Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 21.djvu/218

208 cultus of the one purely spiritual God, who was represented by no image, a powerful attraction for the minds of pagans, who were surfeited with the numberless divinities of their religion. "Enemies are they of the gods as well as men"—such was the frequently pronounced judgment of the pagan populace on this nation, whose character was so mysterious to them. About the time of the Roman war in Judea, they fell, not seldom by thousands, as a prey to the fury of the heathen populace.

They won again, however, a center of religious life and a head: in the little town of Jamnia, in Palestine, the sanhedrim [sic] formed itself, whose presiding officer was honored and recognized as the patriarch of the whole nation; so there was at once a supreme authority and an academy.

But just at this time, and in consequence of the powerful influence of the zealots, which had been enormously increased during the late wars, Judaism withdrew convulsively within itself, the Pharisaic way of thinking became exclusively predominant, and cast out every foreign element, such as Hellenism and Essenism; while the Talmud, which held all the members of the Jewish body together and lay like an iron band about the nation, completed the separation, and all the more surely since the Roman laws forbade any to be circumcised who were not of Jewish birth.

However, the question of vital moment was, what attitude those who carried the future in their bosom—viz., the Christians—would assume toward the Jews. The earliest Church remained true in this respect to the example and word of its Master and the teaching of the apostles. It believed and taught: 1. That the death of Christ, for which the leaders of the Jews and a part of the people at Jerusalem were responsible, involves in no way the continuous guilt of the whole nation. On the contrary, Christ himself asked for the forgiveness of his crucifiers, and his prayer was heard. Peter, too, like his Master, excused their transgression on the ground of their ignorance. 2. The people is by no means outcast from God, even if their dispersion, the downfall of their state, and the destruction of their temple and capital, may be regarded as a divine punishment. Israel remains the chosen people of God, since God can not retract his choice and promise. At some future day, when the "fullness of the Gentiles" shall have come, the fullness of Israel will also believe, and make an harmonious fellowship along with Gentile believers.

Starting from this view drawn from the New Testament, the wisest and most eminent teachers of the Church exhorted that the Jewish people must be regarded as a brother who has for the time gone astray, but will sooner or later return to the Father's house, and in the mean time is always and will remain the bearer of irrevocable promises. Hence, they marked out the duty for Christians of indulgent and patiently enduring love toward the race, of which both Christ and the