Page:Works of Heinrich Heine 01.djvu/404

Northern immigrants to the Greece-Roman world were attached to the persons of their chiefs, and instead of antique patriotism the Middle Ages witnessed the faith of vassals and loyalty to princes. But the Jews always held to and reverenced that Law or an abstract conception, like our new cosmopolite republicans, who care neither for the country of their birth nor the .persons of princes, but regard laws as leading principles or the highest. Yes, cosmopolitanism sprung from the land of Judea alone, and Christ, who, despite the displeasure of the before-men- tioned Hamburg grocer, was a real Jew, actually founded a propaganda of cosmopolitanism. As for the republicanism of the Jews, I remember to have read in Josephus that there were in Jeru- salem republicans who opposed the royally-in- clined Herodians, fought them fiercely, and called no man "master," and hated lioman absolutism most bitterly. Freedom and equality was their religion. What madness! But what is the real reason for that hatred which we see here in Europe between the adherents of the Mosaic law and the teaching of Christ to the present clay, and of which the poet, illustrating general principles by facts, gives us a terrible picture in The Merchant of Venice. Is it the original fraternal hatred which we saw flame forth between Cain and Abel caused by different