Page:You Gentiles (1924) by Maurice Samuel 1895-1972.djvu/34

You Gentiles And certainly between the dogmas of your religions and ours there is little difference—for we gave you the dogmas. It is absurd to assert that the sole difference between you and us is that you believe the Messiah has already come while we believe that he is yet to come; or that you believe (even in theory) in the doctrine of forgiveness while we believe in the doctrine of retaliation Even in theory this difference is trifling in the face of the overwhelming bulk of common inspiration. The difference between us is abysmal: it is not a disagreement about a historic fact or about a commandment which neither of us observes. In some of these dogmatic disagreements we may find the key to our differences: they do not constitute the difference. A few of them (those which have not been stretched to accommodate your instincts but express them readily) were caused by the difference between us. They did not cause it.

That primal difference, which I have sensed more and more keenly as I have tasted more and more of life, your life and our life, 30