No. V.
TALMUDIC INTOLERANCE CONTRASTED WITH THE CHARITY OF THE BIBLE.
Any one who considers the circumstances of the Jewish people
after the desolation of the first temple, will be inclined to make
great allowances for the spirit of the Rabbinical laws against
idolaters. Idolatry was not to them a mere system of religious
error. It was the source of all their misfortunes; and idolaters
were the destroyers of their country—the desolaters of their
temple—and their own most cruel and tyrannical oppressors.
Scarcely had they emerged from the horrors of the Babylonish
captivity, when they were exposed to the insults and outrages as
well as the persecutions of Antiochus; and hardly had they recovered
from the havoc of his fury, before they were overrun
by the fierce and haughty Romans, who were at last the
executioners of the wrath of the Almighty. They not only saw
the abominations of idolatry, but they felt the hard hand of the
idolater; no wonder, then, if they hated the man as well as the
system. In the Hilchoth Rotzeach there is a law which amply
illustrates the misery of their situation, and the habitual treatment
which they received from idolaters. According to this law, "It
is forbidden to a Jew to be alone with Gentiles, for they are
suspected of shedding blood; neither is a Jew to join company
with them in the way; if he meet a Gentile, he is to cause him
to pass on his right hand (that the Jew, as the commentary says,
may be able to defend himself, in case the Gentile should make
an attempt on his life); if they be ascending a height, or going
down a descent, the Jew is not to be below and the Gentile
above him; but the Jew above and the Gentile below, lest he
should fall upon him to kill him; neither is he to stoop down
before him, lest he should break his skull." What an affecting
picture does this present of the Jews under heathen domination;
and who can wonder if such treatment called forth the natural
feelings of the human heart, and dictated laws in the same fierce
and merciless spirit? We, for our part, are quite ready to admit
and to deplore the mighty provocations, which roused the spirit
of retaliation in the Rabbies, and consequently, to make all due
allowance for the men. But that is not the question before us.
We are inquiring whether their religious system, the oral law,
is or is not from God, and whether this religious system teaches
Jews to love all their fellow-men as themselves? We have
shown that the evidence adduced on this point by the French
and Bavarian Jews, proves the contrary; and is therefore,
nothing to the purpose. But we do not wish to rest the decision
upon such limited proof, even though it be strong; we are
