granted them on two conditions—1st, That each should pay a
certain quantity of gold for his admission; and 2dly, That if
they were found in Portugal after a certain day, they should
either consent to be baptized, or be sold for slaves.[1] Now Jews
of every degree and shade of religious belief will agree with us,
that these conditions were most disgraceful to those who imposed
them. To refuse gratuitous assistance to the poor and
needy, merely because they had been brought up in a different
religious faith, was utterly unworthy of those professing faith
in Divine revelation. To compel the unfortunate to choose
between loss of liberty or of conscience was the act of a fiend.
But now suppose that the Portuguese had endeavoured to persuade
these poor exiles that their conduct, however base it
might appear, was commanded by God himself. Suppose,
further, that when called upon to prove that this command was
from God, they had confessed that no such command was to be
found in the written books of their religion, that it was only a
tradition of their oral law, do you think that the Jewish exiles
would have been satisfied with such proof, and submitted?
Would they not, in the first place, have questioned the authority
of a command resting merely upon uncertain tradition?
And would they not have argued, from the detestable nature of
the command itself, that it could not possibly emanate from the
God of truth and love? We ask you then to apply these principles
to (
Hebrew characters) the oral law. The Portuguese
refused to perform an act of humanity to the unfortunate Jewish
exiles, unless they were paid for it. Your oral law, as we
showed in our last number, forbids you to give medical advice
to a sick idolater gratuitously. The Portuguese voluntarily
undertook to convert the Jews by force. Your oral law teaches
compulsory conversion as a Divine command. If the oral law
could be enforced, liberty of conscience would be at an end.
Neither Jew nor Gentile would be permitted to exercise the judgment,
which God has given him. His only alternative would be
submission to Rabbinic authority, or death. The dreadful command
to kill, by any means, those Israelites who have become
epicureans, or idolaters, or apostates, is well known,[2] and sufficiently
proves that the oral law recognises no such thing as
liberty of conscience in Israel. It pronounces a man an apostate
if he denies its Divine authority, and demands his life as the
penalty. The execution of this one command would fill the
world with blood and horror; and recall all the worst features of
inquisitorial tyranny. Not now to mention those Israelites who
have embraced Christianity, there are in England, and every
part of Europe, many high-minded and honourable Jews, who
have practically renounced the authority of the oral law. The
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