Page:The old paths, or The Talmud tested by Scripture.djvu/43

not to the proselytes allowed to sojourn." To this sentence, the French Jewish deputies have also made no allusion; and yet this sentence is found in the very middle of the passage quoted. "What goes before and what follows is quoted by both, but both have with one common consent omitted this passage. Now this mere fact of omission is, in itself, sufficient to excite the suspicions of Israelites not acquainted with the oral law. The Jewish deputies in Paris, and the compilers of the Jewish Catechism in Bavaria, had one common object—they wished to prove, or to intimate, that the Talmud teaches us to love as ourselves all our fellow-men, without any respect to religious differences. In order to prove this, they both refer to one and the same passage—and from the middle of that passage they both omit one important sentence. What conclusion will be drawn by any man of common understanding? Just this, that as they both quote one and the same passage, there must be a great scarcity of proof from the Talmud: and that; as they both make the same omission, the sentence omitted must be unfavourable to that proof; and that, therefore, this one passage does not prove that the Talmud teaches any such doctrine. Such is the conclusion to which we are led by considering the facts of the case. An examination of the omitted passage will show that this conclusion is most just—"As to the saying of our wise men, not to return their salute, it refers to the Gentiles, not to the proselytes allowed to sojourn." Had this passage been inserted in its place, the Bavarian Catechism could not have been translated (sojourning proselytes) "non-Israelites," for from this passage it appears that these sojourners are different from the "Gentiles," whose salute is not to be returned. In plain English, this passage restricts "the courtesy and benevolence" to those proselytes who, by taking upon them the seven commandments of Noah, obtained the privilege of sojourning in the land of Israel; and consequently excludes "the Gentiles"—and consequently disproves the assertion that the Talmud teaches us to love as ourselves all our fellow-men without any respect to religious differences. On the contrary, this passage tells us that the salutation of the Gentiles is not to be returned. It prescribes two different lines of conduct to be pursued towards different religionists, and makes the difference of religious persuasion the basis of the rule. But some readers may say, that the difference is very small—that the command "not to return the salute of the Gentiles," is a mere matter of etiquette—whereas the command to visit the sick of the Gentiles, to bury their dead, and to feed their poor; is a substantial kindness. This we should admit, if the reason assigned for such conduct, "for the sake of the ways of peace," did not utterly remove all the apparent kindness. And this brings us to