Page:Jewish Encyclopedia Volume 2.pdf/290

252 THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

Astruo, Elie-Aristide

authorized by a special decree of the emperor to accept the office though remaining a French citizen. While holding this position, he took part in the synod of Leipsic (June 29— July 4, 1869). During the Franco-Prussian war (1870-71), Astrue distinguished himself both as a French patriot and as a Jewish minister. He was a member of the comite du pain, whose chairman, the Comte de Merode, leader of the Belgian Catholic party, cared for the wounded. In his capacity of secretary to the "Belgian

committee for the

lib-

eration of the territory

(Alsace and Lorraine),

Astrue revisited Metz an absence of

after

twenty years. In 1879 Astrue signed the chief

re-

rab-

binate of Belgium to return to his native country. Before his departure the King of the Belgians created him a knight of the Order of Leopold. After officiating as chief rabbi of Bayonnefrom 1887 to 1891, he retired to private life. Astrue is a successful writer. The first of his works was a French metrical translation of the principal liturgical poems of the Sephardic ritual, entitled " 'Olelot Eliahu " (Elia's Gleanings), published in I860. In 1869 he published " Histoire Abregee des Juifs et de Leurs Croyances, " a small book which caused a sensation at the time, on account of the author's boldness. As Astrue said, he wished " to separate the kernel from its shell " that is, to disengage the great ideas of Judaism from venerable but partially legendary traditions. A second edition of the work was issued in 1880. In the pulpit Astrue displayed the same independent yet moderate views, and always boldly proclaimed his moral convictions and his attachment to the Jewish faith. His more important sermons were collected and published under the title "Entretiens sur le Judaisme," 1879. In 1884 he wrote " Origines et Causes Historiques de l'Anti-Semitisme," which was translated into German and Hungarian. He contributed to various reviews among others, the "Revue de Belgique," "Revue de Pedagogie," and the "Nouvelle Revue" a number of articles in which he endeavored to impress non- Jews with correct views of the history and doctrines of Israel; also essays on the political societies of Belgium, on Pope Leo XIII. etc. Elie-Aristide Astrue.



—

—

,

J.

s.

W.

252

the occasion of the death of Don Bonafos Roguet bewails also Astrue des Gabbai, who died several years before. Bibliography: Renan-Neubauer, Les Rabbins Franqais, 713

p.



Gross, Gallia Judaica, p. 103.

g.

I.

Br.

ASTRUC, JEAN:

Physician and founder of modern Pentateuch criticism; born at Sauve, France, March 19, 1684 died in Paris May 5, 1766. His father was a Huguenot, but became a Catholic. He studied medicine and became professor of anatomy in Toulouse, in Montpellier, and finally in Paris. Astrue owes his prominent place in Biblical literature to his work entitled "Conjectures sur les Memoires Originaux clont II Paroit que Moyse s'est Servi pour Composer le Livre de la Genese," pub;

lished anonymously at Brussels in 1753, which furnished the starting-point for the modern criticism of the Pentateuch. Long before Astrue, certain Jewish scholars among them Ibn Ezra and Baruch Spinoza not being satisfied with the summary reply of the rabbinical commentators, " The Torah does not arrange its facts chronologically " (mim "irttKDI DlpiO px, Yer. Sotah viii. 22(Z), had dealt more or less critically with the anachronisms and chronological incongruities of the Pentateuch. Astruc's immediate predecessors were Le Clerc (Clericus), Richard Simon, Fleury, and Francois; but none of these went beyond the generalization that the Pentateuch was composed of different documents. Astrue was the first to offer an explanation of the character and mutual rela-

—

tions of these documents.

Struck by the fact that in some portions of Genethe divine name " Elohim" (Engl, version, " God ") " used, and in others the divine name " (Engl, version, " the Lord "), he advanced the hypothesis that there had originally existed a number of isolated documents, the materials of which Moses separated and then rearranged, and into sis

Yhwh

was

which confusion was subsequently intro-

by Thus (from duced

copyists.

the meth-

od of Moses and

tlie

work of

the copyists) he accounted for the two lines of narrative (Elohistic and Jahvistic) and for the repetitions and antichronisms. Astrue

assumed two principal documents the Elohim narrative, A



ASTRUC DES GABBAI,

BEN ABRAHAM

or

ABBA MABI

Provencal scholar lived at Beziers toward the end of the thirteenth century and Nothing is known the beginning of the fourteenth. His name was of his life and his scientific activity. transmitted by his relative, or perhaps by his grandson, Abraham Bedersi, who in an elegy composed on



the

Yhwh

story, B,

Jean Astrue.

and some ten fragmentary ones. On

1

drawing by Vig^e

fn

" Biographie

Universelle.")

the basis of this conjecture he rearranged (in two columns, and B) Genesis and the first two chapters of Exodus. To the Elohim narrative he assigned Gen. i.-ii. 3; v. vi. 9-22; vii 6-10, 19, 22, 24; viii. 1-19; ix. 1-10, 12, 16, 17, 28, 29; xi. 10-26;

A