History of the Jews, Vol. 2 (of 6)

"Unhappy Greece, cease proudly to exalt thyself; offer prayers for help to the immortal and lofty One, and take heed of thy ways. Serve the mighty God, so that thou also mayest find thy portion among the good when the end will have come and the day of judgment, according to the will of God, will rise up before man. Then will the teeming earth give abundantly to mortals the fairest fruits of the vine and the olive and choicest nourishing seeds. Also sweet honey dropping from heaven, and trees with their fruit, and fat sheep. Likewise oxen and lambs and the kids of the goat. For them rivers of milk will flow, sweet and white. The cities will be filled with merchandise, the earth will be rich, and there will be no more war or fearful sound of fighting. Nor will the earth, loud groaning, quake and be rent. War will cease, and there will be no drought upon the lands, no more famine or fruit-destroying hail. But great peace will reign over all the world, and to the end of time each king will be the other's friend, and under one law will the people of the whole world be governed by the Eternal God, enthroned in the starry heavens – one law for all weak, pitiable men; for He is one God, and there is no other, and the wicked He will cast into the flames."

The aim of a long series of prose writings of the Judæan-Grecian school was to set forth the futility and defects of paganism on the one hand, and on the other to display Judaism in its most favorable light, and thus to induce the heathen to become acquainted with the tenets of the latter. Heathen kings who had been convinced that idolatry was empty and vain, and that by Judaism, on the contrary, truth was revealed were pointed out as examples.

"The Book of Wisdom" was even more decided and vigorous in its denunciations of paganism than the Sibylline writings. Its unknown author gave with philosophical acumen, but in a poetical garb, a truthful exposition of idolatry, showed it to be the cause of vice and immorality, and then, in marked contrast to these dark shadows, made Judaism shine with increased purity and luster. It was the wisdom of Judaism, embodied, as it were, in the wise King Solomon, that presented these views, and in his name, turning to the monarchs of the earth (the Roman governors), rebukes their shameless self-deification. "Love righteousness, ye rulers of the earth," exclaims the Wisdom of Solomon, "recognize the Lord in goodness, and seek Him in simplicity of heart" (Book of Wisdom, i. 1). According to this author, the invention of idols was the cause of lasciviousness, and leads to the destruction of life. Idolatry did not exist from the beginning, neither will it last forever. It arose through the vanity and ignorance of man, and would endure but a short time. A father, suddenly plunged into deepest grief by the death of a child, perhaps made for himself an image of the latter; by degrees he worshiped the lifeless figure as a god, and insisted upon the observance by his dependants of mystical rites in its honor. In the course of time this godless practice became law, and images, by the order of despots, received the worship of the people. In the absence of the monarch, when he could not be personally adored by his subjects, the tyrant was flattered by the incense offered to his image. The ambition of the artist also fostered the growth of idolatry among the ignorant masses. To please the potentates of the earth he strove to make his images as beautiful as possible, and the public, dazzled by the splendor and grace of the work, worshiped as gods those whom they previously reverenced as men. Such beautiful productions of art became a snare to those whom misfortune or tyranny had enslaved, and induced them to deify carved stone and wood, and to bestow on them the uncommunicable name of God. Not alone do the people err in their religious creed, but they live in constant strife with one another and call it peace; infanticide is celebrated as a rite, they observe dark, mysterious ceremonies, and are guilty of unchastity. Each one plays the part of spy on the other, or wounds his friend in his dearest honor. All, without distinction, thirst for blood, love plunder, and practice cunning, perjury, deceit, ingratitude, and every description of impurity. For the worship of vain idols is the beginning, cause, and end of every evil thing. "For health he calleth upon that which is weak, for life prayeth to that which is dead, for aid humbly beseecheth that which hath least means to help" (Book of Wisdom, xiii. 18).

After the author has thus shown the vanity of idolatry, he attempts to describe the fundamental truths of Judaism:

"There is no God but Him whom the Jews adore. Divine wisdom preserved the first-born, saved the righteous (Noah) from the flood, upheld the righteous (Abraham) in innocence before God, delivered the holy seed (the Judæan people) from the oppression of the nations, filled the soul of the servant of God (Moses), who appeared before kings with terrible signs and wonders. Israel is the upright one whom God has chosen. He possesses the knowledge of the Divine Being, and may call himself the Son of God, who in His mercy sustains and upholds him."

These righteous ones will have eternal life. When Israel is persecuted by the rulers of the earth, because his path lies apart from theirs, and he condemns their godless ways, turns from them as unclean, and calls God his Father; when the nations of the earth torture him and put him to a shameful death – these are only trials imposed by God on His chosen one, to prove him and make him worthy of His grace. He tries him like gold in the furnace, and accepts him as a pure offering. Israel shall judge the nations, and have dominion over the people, and their God shall reign forever.

"Then will the upright one stand firmly before his oppressors. They will be troubled with great fear; they will be amazed at his glorious salvation, and repenting they will say, 'This was he whom we had in derision, and of whom we made a laughing-stock. Ignorantly we accounted his life madness, and his end to be without honor. And now he is numbered among the children of God and his lot is among the saints. We strayed from the way of truth, and the light of righteousness did not shine for us.' Israel was the instrument through which God gave the world the undying light of the law. In all things did the Lord magnify His people and glorify them; He abandoned them not, but assisted them in every time and place." (Book of Wisdom.)

Like the Babylonian Isaiah, the Alexandrian-Judæan sage contemplated his ideal in Israel, of whom a noble mission was required, and who would hereafter shine in glory.

Whilst the Alexandrian Judæans were absorbed in Grecian literature and philosophy, and were using that melodious language as a weapon against paganism and the immorality it fostered, they were carried beyond the object they had in view. Their desire was to make Judaism acceptable to the cultivated Greeks, but in following out that design it was, in some degree, lost to themselves. Greek conceptions had so completely taken possession of their thoughts that at last they came to find in the teachings of Judaism the current speculations of the Greeks. The faith that they had inherited was, however, still dear to them, and they managed, through sophistical means, to deceive themselves into a belief of the genuineness of their exposition. The Holy Scripture could not, indeed, always offer apposite passages to the prevailing philosophy, but the Judæan-Alexandrian authors knew how to help themselves out of that difficulty. They followed the example of Greek writers, who found their own views of the world in the poems of Homer, or put them there, and to accomplish that feat, employed a peculiar kind of sophistical word-pictures. Thus the Judæan thinkers of that period, in their interpretations of the Holy Scriptures, had recourse to allegory, and instead of the plain, natural meaning of a work, often gave it a different and seemingly higher import. Starting with the assumption that the Scriptures cannot always receive a literal explanation without the divine glory's being tarnished and many biblical characters being degraded, they resorted to the arts of allegory and metaphor. This method became so general that even the masses lost all pleasure in the simple stories of the Holy Scriptures, and took more delight in artificial explanations than in the plain lessons and sublime laws of their sacred books. The pious men, who were wont to explain the Scriptures on the Sabbath, were obliged, in compliance with the taste of the time, to allegorize both the history and the lessons contained in them. One result of this method was the indifference that manifested itself among the cultivated Judæans of Alexandria to the practice of the religion of their fathers. Allegory undermined the ramparts that fenced the Law. If the latter was only the garment in which philosophical ideas were robed, if the Sabbath was merely intended to record the power of uncreated divinity, and the rite of circumcision was only meant to show the necessity of placing a curb on the passions, it would be sufficient to understand and adopt the ideas underlying those forms. Of what use would be the practice of the latter? From indifference to the practice of the laws to the desertion of Judaism itself there was only one step, and thus can be explained the apostasy to paganism of some Judæans who were unable to withstand the difficulties and constant pressure they had to encounter. It was also among the Alexandrian Judæans that the conflict between science and faith first appeared.

The indifference towards Judaism was combated, indeed, by many who had not wholly given themselves up to Greek culture. Philo, the greatest genius which Alexandrian Judaism produced, opposed the lukewarm spirit and the feelings of contempt which had grown up against the practice of the Law. In his elevated and inspired diction he urged the obligation of adhering to the letter of the Law, and induced his co-religionists to regard it again with love and reverence. Philo indeed shared some of the errors and prejudices of his contemporaries, but with his clear intelligence, he soared above the mists which enthroned them. He likewise made exaggerated use of the allegorical method employed by his predecessors, and agreed with them in applying it to the entire Pentateuch, or at least to the greater part of its history and laws. To carry out this metaphorical line of scriptural interpretation he devised symbolic numbers, explained Hebrew by Greek words, and from one and the same sentence deduced different and opposite conclusions. To Philo allegorical exposition became almost a necessity. Had he not already found it in use, he would doubtless have invented it.

He wished to give the sanction of Holy Writ to the great thoughts which were partly the productions of his own rich mind, partly adopted from the philosophical schools of the Academy, the Stoics and the Neo-Pythagoreans. Sharing, and indeed, surpassing in perversity the allegorical explanations he found in vogue, he departed from them just in that essential point which told against the necessity of the practice of the Law, and in that lay his chief importance. He expresses himself with decision and force against those who, satisfied with the spiritual meaning contained in the Law, are indifferent to the Law itself. He calls them superficial and thoughtless, acting as though they lived in a desert, or as incorporeal beings who knew neither of town nor village nor dwelling, or who, in fact, entertained no intercourse with human beings, despising what is dear to mankind, and seeking only abstract spiritual truths. The holy word, however, while teaching us to seek out diligently the deepest spiritual meaning of the Law, does not cancel our obligation of adhering to customs introduced by inspired men who were in all things infinitely greater than ourselves. Shall we, because we know the spiritual meaning of the Sabbath, neglect its prescribed observance? "Shall we," he exclaims, "make use of fire on the Sabbath, till the ground, carry burdens, plead in courts of justice, enforce the payment of debts, and, in fact, transact all our usual daily business? Shall we, because a festival symbolizes the peace of the soul, and is intended as an expression of gratitude to God, cease to observe the festival itself? Or shall we give up the rite of circumcision now that we are acquainted with its symbolic significance? In that case we should likewise renounce our reverence for the sanctity of the Temple and abandon many religious observances. But, on the contrary, both the inner truth contained in the Law, and the Law itself, should be equally prized – the one as the soul, the other as the body. Just as we take care of the body, looking upon it as the habitation of the soul, so also should we value the letter of the Law. By strict observance of the Law we shall attain a clearer insight into its deepest meaning, and shall likewise escape the remarks and reproaches of the people."

It is in the Hebrew Scriptures, according to Philo, that the most profound wisdom is contained. All that is taught by the sublimest philosophy the Judæans found in their precepts and customs – the knowledge of the eternal God, the vanity of idols, and the universal laws of humanity and kindness. "Is not the highest honor due," he exclaims, "to those laws which teach the rich to share their wealth with the needy, which console the poor by enabling them to look forward to the time when they will no longer beg at the rich man's door, but will have recovered their alienated property; for, at the opening of the seventh year, prosperity would return again to the widow and the orphan, and would restore to well-being those whom fortune had disinherited?"

In opposition to the abuse hurled against Judaism by a Lysimachus and an Apion, Philo brings forward the spirit of humanity which breathes through the Judæan Law, and which affects even the treatment of animals and plants. "And yet, though Judaism is founded in truth on love, these miserable sycophants accuse it of misanthropy and egotism." In order to ensure a better comprehension of the Judæan ethics by the cynics and lawbreakers of his own race, as also by the Greeks, who had only a false conception of Judaism, Philo arranged his writings so that they should form a kind of philosophical commentary on the Pentateuch, with the further object that the truths of Judaism might be brought within the province of philosophy.

But if, on the one hand, Philo stood firmly on Judæan ground, on the other he was no less imbued with the dogmas of the Grecian schools, which ran counter to the former, and he seems to have been equally swayed by the spirit of Judaism and that of Greece. Vainly he attempted to bring the contradictory ideas into harmony. They were so completely opposed from their very inception that they could not be reconciled. To solve the difficulty between the conflicting views of a creating God and a perfect deity who does not come into contact with matter, Philo's system takes a middle course. God created first the spiritual world of ideas, which were not merely the archetypes of all future creations, but at the same time active powers which formed the latter. Through these spiritual powers which surround God like a train of servitors, He works indirectly in the world. Spiritual power acting, as it were, intermediately between God and the world is, according to Philo, the Logos, or creative reason, the divine wisdom, the spirit of God, the source of all strength. In Philo's more mystical than philosophical description, the Logos is the first-born son of God, who, standing on the border-land of the finite and infinite, links both together. He is neither uncreated like God, nor created like the things that are finite. The Logos is the prototype of the universe, the delegate of God, whose behests it communicates to the world, the interpreter who reveals His will and constantly accomplishes it, the archangel who shows forth his works, the high priest and intercessor between the world and God. Early Christianity made use of this doctrine of the Logos in order to assume a philosophic aspect.

The princely philosopher of the house of the Alabarchs combated the Greek and Roman paganism, steeped in vice and bestiality. His exposition of the Judæan Law was designed to darken still more, by comparison with the pure light of Judaism, the shadows of idolatry, the sexual looseness, frivolity, vanity and corruption which existed in the Grecian-Roman world. He tried to show how false were the accusations hurled against Judaism, and to make known the sublime grandeur and beauty of its tenets. His principal works were written for his own people and co-religionists, though he frequently addressed those who stood outside that circle. Against the few laws of humanity which the Greeks boasted to have possessed from ancient times, as, for example that of granting fuel to any one requiring it, or of showing a wayfarer the right path, Philo could have no difficulty in enumerating a long array of benevolent duties contained in Scripture or transmitted by word of mouth. At the head of unwritten laws he placed Hillel's golden saying, "What is hateful to yourself do not unto others." Judaism does not merely forbid any one to refuse fire or water, but commands that what the poor and feeble require shall be given to them. It prohibits the use of false weights and measures, the coinage of false money. It does not allow children to be taken from their parents, or wives to be separated from their husbands, even when they have been legally acquired as slaves. Even towards animals the duty of mercy is impressed upon man. "What, in comparison to these," he cries to the Greeks, "are the few laws descending from primeval times, of which you boast so much?"

In the following tone of mockery Philo answered malicious accusations against the Lawgiver:

"Yes, verily, Moses must have been a sorcerer, not only to have preserved a whole people, and supplied them abundantly whilst they were journeying through many nations, exposed to the danger of hunger and thirst, and ignorant of the way they were pursuing, but likewise to have made them, in spite of their mutinous spirit, which often broke out against himself, docile and pliant."

Of the three great moralists who followed each other within a century, Hillel the Babylonian, Jesus of Nazareth, and Philo the Alexandrian, it was the last who in all things, great and small, upheld most strenuously the glory of Judaism. He was superior to them likewise in beauty of style and in depth of thought, whilst he was animated with equally fervent convictions. The first two simply created an impulse, but it was through their disciples that their ideas, variously transformed, were introduced into a larger circle; whereas Philo, by his own eloquent writings, made an important and lasting effect. His works were perhaps read by cultivated heathens even more than by Judæans, though all were affected by the warmth and glow which pervaded everything he wrote about God, Moses, and the spirit of the Law.

Philo and the Alexandrian sages continued to promote the great work of the prophets Isaiah, Habakkuk and Jeremiah, and laid bare all the unreasonableness, the instability, the perversion and immorality of the heathen religions. The transparent, shimmering ether with which the Greeks invested Olympus, these writers resolved into mists and vapors. Greeks and Romans, who felt deeply on the subject, were moved to turn with contempt from a religion which not only gave so unworthy a representation of the Divinity, but actually seemed to sanctify immorality by the example set before them in the history of their deities. Like most oriental people, the heathens felt the need of religion, and those who were searching for true and elevated teaching embraced Judaism, which was daily being brought more and more home to them in the Greek translations of Judæan writings through Greek-Alexandrine literature, and also through intercourse with cultivated Judæans.

During the last ten years which preceded the destruction of the Judæan State, there were more proselytes than there had been at any other time. Philo relates from his own experience that in his native country many heathens, when they embraced Judaism, not only changed their faith but their lives, which were henceforth conspicuous by the practice of the virtues of moderation, gentleness and humanity. "Those who left the teachings in which they had been educated, because they were replete with lying inventions and vanities, became sincere worshipers of the truth, and gave themselves up to the practice of the purest piety." Above all, the women, whose gentle feelings were offended by the impurity of the mythological stories, seemed attracted towards the childlike and sublime scenes in Biblical history. The greater part of the women in Damascus were converted to Judaism, and it is related that in Asia Minor there were also many female proselytes. Some over-eager Judæans may have traveled with the intention of making converts, as was proved in the story of the Roman patrician Fulvia.

It was by similar zeal for conversion that the Judæan faith was introduced into an Asiatic court, the members of which remained steadfast adherents to Judaism during several generations. Adiabene, a province on the banks of the Tigris, situated where once lay the Assyrian kingdom, was governed by a royal pair, Monobaz and Helen. It was a small, but not unimportant state, and although it touched the great domains of Rome and Parthia, it had been able to hold its independence during some centuries. Monobaz had many children, the offspring both of Helen and of other wives, but the youngest of all, Izates, was the favorite of both parents. In order that he should not suffer from the jealousy which that favoritism had caused among the elder brothers, Monobaz sent him to the court of a neighboring king, of the name of Abinerglus (Abennerig), who was so greatly pleased with the young prince confided to his care, that he gave him his daughter in marriage. A Judæan merchant by the name of Anania traded at this court, and whilst he showed his merchandise to the princesses, he dilated at the same time upon the tenets of Judaism with such success that he converted them to his faith. Izates, whose wife, Samach, was one of the converts, became interested in Anania, discoursed with him, and became a sincere adherent of Judaism, which he openly embraced in the year 18 C. E. His mother, the queen Helen, had also, without the knowledge of her son, been won over to Judaism. The deep impression which the Judæan precepts had made upon the royal converts was proved when the throne became vacant. The dying Monobaz passed over his eldest sons and named Izates as his successor. When Helen related her husband's wishes to the nobles of Adiabene, they suggested that the elder brothers should be put to death, and thus prevent a civil war, to which their hatred and jealousy might not improbably give rise. But Helen, softened by her conversion to Judaism, would not follow this sanguinary advice, and only kept the brothers in confinement, with the exception of her eldest son, Monobaz II, to whom she confided the regency. When Izates arrived at the capital of Adiabene, and had, according to his father's last testament, received the crown from the hand of Monobaz, he considered it an unmanly act of cruelty to leave his brothers to languish in confinement, and he sent them as hostages into honorable banishment, some to Rome and some to the Parthian capital.

Once on the throne, Izates intended to adopt Judaism, and even to submit to the rite of circumcision, but he was dissuaded from doing so by his mother, and by his physician, also named Anania, who, being an Hellenic Judæan, represented to him that the latter was not essential. Izates felt reassured for the time; but another Judæan, a Galilæan of the name of Eleazar, and a strict follower of the Law, came to his court and offered a contrary opinion. Eleazar, seeing the king engrossed in reading the Pentateuch, probably a Greek translation, could not help observing that to belong to the Judæan faith it was not sufficient to read the Law, but it was necessary also to practise its precepts. Thereupon Izates, and, according to some authorities, also his elder brother Monobaz, secretly submitted to the rite of circumcision. The queen-mother had anticipated dangerous results from so decided a step, but they were not immediately forthcoming. Not only was there perfect peace after the accession of Izates, but he was so much respected that he was chosen to be arbitrator between the Parthian king Artaban and the rebellious nobles of that monarch.