A Critical Comparison Between Jesus And Hillel - Franz Delitzsch

A Critical Comparison Between Jesus And Hillel

(from Jewish Artisan Life In The Time Of Our Lord )

Franz Delitzsch

Preface

PRIMARILY designed for Jewish readers, the essay on Jesus and Hillel is so valuable in its suggestiveness, regarding not only the difference between Jesus and Hillel, but the difference between Jesus and all mere human teachers and reformers, antecedent or subsequent, as to form a most formidable weapon in the hands of those who see in Jesus not only the greater than Hillel, but the greater than Jonas, and the greater than Solomon, the wisest of men. Was Jesus man? Was Jesus God? Was Jesus truly both? In the belief that the ensuing pages will help many to decide these momentous questions for themselves the present translation has been undertaken; it will have done its work should any, hitherto prepared when contemplating the life and character of Jesus, to say “Ecce homo," be led from its perusal to say, "Ecce Deus."

THE COLLEGE,

BIRKENHEAD.

May, 1877.

A CRITICAL COMPARISON BETWEEN JESUS AND HILLEL.

“He was most beautiful to behold! His height reached fully seven spans, his hair was light and somewhat waving, but his eyebrows were black and arched, his eyes bright and piercing, his nose prominent, his beard yellow and not very long. The hair of his head was long, for never had razor come upon it, neither the hand of man passed over it, excepting indeed the hand of his mother whilst still a little child. His figure was slightly bent, not quite erect. His color was as the ripened wheat, his face, like that of his mother, was not round but oval, not very ruddy, and expressive of gentleness and meekness, dignity and understanding. He was the exact similitude of his pure and stainless mother."

It is Jesus who is thus described by Nicephorus Callisti, who, writing in the fourteenth century, relied, no doubt, for the particulars of this description, on the testimony of ancient writers. Could we ask him the names of his authorities, he would most likely cite John the Damascene, who flourished in the eighth century; and, could we pursue our inquiries to this source, the latter would probably be honest enough to confess, "This portrait is but a worthless and fanciful product of the imagination." For, though in coins, busts, and statues, we have contemporary likenesses of the Roman emperors, from Augustus and Tiberius downwards; though on the walls of the Egyptian temple of Karnak, the contemporary portrait of Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, is even yet to be seen; and though the palace walls of Korsabad and Koyunjik still glow with contemporary representations of king Sargon in his war chariot, and king Sennacherib on his throne, yet, so far are we from possessing even a tradition, still less a description, of the outward appearance of Jesus, that both before and after the days of Constantine, opinion in the Church was divided, as to whether we ought to picture him to ourselves, during the time that he walked amongst men, as having been undistinguished in appearance, or of ideal beauty; whilst, in support of both these views, reliance must be placed, not on old traditions, but on passages from the Old Testament.

Let a passage from Renan's Life of Jesus follow this ideal portrait of the Middle Ages. "Jesus," we there read, "was born in Nazareth; and the streets in which the child played exist still in those stony paths and blind alleys, by which the houses are separated. Joseph's house most likely resembled these same poverty-stricken huts, whose only means of admitting light is through the door, and which are workshop, kitchen, and sleeping-room all in one; whilst their entire furniture consists of a carpet, two or three cushions on the floor for seats, a few earthen utensils, and a painted coffer. Here, in Nazareth, Jesus passed the first years of his childhood; and here, at the now ruined fountain of the little town, Mary doubtless daily stood, chatting with her undistinguished countrywomen; and still in this spot, female beauty, especially the Syrian type in all its melting loveliness, is met with in a remarkable degree. Here nature, at once sublime and lovely in her aspect, became the first instructress of Jesus; and from hence, even in his childhood, he took part in the yearly journeys to Jerusalem at the great festivals. Joseph died before his son began to take part in public life; and, feeling herself a stranger in Nazareth after the death of her husband, Mary returned to Cana, where Jesus passed his ripening youth; and where he first excited public attention. He came forward as a Teacher. The voice of the young carpenter acquired suddenly an extraordinary sweetness. Those who had been familiar with him hitherto scarcely recognized him in his new character. His amiable disposition, and probably one of those exquisitely beautiful faces, which are sometimes met with amongst the Jewish race, combined to draw a magic circle round him. He particularly attached himself to Hillel, who, fifty years earlier, had promulgated maxims with which his own had much in common, and who, by the meekness with which he had endured poverty, by the gentleness of his disposition, and by his opposition to the priests and hypocrites, had become the real teacher of Jesus; if indeed we can speak of a teacher, when considering so exalted and original a character."

All that Renan here states is either gratuitous contradiction of the Gospel narrative, such as the assertion that Jesus was born at Nazareth, or mere assumption, as that Mary removed to Cana after Joseph's death; whilst statements introduced with the vague term "probably," are in reality nothing but fanciful sketches of his own, such as when he likens Joseph's home to the dwellings of the now deeply-degraded population of Palestine, praises the beauty of the women of Nazareth; about whose charms other travelers have found nothing to say, or ascribes to Jesus himself, either exquisite personal beauty, or an extraordinarily winning address. This Life of Jesus took, nevertheless, the whole civilized world by storm; and we should be in error were we to seek the cause of this wonderful popularity, exclusively in the bold skepticism of the book, or in that spirit of opposition to Christianity, as a religion of revelation and miracle, which is so marked a feature of our times. Certainly the applause with which this work was greeted may be, in a measure, accounted for by the fact, that, by its means, thousands found themselves with malicious joy, confirmed in the idea, that, when viewed by the light of modern progress, the Church's dogma of the Person of the God-Man would melt away like a dream of bygone ages. The reading public, cloyed with the most refined sensationalism, devoured it so eagerly, because it offered them a new and piquant subject, entitled indeed The Life of Jesus, but which, after the fashion of the Mysteries of Paris, might just as well have been called the Mysteries of Jesus. In this book, both sentimentality and sensuality found abundant nutriment, uniting in itself, as it does, the art of a Dumas or a Sue with the love of effect peculiar to a Pere Lacordaire. In it frivolous speeches alternate with enthusiastic bursts of feeling, whilst every natural affection is debased to carnality. Even political discontent was flattered in this work, which represents Jesus in the light of a noble and romantic republican, something of a Camille Desmoulins; and which, whilst holding up to Imperial France the times in which he lived, as a mirror, in which she might see her own reflection, offers as well the programme of a new social revolution.

All this, however, will not suffice to account for the effect this book has produced, and which may partly be explained on higher grounds than those already mentioned. It has cleared away the haze in which, to thousands, the personality of Jesus was shrouded, and asks once more, as a burning question for the times, what we are indeed to think of him. And in driving this question, the most momentous and critical for all humanity, deep home to the conscience of both Jew and Christian, it has subserved a Divine purpose, in a manner which the author assuredly never contemplated. Nor would this book have thus succeeded in making the person of Jesus the centre-point of modem thought, had not its writer availed himself of all the graces of composition to endow his portrait with form and color.

It was this that constituted its great charm in the eyes of Christian readers. It aimed at the strictly legitimate task of bringing the historical account of Jesus into living conformity with the times and country in which he lived, thus meeting the wish natural to all Christians, to be able to form some definite idea of his appearance in the days of his flesh.

But the likeness drawn by Renan is no historical portrait. It is a caricature, compounded of the most contradictory elements, a lying imposture which subsists only by the falsification of the true history. This we can prove by a single example, namely, by one of those false statements in which Hillel is pointed out as having been the true and actual teacher of Jesus. Renan is, however, too much of a Christian to rank Hillel higher than Jesus, highly as he values the former; since in one place he observes, "Hillel can never be considered as the true founder of Christianity," an idea which it would have been mere folly to contradict, had he not regarded Hillel as a being whose moral greatness was at least akin to that of Jesus.

On the other hand, Dr. Geiger, the learned Rabbi of the "Reformed" Congregation of Frankfort-on-Main, in his Lectures on Judaism, and in his History (published in 1864), is too good a Jew to rank Hillel below Jesus. "Jesus," says he, "was a Pharisee, who followed in Hillel's footsteps. He never gave utterance to a single new idea. Of Hillel, on the contrary, we may say, and the term, far from degrading, will only ennoble him, that he presents us with the portrait of a genuine Reformer. And," adds Geiger, with a side hit which we can easily understand, "this Hillel is a strictly historical personage. In the case of other men, indeed, tradition colors their whole life, decks them with miracles, and envelopes them in her tinsel. But the more wonderful the legend, the more incredible does it become, and all the more surely does it obscure the real character, and render contemptible the object it seeks to glorify, when we come to consider him as a historical personage."

Dr. Geiger's Lectures¹ have been extensively read, they have been discussed in widely circulated newspapers; and we believe that we shall render a not unwelcome service to unprejudiced readers, both Jewish and Christian, if in these pages we examine this same Hillel a little more closely, who by Renan is placed on a par with Jesus, by Geiger is ranked far' above him.

¹A second edition of these lectures appeared in 1865, but in it these remarks were left unaltered.

He is, in truth, deserving of our sympathy; a truly great and loveable man. Nor amongst the contemporaries of Jesus is there one, who, if compared to him, is so well fitted as Hillel to bring out in its fullest light the peerless individuality of his character. Indeed, in drawing the comparison about to be instituted, we enjoy a double advantage; firstly, because the notices of Hillel contained in the Talmud are unusually numerous, and, although not free from grotesque exaggeration,¹ are generally trustworthy; and secondly, because we are in no danger of our judgment concerning him becoming confused.

¹As for instance where according to Sofrim, xvi. 9, his knowledge is said to have been so comprehensive that he understood not only all languages, but also the speech of mountains, hills, and valleys, the speech of trees and herbs, the speech of savage and tame beasts, and the speech of demons. And again, according to Succa, 28 a, where he is stated to have had eighty disciples, thirty of whom were worthy that the Shechinah (Presence of God) should rest upon them, thirty who were worthy that at their bidding, as at Joshua's, the sun should stand still, and twenty of greater mediocrity. The greatest of all was Jonathan ben Aziel, of whom it is related, that, when he sat reading the law, every bird which flew over his head was immediately consumed.

He flourished during the reign of Herod the Great, and died during the early childhood of Jesus. ¹

¹According to the Talmud, b. Schabbath, 15 a, the date of Hillel's presidency of the Sanhedrin, was just one hundred years before the fall of Jerusalem.

When Herod, as we read in Mat. ii. 40, demanded of the chief priests and scribes where Christ should be born, Hillel may well have been president of that sitting of the Sanhedrin, which, in strict accordance with Scripture, gave the king the reply, that he must be born at Bethlehem-Ephrata.

Much beyond this date his life could not have been prolonged; and he never had the opportunity of either acknowledging or rejecting the Saviour. He must, therefore, be considered as having been virtually a pre-Messianic celebrity.

And now, ere we enter on the task of calling up a distinct picture of Hillel's life and work, in order to compare, them with the life and labors of Jesus, we will promise our readers to adhere strictly, in the case of the former, to the accounts which have come down to us of him, without adding any comments of our own; and, in the case of the latter, to hold aloof from all that modem critics reject, and to keep exclusively to such testimony as even the criticism of a Strauss cannot shake; following principally the Gospel according to St. Mark, as that which has at present, the honor of being considered both the oldest and the most trustworthy.

I

How did Hillel become a great teacher, and how did Jesus?

This is the first question, to which their respective histories must supply the answer, and that, without our adding to, or diminishing aught from the record.

About fifty years before the commencement of our era, the following occurrence took place in Jerusalem.

Shemaiah and Abtalion, the most celebrated doctors of that day, had on one occasion, the eve of the Sabbath, conducted throughout the whole night,¹ a numerous class of disciples, engaged in the study of the law. It was the month Tebeth, and just at the time of the winter solstice; therefore, about the end of December. When "the pillars of the dawn were set up" (it was thus that the Semitic races expressed themselves, since in that latitude the sun shoots like a ball of light above the horizon, after a much shorter twilight than with us), Shemaiah observed to Abtalion, "Good brother Abtalion, our schoolhouse is generally well lighted in the daytime, but this morning it is so dark, that it must be a cloudy day." On looking up, however, something resembling a human form was descried in the aperture of the window. Someone climbed on to the roof, and there a man was actually found buried in the snow which had fallen during the previous night. It was Hillel. They soon extricated him, bathed, and rubbed him with oil, and laid him before a fire, saying amongst themselves as they did so, "He is worthy that on his account the Sabbath should be broken."

¹ b. Joma, 35 b

But how had Hillel placed himself in this situation?

This Hillel, grandfather of Gamaliel, at whose feet sat St. Paul the Apostle, and ancestor of a family in which the office of president of the Sanhedrin was for centuries hereditary, belonged to a family of Jewish exiles at Babylon. Though able to trace their descent from David, ¹ his kindred were poor; and both Hillel and his brother Shebna₂ had come to Jerusalem, one to seek his fortune as a trader, and the other to slake his thirst for knowledge at the fountain-head of national learning. In order to accomplish this, he had to hire himself out as a journeyman, and his daily earning amounted to a tropiakon. This was a Greek name for the Roman victoriatus, a small coin, of the value of half a denarius, and stamped with the image of victory. One half of his gains had to support his family (for he was married); the other he paid to the steward of the Beth-ha-Midrasch, that the academy over which Shemaiah and Abtalion presided. One day, however, when he had been unable to meet with work, he was denied admittance by the avaricious steward. Favored by the darkness of the night, he clambered up to the window placed in the top of the wall, whence he could see and hear all that passed below; but unable long to endure the intense cold of the heavy snow, from which even Jerusalem is not lways exempt, he sunk down in that state of insensibility, from which he was on the following Sabbath morning with difficulty restored to life.

¹ Bereschith Rabba, 98, which in support of its testimony appeals to a pedigree found in Jerusalem. [Hebrew not included]

² b. Sota, 21 a, according to which he in later times shared his earnings with his brother, who was also a student

It was thus that Hillel's talents were developed. To satisfy his thirst for knowledge, he resorted to the most celebrated teachers of his day, and spared no pains to acquire the heritage of their wisdom. Schooled by the greatest celebrities in the learning of the Torah, he, in after times, became himself one of its highest authorities. When the question was once debated, whether the Pascal lamb could be slain on the eve of the Passover should it happen to fall on a Sabbath, Hillel came forward as the guardian of the correct interpretation, and decided the question in the affirmative.¹ From this time forward, he was regarded as one of the principal expounders of the so-called oral or traditional law; to which, in a stormy and degenerate age, he secured uninterrupted development, by his personal gentleness, high culture, and moderate Pharisaical tendencies.

¹ b. Pesachim, 66 a, j. Pesachim, 33 a.

A reformer he never was. Dr. Geiger only places him on this pinnacle, in order to rank Jesus below him. But he alone can be called a reformer, who, indued with creative genius, restores a debased or deformed national religion to its original purity, and breathes into an expiring body that new life which first takes its rise in himself. Such reformers were Samuel and Ezra. Hillel, however, left everything as he found it. He introduced, indeed, some few novelties in the administration of civil law, especially in matters relating to commerce and money-lending, by which the letter of the Mosaic law was subtly evaded. But, with these exceptions, he simply carried out the Pharisaic system of maxims. With the actual faith of his nation he scarcely meddled; much less did he ever revive it from decay or quicken it with new impulses.

All history, on the other hand, proclaims what Jesus has become; nor need we first compile the story. It is enough to say, that the fact confronts us, if only we do not obstinately close our eyes to it. Hillel was no reformer; else, what was the primitive form of religion amongst his people which he restored? Or, what were the errors which he swept away? But Jesus is the founder of a new religion, which stands to the religion of the Old Testament, in the relation of its very heart and kernel, of its disentrammelled spirit. He is the founder of a humanism undreamt of before his day, of a religion of philanthropy and humanity, which declares all walls of partition between different races to be abolished, and he has instituted a universal brotherhood, through the new bond of a divine and all-embracing love.

How then, we ask, did Jesus effect this? He too, like Hillel, was descended from a decayed branch of the family of David;¹ though unlike Hillel, instead of being brought up in Babylonia, where the Jewish population began at that time to rival their countrymen at home in national culture, he grew to man's estate in Galilee, a province on which the Judean looked down with the same lofty contempt with which a Greek regarded Baeeotia, or a Parisian may think of a Gascon; his home being in the most despised spot of this despised district. In the Talmud we meet with celebrated men from a number of townships, both in Palestine and Galilee, who have now vanished, leaving no trace behind ; but from Nazareth (Nazara),² there comes not one. Josephus, the historian, who during the Roman war had to organize the Galilean revolt, counts no fewer than 204 over-populated towns and villages. He gives the names of several, but does not even mention Nazareth. Had this spot, indeed, been referred to only in the Gospels, modern criticism would doubtless have decided that it never existed. But there it lies to this day, as it lay 2000 years ago, with its houses built into the slope of the mountain, in the hollow of a deep and narrow basin, which, enclosed by mountains on three sides, slopes down southward towards the famous plain of Jezreel, renowned as a battlefield in both ancient and modern times.

¹Though not the actual, yet as the legitimate son of Joseph, the son of Jacob (see Matt. i.), Jesus was descended from that branch of the house of David which was founded by Solomon, and through his mother, Mary the daughter of Heli (Luke iii.), from that which was founded by Nathan. In the Talmud Mary is referred to as [Hebrew missing] daughter of Heli, whilst in b. Sanhedrin, 43 b, Jesus is said to have been [Hebrew missing] (related to the king's house).

² Both forms are met with in the oldest Greek MSS.

Here, in this deep retirement Jesus grew up as a lily of the field. For him there were no opportunities of education beyond his own home, if we except, perhaps, the Synagogue. Hillel may well be considered as the depositary of the wisdom of Shemaiah and Abtalion; but who, among his astonished contemporaries, could point out the teacher of Jesus? The Talmud certainly assigns him a celebrated master, Joshua the son of Perachiah, with whom it states that he fled to Alexandria, to escape the fury of a murderous king, and by whom he was subsequently excommunicated¹ as a renegade disciple, to the blast of four hundred rams’ horns. But this excommunication concert is an absurdity, and the whole story an impudent fabrication.² This Joshua lived a whole century earlier than Jesus, who, as we know, went down to Egypt, but it was as an infant at his mother breast. Nor can he have brought back impressions from thence, where Judaism had entered on a more enlightened and liberal phase than in the mother country. Still less can he there have studied magic, as another Talmudistic fable declares him to have done.³

¹ b. Sanhedrin 107 b (in unabridged editions)

² The emigration of Joshua the son of Perachiah, took place at the time of the persecution of the Pharisees unser the Asmonean king Alexander I. Jannai (died 76 B.C.). See Jost’s History of Judaism and its sects, I., 237.

³ b. Schabbath, 104 b: the “son of Stada,” [Hebrew missing], a name of contempt given to Jesus, brought enchantments from Egypt in a cut which he had made in his flesh. This is an indirect testimony from an enemy’s lips to the historical truth of our Saviors miracles.

Since, however, no human spirit can develop itself independently of impulses from without, so Jesus, by intercourse with his pious parents, and others by whom he was alternately attracted and repelled, would gradually receive a, to us incalculable, world of impressions. These doubtless helped to make him that which he finally became, but this was actually determined by his own unique nature, by which these impressions were treasured up and worked out. His principal means of development was communion with God, through His Word, as contained in the Holy Scriptures. This Word, received from without, told him what were the needs of his people, and of mankind, and for whose help they waited. And the God within him told him what was the service which he was called to render, both to his own people, and to the whole human race; not, like Hillel, to persevere in a system of ordinances, but, laying aside these outward ceremonial observances, to bring mankind into a direct and spiritually-free relationship to God; and to yield himself a willing sacrifice to the fulfillment of this supreme vocation. In other words, he strengthened himself in God with ever increasing certainty, as that Messiah promised aforetime by Moses and the prophets. He experienced in himself what the servant of Jehovah expresses in Is. 50. 4: "The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth my ear to hear as the learned." The more deeply he studied the prophecies, and the more closely he marked the corruption of his people, dead in the works of the law, the more clearly was it revealed to him, that he must be prepared for heavy suffering, and the more earnestly did he pray for strength and courage; even as we read in the words of Isaiah 50. 5, 6, "The Lord God hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back. I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting." And in this school of deep inner experiences the disciple of God developed into that Divine Teacher; who, under the lowly guise of an itinerant Galilean preacher,¹ hid the sublime self-consciousness of the Messiah of Israel.

¹ [Hebrew missing]. It is thus that the wandering Galilean teachers are described in the Talmud, b. Sanhedrin, 70 a, Chullin, 27 b.

Those around him were acquainted with the circumstances of his birth, but these were more calculated to deepen than to explain the strange enigma of this untaught Teacher. When in the synagogue of Nazareth, the book of Isaiah was given to him, that he might read the appointed lesson of the day; he began with the words, "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek: he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." And, in full assurance that he, and no other, was that servant of Jehovah, whom the prophet here represents as speaking, he, whilst the eyes of all present were fastened on him, began his sermon with those words of strong confirmation: "This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears." Mar. 6. 2, 3. The first effect of the powerful impression made by this public manifestation was astonishment: " From whence hath this man these things," asked the Nazarenes, "and what wisdom is this which is given unto him, that even such mighty works are wrought by his hands? Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and the brother of James and Joses and of Juda and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us? "They knew no natural explanation of the lofty self-assertion with which their countryman confronted them in word and deed; and therefore, as St. Mark's

Gospel proceeds to explain, ch. 6-3, they were offended at him. For he lacked that patent of nobility, which, according to Jewish ideas, was possessed by every teacher who could prove himself the disciple of some celebrated man. That he stood without the pale of this privileged class [Hebrew missing] was in their eyes no recommendation.

It was in this very point that Jesus differed so essentially from Hillel, who simply propagated the scholastic lore of Shemaiah and Abtalion. Jesus came from no rabbinical seminary, nor did he ever attach himself to, or seek to build up, any existing system. Free and direct, he drank of the fullness of the Divine Spirit, and without dependence on man, developed himself, through the Word of God, from the depths of his own holy being. From childhood he had lived in a communion with God, which enabled him to speak those words,¹ whose like were, before him, never heard from mortal lips, neither after him will be: "No man knoweth the Son but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him." Mat. 11. 27.

¹ These words of .Jesus have come down to us through other sources besides St. Matthew's gospel.

This it was which threw all his contemporaries into amazement at his doctrine, manner of teaching, and whole mode of life; and the despised province of Galilee then experienced the fulfillment of the ancient prediction, Isa. 9. 2, "The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined." In accordance with this word of the prophet, the Talmud says, that the deliverance of Israel shall dawn from Tiberias; and the Sohar, that Messiah shall be manifested from the land.

II

We proceed to enquire: What did Hillel the Babylonian teach? And what Jesus of Nazareth? A second comparison,¹ which we will endeavor to draw will illustrate this more clearly than the foregoing.

¹ b. Schabbath, 21 a.

A foreigner presented himself on one occasion before Shammai; "Make me a proselyte," said he, “but thou must teach me the whole law, whilst I stand on one leg." Shammai flew into a passion, lifted the measuring rod, which he happened to have in his hand, and drove him from his presence.

He now applied to Hillel, who actually converted him under the required conditions: He said to him, [Hebrew missing], in English, "What is disagreeable to thyself, never do to thy neighbor, this is the whole law, to which all else is but the commentary. Go and learn it." It is on the ground of this much admired reply that Renan and Geiger stand, when they seek to represent Jesus as following the traces of Hillel. We are far from undervaluing the grandeur and nobility of Hillel's answer. It required, indeed, a comparatively enlightened insight into the nature of the law to perceive that all national ordinances and ceremonial precepts contained in the Torah served a moral purpose, regulating the relation of man to man. But, was the code delivered on Sinai simply, or indeed chiefly, a moral one? According to that fundamental maxim which we find in Deut. 6. 4, 5, and which, as the [Hebrew missing] has been embodied in the daily prayer of the Israelite, may not the real sum total of the law be far more justly described, as contained in the command, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might?"

Was Hillel then justified in withholding this precept from the enquiring idolater, whose most urgent need was the knowledge of the living God? To judge from his reply, it would seem that the first table of the holy law is less binding and important than the second. Yet morality can never be divorced from religion, without the moral duties losing the support of its divine and eternal basis. This, however, is what Hillel does, he represents the revealed law as a code of morality, and ignores its divine foundation and requirements, being in this the forerunner of that numerous class, who take the paltry maxim, "Do right and fear no man," for the height of wisdom, and indeed consider that it embodies the whole contents of the Bible, all else being in their opinion merely an unimportant appendix. In Mat. 7. 12 Jesus certainly says, "Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets." But this is no isolated injunction; in the verse immediately preceding we read, "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good gifts to them that ask him?" And this saying of Jesus, resembling Hillel's, though not identical with it, differs from it chiefly in its deep religious sentiment; the duty of love to our neighbor, being deduced from the example of that compassionate love of God, which all must strive to imitate. These utterances of Jesus form part of his Sermon on the Mount, of which the subject was the true righteousness; and in which the law given on Mount Sinai, in a preparatory, and therefore imperfect manner, received its full development. In this discourse true righteousness is represented as the gift of God, and its essence is made to consist in submission to His will, and renunciation of self, and in bringing not only the outer, but the deepest inner life, into conformity and obedience to Him. This righteousness consists therefore in the reciprocal working of religion and morality, and in it love to God and love to man go hand in hand. For this reason we find, Mar. 12. 28-34, that, in a case somewhat similar to Hillel's, Jesus gave a reply which differed essentially from that of the Rabbi. When asked by a scribe, "Which is the first commandment of all?" he answered, "The first of all the commandments is Hear, O Israel; the Lord our God is one Lord: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. This is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.” These words ring clear and decisive, and in them we at once perceive the full truth and harmony of the law, to the spirit of which Jesus gives its full weight. In the Torah, these two commandments are never met with side by side, for in Duet. 6. 5, it is only love to God, and not love to man, which is inculcated; and in Lev. 19. 18 the command to love our neighborstands among others; whilst its basis, in the love of God, is not alluded to. Jesus, however, brings their hidden connection to light. Whilst Hillel’s moralizing reply rests solely on Lev. 19. 18, and entirely overlooks the passage in Duet. 6. 4, Jesus unites the two great commandments in one whole, and that in such a manner, that the apparently less important is placed on a footing of equality with the greater; for, even as light and radiation, so are love to God and love to man, but one in their essence and in their source. They are one in the Lord our God, the God of Israel, who is one God. This union of the two commandments, on which all others are founded, lies indeed in the spirit of the Old Testament law, but it was Jesus who first proclaimed it; he of whom Geiger says, that "he never gave utterance to a single new idea!" Never has a falser or more shameless aspersion been cast on the historically original, yet cultivated grandeur, of the Founder of Christianity. We would render all justice to Hillel's famous saying, but we know Hillel (whom, at the expense of Jesus, Geiger would magnify into a reformer) too well to allow a false estimate of his character to be foisted on us, on the strength of a single speech; above all, of one, which as we have seen, proclaimed but half the truth. Hillel's work was in no sense reformatory, still less creative; it consisted principally in the development of the so-called oral law, which aimed at protecting the Mosaic law from violation, by fencing it in with innumerable preventive regulations.

In this exaggerated spirit of clerkly quibbling Hillel had a formidable rival in the person of the stricter, and in ceremonial matters, more exacting Shammai. One example will show how far men had already fallen away from the spirit of the Mosaic law. Ex. 16. 5 contains indirectly the precept that food intended to be eaten on the Sabbath should be prepared the preceding day. The sense and object of the passage are unmistakable. That Sabbath rest which the law of Moses guaranteed both to the servant and the maid, no less than to the master and the mistress, was not to be broken by the labor of cooking. The doctors of the law, however, propounded the question, whether an egg which a hen had laid on the Sabbath might be eaten on that day. One would have thought this a matter requiring no consideration; man taking no active part in the laying of eggs. Nevertheless the consumption of such egg was declared absolutely unlawful, if it had been laid by a hen kept for the purpose of laying, because in this case it would be the result of a week-day occupation carried out on the Sabbath, in disobedience to the law.

Up to this point the “Fathers of old time" ¹ were agreed. But how if the hen had been intended for eating and not for laying? And how if a Sabbath and a Feast-Day, or as we might say, since a Feast-Day is equal in sanctity to a Sabbath, how if two Sabbaths came together? Here, contrary to his usual custom, Shammai's interpretation was less strict than Hillel's, since he allowed the consumption of the egg of a hen set apart for eating, on the Sabbath or Feast-Day preceding it, and laid on such Sabbath or Feast-Day. But Hillel, the “Reformer" according to Geiger, according to Renan "the real instructor of Jesus," argued as follows: Since such egg was perfected on a Sabbath or Feast-Day, and therefore came unlawfully into being, it is on this account unlawful to eat it on the Sabbath or the Feast-Day following; and though it might in itself be lawful to eat the egg of such hen on the Sabbath or Feast-Day, had it been laid on a Sabbath or Feast-Day which was not either preceded or followed by a Sabbath or Festival, yet even this must be considered forbidden, because one might otherwise fall into the temptation to eat it on such Sabbath or Feast-Day, when it would, on the aforementioned grounds, be strictly prohibited to do so. And since on the Sabbath that which is to be eaten must not be carried from place to place, such egg must not only not be eaten, but not be lifted up or put aside. A conscientious person, therefore, would naturally avoid touching it, since he might be tempted even to take it in his hand, or even looking at it, since in doing so he might begin to lust after it. In this celebrated controversy of the egg,² as in many others, Hillel carried his point against Shammai, since it seems a voice was heard from heaven, [Hebrew missing] , which said, "The words of both are the words of the living God, but let the lessons of Hillel be carried into practice."³

¹ [Hebrew missing] Hillel and Shammai are thus named in the Mishna Edujoth, I.4.

² A whole treatise of the Talmud which treats of Festivals in general takes from this controversy, with which it opens, its name of Beza, “the egg."

³ b. Erubin, 13 b. According to this passage the preference was given to the doctrine of the Hillelites, because they were gentle and polite, giving due consideration to the words of the Shammaites, and even allowing the latter to take the uppermost seats at the consultation.

Now just conceive for one moment a scrupulous compatriot presenting himself to Jesus with the question whether he might eat an egg laid at such and such a time; and, supposing that his question did not die on his lips, when he found himself face to face with one whose whole aspect must have bespoken the embodiment of the spirit of the law, as well as the most uncompromising denunciation of all hypocrisy; may we not imagine what reply he would have received? For when the scribes and Pharisees asked of Jesus, “Why walk not thy disciples after the traditions of the elders, but eat bread with defiled (that is to say, with unwashen) hands?” he answered, “Well has Esaias prophesied of you, hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; howbeit, in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. For laying aside the commandment of God ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups, and many other such like things ye do.” (Mar. 7. 7, 8.) This ceremony, therefore, concerning which there runs a rabbinical maxim “He who despises the washing of hands shall be consumed from the face of the earth,"¹ had no religious value in the eyes of Jesus, and this solitary example will suffice to show how determined was the position he took up in opposition to that traditional law, on the upholding and development of which Hillel's special fame was grounded.

¹ b. Sola, 4 b. [Hebrew missing]

The tendencies of these two diverged as widely as heaven from earth. The teaching of Hillel is juristic, casuistic, and narrowmindedly national, whilst that of Jesus is universally religious, moral, and humane. Hillel lives and moves only in the externals, and Jesus in the spirit of the law. The latter frees the law of God from the boundaries, with which, whilst destined for but one people, it was necessarily enclosed; whilst the former strives, on the contrary, to strengthen these bands, sometimes by stricter, sometimes by milder enactments, without much laying to heart the command contained in Deut. 28. 28, "Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish aught from it," [Hebrew missing]. The pragmatic historian here finds himself in great perplexity. Nowhere in the times or country of Jesus do we meet with the true connecting link of the manner in which he exalts morality as opposed to ceremonialism. Renan disconnects the bon mot by means of which Hillel gained a proselyte, from the general tenor of his doctrine, in order to represent .Jesus as building on his foundation; and Geiger, who makes Jesus follow in Hillel's steps, misleads those only who are not sufficiently acquainted with Jewish literature to know that Hillel trod the broad highway of rabbinism, on which Jesus turned his back, whilst he struck into another path, which till then had never entered into the heart of man.

And how much have the Essenes to answer for?¹ But this fraternity, who much resembled the Freemasons, and were settled on the western shore of the Dead Sea, never appear on the stage of New Testament history. Indeed, since they excelled even the Pharisees in point of abstemiousness and cleanliness, and avoided yet more jealously than did these latter, all intercourse with the common people, one can scarcely imagine that any other sentiment than that of reciprocal disgust could have existed between them and Jesus (supposing, indeed, that they ever came in contact with each other), when we recollect that he received publicans, fishermen, and so-called sinners as his disciples, that he ate and drank with them, and instead of fasting, strove to encourage in his followers a spirit of nuptial joy. Nowhere in the tendencies of those times can we discover a connecting link with the teaching of Jesus, it is only to be found in the voice of Old Testament prophecy, which after a silence of two centuries and a half revived anew in John the Baptist. Jesus exhibits the old prophetic view of the worthlessness of the dead works of the law, but he says not only “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath," but also, "The Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath" (Mark 2. 27, 28), thus arrogating to himself a sovereignty, not only over traditional precepts, but over the actual law itself as given on Sinai, such as no prophet would have dared to assume without the most glaring presumption. Nor does he rest satisfied with interpreting the letter of the law by its spirit, but makes known his own judgments, as being the full and conclusive expression of the will of God, and as supplementing the imperfect revelation of that will contained in the Torah. This none surely had dared to do, save he who knew himself to be that mediator of the new covenant, [Hebrew missing], spoken of in Jer. 31. 31, in whom, according to the word of the prophet, the work of revelation which was begun on Sinai should be fully perfected. For instance, the law allowed a man to put away his wife, by means of a bill of divorcement, for any "uncleanness" which he might find in her, the facility of such divorce being fettered by but one condition, namely, that should the divorced woman become the wife of another, her first husband should never take her to wife again. (Deut. 24. 4)

¹ As for instance in Gratz' History of the Jews, where we read, "The most ideal conception of the Messiah, and the Messianic 'times of refreshing,' was that which the Essenes pictured to themselves." But we in fact know nothing whatever of the ideas of the Messiah which the Essenes may have entertained. "John the Baptist" continues our author, "was evidently an Essene;" but in his manner of life he was a copy of Elijah, and no Essene, and beyond his manner of life the supposition that he was an Essene is wholly unsupported.

The wording of the required ground of divorce is here so vague, that the disciples of Shammai held, that the meaning of the term it “uncleanness,” should be restricted to moral delinquency. But this view was opposed by Hillel, who actually maintained that a man might put away his wife, even if she had only burned his food.¹ Jesus here is not content with merely interpreting the law in its strictest sense, he goes much deeper and further. On the one hand he perceives in the permission to separate, and the decree of the bill of divorcement, an effect of the far-seeing wisdom of God, which sought to gradually educate to true sanctification of spirit, a stiff-necked and carnally-minded people; and, on the other hand, he opposes to this temporary divine permission, the primitive institution of marriage at the Creation as an indissoluble bond, uniting a man to his one wife (Mar. 10. 5-9), together with the expression of his own will, which certainly tolerates no ground

¹. Gittin, ix. 10. Modern Jewish authorities endeavor to do away the revolting character of this dictum, by saying, that burning food may be explained to mean, a woman having sacrificed her own reputation, or that of her family. (Vide Jost's History of Judaism and its Sects, 264.) But this view is contradicted by the words [Hebrew missing] "even if only," which indicate but a trifling fault.

of divorce excepting adultery: "But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced, committeth adultery." (Matt. 5. 32.) What sublime consciousness of equality with the Divine Majesty do the words, "But I say unto you" express! The code given on Sinai is to him merely a preparatory step in the revelation of the things of God. He knows himself to be the Mediator of that perfected and Divine Work. In the Sermon on the Mount, which even the most captious critics allow to be a true specimen of the teaching of Jesus, he recognizes on the one hand the divine character of the law, and of the Old Testament writings, when he says (Matt. 5. 17, i8), "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle, shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled;” ¹

¹ This expression is known to the Talmud, but through a translation which distorts its real meaning, b. Schabbath, 116 b, "I am not come to diminish aught from the law of Moses, but to add to the law of Moses [Hebrew missing], am I come."

whilst on the other side, he opposes the mere literal and external fulfillment of the law, and urges on his hearers, in a new and deeper sense, a free-hearted and willing obedience to its precepts; laying before them, at the same time, some examples of the true spirit in which they were conceived. That inward working which is shadowed forth in Deuteronomy, and continued by the prophets, is fully carried out by him, who declares himself the fulfiller of the law and the prophets. He, who according to Geiger, “never gave utterance to a single new idea,” breathes a new spirit into the law, and writes it on our hearts in a manner unheard of till his day; a manner which differs utterly from the school of Jewish-Alexandrian allegory, and with which the few scattered beams of light met with in the rabbinical writings, cannot for a moment be compared. Need one do more than read how, in Matt. 5. 33-37, he prohibits the desecration of the name of God, and strikes at the root of perjury? “Let our communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay;” as though he has said, Your simple Yea and Nay should be equal to a solemn oath, for he who is truly pious stands ever in the presence of God. Thus too with the command, Thou shalt not kill; whilst the preparatory dispensation of the Old Testament forbids murder, He, the lawgiver of the kingdom of Heaven established amongst men, declares that the guilt of one who is angry with his brother without a cause, who insults or despises him, is equal to his who is guilty of murder. (Matt. 5. 21-24.) And how ineffably does he transfigure the stern law of retaliation by the spirit of Divine love! (Matt. 5. 38-48.) Retaliation may be practiced, not indeed rendering evil for evil, but recompensing evil with good. The law says indeed, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself (Lev. ig. 18); but by this term "neighbor" a fellow-countryman was understood, and a line of conduct was permitted in dealing with Gentiles, which would have been unlawful if pursued towards an Israelite. It ordains the utter destruction of the Canaanites and hallows the inexorable warfare, which was to be maintained against them with the devouring sword. The command to love one's neighbor appears here as narrow-hearted, as we might expect to find a precept intended for a single race, and not for all mankind. Jesus, however, breaks down this barrier of partition and inculcates an universal philanthropy, which should subsist regardless of nationality, rank, merit, or sympathy. My neighbor is henceforth every one who needs my help or whose help I need; even my enemy. All men are to acknowledge one another as brethren, for all have one Great Father in Heaven, whom he, Jesus, has revealed and brought near to them. This universal love is nowhere enjoined in the Old Testament Scriptures, and although here and there generosity towards an enemy may be inculcated, Jesus is the first and only one, who ever elevated to the rank of a moral principle this love, which should embrace even those that hate us. How deeply the whole world has been stirred by those words, "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you, that ye may be the children of your Father which is in Heaven:" all history shows. In these words the highest idea of morality is held up for our imitation, and ever since they were uttered, all true progress in the history of mankind has consisted in the triumph of the love they teach. For whatever Judaism may know of this, it is indebted, not to Hillel, nor to any other of its ancient sages, but to this Jesus of Nazareth, “who," says Geiger, “never gave utterance to a single new idea;" but who in fact ushered in a new epoch with this principle of all-embracing charity, a principle from whose light not even Judaism could hide itself, however little it may know of him, of whose glory this light is but an emanation.

Face to face with the ideal morality of the Sermon on the Mount, we cannot forbear to recognize in Jesus the truly great man, who understood the essence of morality to its very foundations; yet must we allow him to be more than this: a prophet who opposed the hypocritical, heartless righteousness of works in fashion in his day, by manifesting the spirit of the law through its letter; nor only so, but even that Prophet like unto Moses do we see him to be, whose coming is foretold in Deut. 18. 15, and who was to be the Mediator of the final revelation of God, even as Moses was the Mediator of the preparatory. But, according to his own testimony, he is One greater than these. As the liberator of religion from the swaddling bands and leading strings by which she had been fettered hitherto, he towers immeasurably above not only Hillel, but all other sages, yea, all other prophets of Israel. At the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount, which modern criticism allows to be "the Truest of the True," he speaks of himself as the future judge of all men, who will hold them responsible for the hearing and doing of the Word proclaimed by his mouth; and who would unmask all those hypocrites who would seek to justify themselves before him, with the judicial sentence: " I never knew you, depart from me ye that work iniquity." (Matt. 7. 23.) And when asked by the High Priest, "Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?" (Mar. 14. 62) he replied, "I am: and ye shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of Heaven." (Mar. 14. 62.) In this witness to himself he exalts himself far above mankind, and into the closest union with God. By him the destiny of all men is to be decided, and through him God's sovereignty over the human race is to be proved. What lofty self-consciousness is expressed in those self-chosen names, Son of God, and Son of Man! We will not here seek to explain these names, but this at least they teach us, that in him met the movement of mankind towards God, and the movement of God towards mankind, even as two lines converge to a common centre, and in him heaven and earth join hands in reconciliation. What shall we say then to this declaration, by which on the one side he represents himself as the Head of the human race, and on the other as essentially united to God? If we renounce both the arbitrary caprice of a Colani, the shears of whose criticism would pare away everything "exaggerated" from the testimony of Jesus to himself; and the half-heartedness of a Schenkel, who by false explanations would seek to reduce it to the level of our comprehension, there remains nothing for us but the choice, either with Strauss and Renan, to consider this Galilean, notwithstanding his incontestable greatness, only from the pathological point of view of a great intellect, strained almost to insanity, or with Paul and all the Apostles to bow in faith and adoration before the God-Man, the Savior, who, when the misery of mankind had reached its highest point, came forward self-devoted to stem the torrent; not as a Deus ex machina, but as one whose way had been prepared step by step in the expectation and history of Israel, even to that last prophetic voice, which foretells at once the advent both of the Mediator, the God-Man, and also of his forerunner in the spirit and power of Elias, John the Baptist. "Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the Angel¹ of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts." (Mal. 3. 1.) The messenger is Elias, the Lord who is coming, sent by the Lord of Sabbath, is very God of very God, because in him was completed that chain of supernatural appearances of the Angel of Jehovah, which from patriarchal times had been vouchsafed in connection with the covenant of Israel. The Lord and the Angel of the covenant are one and the same, for the Angel of Jehovah is Jehovah himself, is his Presence, in whom he manifests himself. (See Ex. 33. 14; Deut. 4.37; Isa. 63. 9, [Hebrew missing]). O Israel, people of the covenant, lay this to heart; if Jesus be not this Lord and Angel of the covenant, must ye not still await his coming? But God and Man in one Person must your Messiah, your Savior be, if your prophets, even unto this Malachi, have spoken truth.

¹ It is thus that the word [Hebrew missing] is translated in the German Version. Translator.

But it is time that we unroll our third picture, in order to measure Jesus and that Hillel, whom Renan dares to represent as his true teacher, side by side. This third picture will show us clearly how the life of each differed from the other in suffering, and how far Gratz is right, when he says, in his History of the Jews (Vol. III., 1863), "The gentleness and humility of Jesus remind us of Hillel, whom indeed he appears to have taken as his model."

III

It is related in the Talmud, that on a certain occasion, two men came to high words in Jerusalem, on the following subject: "Talk not to me!" exclaimed one, "I will give 400 sus" (the name of a coin stamped with the image of Zeus, and equal in value to the Roman denarius)" to whoever shall succeed in really putting Hillel into a passion." "Done," cried the other, and proceeded to carry out his wager. It was a Friday afternoon, and Hillel was busy washing and combing in preparation for the following day, when at this most inconvenient hour, and without addressing him by his proper title, a voice shouted before his door, "Is Hillel there?" The Rabbi quickly threw on his cloak, hurried out, and enquired, "What is your will, my son?" "I would ask thee somewhat," replied his under-bred visitor. To whom Hillel: "Say on, my son." "How is it that the Babylonians have such nasty round heads?" enquired the fellow. Hillel: My son, thine is a weighty question. It is because they lack skilful midwives." The enquirer turned his back on him and walked off. After the lapse of an hour he returned and cried as before: "Is Hillel there? Is Hillel there?" The latter, wrapped in his mantle, again came forth and asked, "What wouldest thou, my son ?" "I have a question to put to thee!" "Ask it, my son!" "Why have the Tartars such little slits of eyes?" Hillel: "My son, thou hast asked a weighty question. It is because they inhabit great sandy steppes." The enquirer retired, and after another hour, raised the same uproar as on the former occasions in front of Hillel's house: "Is Hillel within? Is Hillel within?" For the third time the Rabbi, wrapping his mantle about him, came out with the words, "My son, what is your will?" "I have something to ask thee." Hillel: "Speak then, my son!" "Why," demanded his persecutor, "have the Africans such broad flat feet?" Hillel: "Because, my son, they dwell in marshy districts." The enquirer proceeded, "I would fain ask thee many other questions, but fear thou mightest be wroth." Hillel, however, drew his cloak closer around him, seated himself beside his visitor, and replied, "Say on, my son, ask whatsoever thou desirest to know." This disarmed his companion, who cried: "Thou then art Hillel, whom men call the Prince of Israel." "Yes," replied the Rabbi. "If it be so, I hope there are but few like thee in Israel." “Why so, my son?" asked Hillel. "Because on thine account I have lost four hundred denare." "Be not so hasty, my son," replied Hillel: " better is it that thou shouldest lose four hundred, and yet again four hundred denare on Hillel's account, than that Hillel should lose patience." Hillel's good nature was indeed so great, that it was almost boundless. He is said to have hired a riding-horse and running footman for an impoverished noble, and once, when such an attendant could not be procured, it is related that he himself ran three miles in this capacity.¹

¹ b. Kethuboth, 67 b, and in other places.

Hillel's complaisance indeed led him at times to transgress the bounds of truth. Shammai, for instance, insisted that in nuptial songs, nothing but truth should be spoken of the bride; whilst Hillel taught, that on these occasions, one should try and look on her with the bridegroom's eyes, and, therefore, however unattractive she might be, should praise her beauty and grace.¹ This same good nature even led him for the sake of peace to tell a lie, when once he artfully represented as a cow, an ox which he desired to have slaughtered for sacrifice in the outer-court of the Temple, in order to avoid a quarrel with the disciples of Shammai, over a point of law.² Only by the fact that his far-famed gentleness had its shady as well as its sunny side, can we understand how Hillel could have lived honored and favored under the arbitrary rule of Herod the Great, whose government was as cruel towards his own subjects, as it was cowardly towards Rome; yet, under this prince, Hillel held the highest national post of honour in Jerusalem, and attained, like Moses, as tradition informs us, the great age of 120 years.³

¹ b. Kethuboth, 16 b, 17 a.

² He waved the animal's tail about in order to conceal its sex. The story is to be met with b. Beza, 20 a, and in other places. Comp. Jost's History of Judaism and its Sects, I., 267: "Hillel not only allowed himself to be intimidated by Shammai, but also in the outer court of the temple yielded so completely to his insolent disciples, that to avoid a quarrel he was guilty of an untruth, which the Rabbins consider as a highly meritorious action on his part.

³ Bereschith Rabba, § 100.

Gentleness and its kindred virtues of humility and patience, formed a leading feature in the character of Jesus; and for this very reason he is spoken of as the Lamb. (Jno. 1.29; comp. Isa. 53. 7.). Ceaselessly wandering, and denying himself every enjoyment that did not directly tend to the furtherance of his Work, Jesus unweariedly held his ground before the multitudes who thronged around him, seeking healing or instruction; and whenever he did withdraw himself from them, it was always either to escape from a spurious enthusiasm, by which he was deeply pained, or in solitary prayer, to strengthen himself anew for his ministry of love. "The Son of Man," says he, "came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many." (Mar. 10. 45.) These words enunciate that idea of atonement, which, though calculating reason may deem it absurd, is yet (and this we dare aver without the slightest exaggeration), deep graven on the hearts of all men, of whatever race they may be, or to whatever degree of culture they may have attained. When the Roman Curtius leaps from the rock to save his nation, or when, ere the Greeks set sail for Troy, Iphigenia is offered as a sacrifice; or again, when in China the brother of the Emperor Wu-Wang devotes himself to death, in the hope of thereby restoring his sovereign to health and life, all this proceeds from the impulse of an idea common to all mankind. There is, however, no people on the earth, amongst whom this idea is stronger or more deeply-rooted than amongst the Jews. To them the voices of six thousand years cry aloud, that sin demands expiation; be it by the punishment of the sinner, by which justice is satisfied, or be it by the self-substitution of an innocent person, of which mercy allows the sinner to have the benefit. In the first case, the suffering expiates as such; in the second, the atonement is effected by the voluntary suffering of the substitute, its merit and prevailing strength being poured forth on him whom it seeks to ransom.

The whole sacrificial system of the Old Testament was a foreshadowing of this idea. For the offering of the victim on the altar was in every case preceded by the presentation of the blood before the altar. The gift was first made acceptable by the atonement, and the means of atonement is the blood. Of which God the Law-giver says (Lev. 17. 11), “The life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it you to make an atonement for your souls upon the altar, [Hebrew missing] for the blood maketh atonement through the soul” ¹ (the soul, that is, which it contains, which thus takes the place of the sinner). But in the case of animal sacrifices, the substitution was symbolical, not actual, as is intimated in the words, “I have given it.” The guilt of a sinner can only be really expiated by a self-devoted and innocent victim of his own race. [Hebrew missing]. In harmony with this idea there runs a Jewish saying, in reference to the ordinance, that, on the Day of Atonement, the High Priest had first to make atonement for himself, before proceeding to do so for the priesthood and the whole congregation. [Hebrew missing], " i.e., the guilty cannot make atonement for the innocent, but only the innocent for the guilty." Another proverb says [Hebrew missing], or, "the death of the righteous maketh expiation;" and to this day, a pious son, when thinking of his father, will say: "May I be the atonement of his death-bed;”² whilst the tender-hearted will pray for his enemy: "If he be in the wrong, set to his account any greater uprightness that I may possess;" and if the wicked son of a pious mother should after all be converted from his evil ways, the popular judgment finds expression in the words: "His mother's ' sechus ' [Hebrew missing], i.e., merit has helped him." ³

¹ In this quotation the translator has rendered the German translation of the sacred text into English, and simply not copied the passage from our Authorized Version. It will be seen that the word through alters the meaning of the text considerably.

² See Zunz on History and Literature, p. 332

³ See Kompert, History of an Alley, 1865, Vol. I., 131; II., 180

Following out this idea of mysterious, but not on that account less real, interchange of moral guilt and merit, Jesus took the determination to offer himself as an atonement for his own nation, and for all mankind. He knew that no evil exists greater than sin, which is the root of all evil; and this sin of all flesh he bore as his own, upon his heart and conscience, that he, through his holy life and innocent death, might do away this mass of iniquity from before the face of God the Just and Merciful; and might, in his own person, prove a new and vitalizing starting point in the history of the human race. But common as was this idea of atonement to all mankind, and especially to his own people, what was it that justified him in devoting to it his whole being, in making it in fact the one deed of his life? Our answer is, that he with Divine certainty knew himself to be the King-Messiah; not such a Messiah as was then hoped for, robed in transitory and worldly greatness, but such as he is depicted in the types and prophecies of the Old Testament, which ever foreshadow his universal dominion, on the dark background of a mortal agony, which should issue in the happiness, both of himself and all mankind. When, in the book of Isaiah (53. 4, 5), Jesus read the repentant lamentation of his people: "Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed." Then, responsive to the Word of God in this Scripture, the Word of God in the depths of his being answered, saying, "Thou art he," and this outward and inward Word of God, perfected by the utterance of his divinely-human self-consciousness in the words, "I am he," formed one harmonious, three-fold chord, before which, now in over-powering joy, and now in overpowering sadness, every faculty and fiber of his being vibrated.

From the day of his baptism in Jordan, he held himself in readiness to undergo his baptism in blood. He knew who should be his murderers, namely those Pharisees, who set the minute observance of the law, above that fulfillment of prophecy, which a new epoch was ushering in. He knew also the place of his murder, even that Jerusalem, where Simon, the son of Hillel, though president of the Sanhedrin, was completely cast into the shade by Caiaphas the High Priest, a proud and blood-thirsty Pharisee. Already during his three years' ministry had death threatened him in many shapes, though he had hitherto avoided it, in order by his preparatory labors, to secure the due comprehension and fruits of his self-devotion. But every step of his restless, wandering life, brought him nearer to that Jerusalem, of which he says, It cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem." (Lu. 18. 31-33.) Of his own free will he goes up to the city, like a lamb to the slaughter.

Since he feared not death he feared not man; and since he met death to abolish the penalty of sin, and trample its power in the dust, we ever find his gentleness united to a lofty and courageous truthfulness, which is wanting in the meekness of Hillel. He who could say, "Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy-laden" (Matt. 11. 28), was the same who brandished the scourge over the desecrators of the Temple, and treated with contempt the warning of Herod Antipas, who took him for the avenging spirit of John the

Baptist; the same who rolled the thunder of his denunciations over the Pharisees, and never kept back the truth, whatever exasperation it might arouse. For, whilst the prophets of the Old Testament all knew themselves to be subject to the law, Jesus places himself above it, as Fulfiller and Expositor of the true Will of God, and as being himself the personal goal and tangible limit of the revealed Testimony. Nay, even when a prisoner before Pilate and the Sanhedrin, he never, notwith-standing all the appearances against him, desisted from the assertion of his Divine and Kingly Majesty.

Here again we are confronted with our former dilemma. Either this witness of Jesus to himself is self-deception, and Judaism is right in shutting itself off from Christianity as from a back-sliding daughter, behind that barrier of the law, which Hillel took such pains to strengthen; or this was really he, to whom the whole choir of the Apostles, as well as the gospel of St. Mark, bears witness, when it opens with the words, "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God; as it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight."

Either this was a man who overrated himself, and, who, notwithstanding the truths contained in his teaching, did far more to falsify than to illustrate the idea of God, when claiming to be the Son of God, he made himself equal with God, as touching his nature, and by his claim to be Redeemer and judge of the world, placed himself on an equality with the Almighty as touching his office; or, here was indeed the Christ proclaimed by Old Testament prophecy as [Hebrew missing], the judge of the world, who should come to his Temple.¹ We must either share the horror of the Jewish High Priest, who on asking the question, "Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed," and being answered, "I am," rent his clothes, exclaiming, “Ye have heard the blasphemy!" or we must side with the centurion, who, witnessing the death of Jesus on the cross, cried, as he drew his last breath, "Truly this was the Son of God!" (Matt. 27. 54.) Yes, this was the Son of God, he is so still, he who was dead, and, behold, he is alive again for evermore. This was the antitype of Isaac, that promised seed of Abraham, whom he offered on Mount Moriah; the antitype of David, who says (Ps. 16. 10), "Thou wilt not suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.” This is the Messiah of God, who since he is God as well as man, is called by the prophets, "The Mighty God" (Isa. 9. 6), and "Jehovah our Righteousness" (Jer. 23. 6). This was the Fulfiller of the law and the prophecy, in whom all the types and predictions of the Old Covenant are Yea and Amen. This was the Mediator of the New Covenant, which proceeding forth from Israel should embrace all mankind, and make all men heirs together of its great salvation. Here of a truth was One greater than Hillel, before whom Hillel's knowledge of the law, yea even the law itself, must pale, as would the light of a taper, or the rays of the moon, before the splendor of the rising sun.

¹ Both Christian and Jewish readers may weigh with advantage the meaning of the following texts: Isa. vii. 14, comp. with Isa. viii. 8; Isa. ix. 6 (5), comp. with x. 21; Zec. vi. is, r3, compare Psa. cx. and Jer. xxiii. 5, 6; Mal. iii. r, comp. with Hag. ii. 6-9.

To Hillel's countrymen leave we then the task of wailing at his grave. “Alas for the gentle one and pious, the disciple of Ezra." ¹

¹ [Hebrew missing] thus according to both Talmuds ran the dirge over Hillel the elder. See j. Sota, 9, 6; b. Sanhedrin, 2 n.

Let us rather remember and adore the patient spotless, slaughtered Lamb of God, making our own that confession, which Isaiah, in the fifty-third chapter of his prophecy, tells us that Israel shall in the last days pour forth, in bitter repentance for past unbelief. “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted; yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand." Hillel is dead, and belongs to the past, as the representative of a system of worn-out maxims; but Jesus lives, and every onward step in the progress of the human race results from the progressive victory of the light which radiates from him. For, though a Geiger may say, "He never gave utterance to a single new idea," it is, and must ever remain a fact deeply engraved on the history of the world, that in this Jesus of Nazareth, there was given to mankind a new light in the knowledge of

God, and of the life which proceedeth forth from him. And if the writings of the prophets speak truth, there will yet come a day when Joseph will make himself known unto the brethren who betrayed him; and when the twelve stars of Israel shall do him homage, to whom Jehovah, speaking by the mouth of Isaiah the prophet, says (49. 6), " It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved of Israel; I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth.