time when the Talmud as such, or at least the Gemara, was only in the course of formation. One passage will suffice to show that the rabbis during this period were well acquainted with the N. T. There was once a discussion between R. Gamaliel and a Christian (called a philosopher) with regard to the law of inheritance. The Christian maintained that inasmuch as a woman is placed on an equality with a man in the N. T., she has an equal right with her brother to inherit the parental property. To that Gamaliel replied by quoting Matt. v. 17, with a very slight alteration to suit his purpose.
אנא לא למיפחת מן אורייתא דמשה אתיתי ולא לאוספי על אורייתא דמשה אתי תי.
"I have not come to destroy the law of Moses, nor have I come to add to the law of Moses" (Shabbath 116 b). Moreover, the fact that some Rabbis at that time thought that the Evangelium should be burned – and also Hebrew Christian books generally – proves that they were acquainted with the contents, but does not shew that they were very bitterly hostile to their brethren, and they may have even referred to gnostic writings. Justin Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho, probably R. Tarphon mentioned in the Talmud, is well known.
It was otherwise after the Babylonian Talmud was finished in the fifth century. This huge building – which Scribes, Tanas, Amoras, and later gaons, tosafits, and quite a number of commentators in successive generations have reared up – was like the Tower of Babel, and brought confusion within the ranks of the Jews. The following is the language of one who took a leading part in laying one stone upon another: What is Babel? R. Johanon said: It is confused in the Scripture, confused in the Mishnah, and confused in the six orders of the Talmud. "He hath set me in darkness as they that be dead of old" (Lam. iii. 6). Rav Yirmiah said: This refers to the Babylonian Talmud. It formed an iron partition between Judæo-Christians and their brethren. While formerly tradition was only handed down by word of mouth, and many were liable to forget or disregard it, when once it was written, codified and taught in the synagogues and schools to all except women, the poor, unenlightened people in their joy at being at last able to read the oral law, which was pretended to have been given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai at the same time as the written law, clave to it with all the enthusiastic ardour of their souls, and refused to have anything to do with the Gospel or the Christian religion.
Milman relates a legend of this time which was current in the sixth century; though it is in an exaggerated form, yet on the whole it is quite credible. "While Menas was Bishop of Constantinople, the child of a Jewish glassblower went to church with the rest and partook of the sacred elements. The father inquiring the cause of his delay, discovered what he had done. In his fury he seized him and shut him up in the blazing furnace. The mother went wandering about the city, wailing and seeking her lost offspring. The third day she sat down by the door of the workshop, still weeping, and calling on the name of the child. The child answered from the furnace. The doors were forced open, and the child was discovered sitting unhurt amid the red-hot ashes. Subsequently the mother and child were baptized." (Milman's "History of the Jews," vol. iii. p. 230.)
For several centuries we do not hear of many distinguished Jews embracing Christianity, and though it is asserted that whole congregations in Candia did so in the seventh century, it is not our object to investigate this. Undoubtedly, after the rise of Mohammedanism, the Church had enough to do to stand on her defence against the new and even more fanatical antagonist, and the Jews were on the whole neglected. Besides, there were scarcely any Christian teachers who understood Hebrew, and the N. T. was not yet translated into the sacred tongue. Yet we find one very distinguished Jewish convert in the seventh century. This was Julian of Toledo, Primate of Spain, called by one of his successors, "A rose among thorns." He was baptized in the cathedral of his native place, became archdeacon in 656, Bishop in 680, and died in 690. He was President of the Twelfth Council of Toledo when he urged King Erwig to pass some severe laws against his former co-religionists, prohibiting them to blaspheme the Trinity and to possess Christian slaves. Nevertheless, the writer in the "Jewish Encyclopædia" speaks of him "as a man of great sagacity and discretion, prudent in judgment, very charitable, and tempering severity with mildness," and further informs us that he used to associate with the Jews. Consequently, he could not have been so very hostile against them. But on this point it is necessary once for all to remark that the severe opinion that used to be held by the Jews in general about Hebrew Christians was, to a great extent, owing to the unfair judgment passed upon them indiscriminately by Jewish historians. It is now acknowledged that even the modern Gräetz was unfair in this respect. We by no means want to exonerate the few bigots and fanatics like Nunes Henrique who acted as spy of the Maranos, or others who agitated for the burning of the Talmud, and strongly condemn men like Dr. Briman, so-called Justus, the associate and abettor of the Roman Catholic Theologian Rohling at Prague, in recent times, but it must be remembered that there is a great difference between anti-Talmudists and anti-Semites, and that by far the vast majority of Jewish converts, even in the ages of predominant bigotry among Christians and Jews, have defended their brethren against false accusations, as will be seen later on. To return from this digression to Julian. He wrote, "Historia rebelleonis Pauli," also a book under the title, "De comprobatione ætatis sextæ contra Judæos." The work deals with Messianic prophecies of the Bible, in which he adopts the chronology of the Septuagint, and addresses the Jews with these words, "Viam perdidisti viam ergo se quere, ut per viam venias ad salutem."
But even in that age, the eve of the so-called Middle Ages, the age of the gaons, when there was a Prince of the Captivity in Babylon who exercised supreme religious authority over the Jews in the East, and so far as Spain and France, we hear occasionally a voice from the midst of the Synagogue bearing an unwitting testimony for Christ. Cottan Mather, in his "Faith of the Fathers," quotes the words of Rabbi Samuel Marachus (Abbas Samuel Abbu Nasr Ibn) when speaking of the Messiah, as follows: "The Prophet Amos mentions a fourth crime (ii. 6) of selling the Just One for silver, for which we have been in our captivity. It manifestly appears to me that for selling that Just One we are justly punished. It is now 1000 years and more, and in all this we have made no good hand of it among the Gentiles, nor is there any likelihood of our ever any more turning to good. Oh, my God! I am afraid, lest the Jesus, whom the Christians worship, be the Just One we sold for silver." (See "Lectures on the Jews," p. 430, Glasgow, 1839.)
CHAPTER IV.
Jewish Converts in the Eastern Church
Aleksyeyev, Aleksander (called Wolf Nachlass), born in 1820, at Nazarevietz, government of Podolsk, of poor Jewish parents. At the age of ten he was impressed into military service by the press-gang (poimshchiki) of Nicolas I., and sent away to the distant city of Volsks, government of Saratov. It was the political and missionary policy of Nicolas I. to take young boys from their parents and to train them in military schools, so that after they had completed their service of twenty-five years, they might return home and act as missionaries to their parents. Aleksyeyev for a long time resisted Christian teaching, and the officials considered him a most stubborn subject. However, about 1845, he changed his views entirely, and not only became a member of the Orthodox Russian Church, but managed to convert about five hundred Jewish Cantonists, for which he was promoted in 1848 to the rank of a non-commissioned officer, and was honoured by the Emperor's thanks. About 1855, Aleksander was so unfortunate as to lose the use of his legs. He then settled in Novogorod, and during his long illness wrote the following works on ethnographic and missionary topics: – English titles: 1. "The Triumph of Christian Teaching over the Talmudic Teaching, or a Soul-saving Conversation of a Christian and a Jew on the Coming of the Messiah" (St. Petersburg, 1859); 2. "Religious Service, Holy Day and Religious Rites of the Jews To-day" (Novogorod, 1861); 3. "The Public Life of the Jews, their Habits, Customs and Prejudices" (ib. 1868); 4. "Colloquies of an Orthodox Christian with a Newly-Converted Jew" (St. Petersburg, 1872); 5. "A Former Jew for Monastries and Monasticism" (Novogorod, 1875); 6. "The Conversion to Christianity